Flight: New York Film Festival Review

Rating: 7/10 (17 October 2012)

"Flight" closed the 50th annual New York Film Festival on Sunday, October 14th, 2012. I was lucky enough to be at that premiere.
While this film is being marketed as a big action film, at heart, it is a deep character study that showcases Denzel Washington's best performance in years.
Washington stars as Whip Whitaker, a seasoned airline pilot.
On the morning of October 14th, 2011, Whip wakes up after a booze and sex infused night. In order to make his flight at 9am, he shoots a line of coke to get him in line. What follows is 20 minutes of pure filmmaking genius, which shows Whitakar making his way to the airport to prepare for his flight. Despite being drunk and high, Whip manages to pilot the plane through some bad weather. After falling asleep and letting his copilot (Brian Geraghty) take control, Whip wakes up just as the plane begins to go into a dive. After throughly freaking out the entire plane, Whip miraculously inverts the plane and lands it safely, saving most of the people on board.
The plane crash scene is done with scary accuracy, and you can't tell that special effects were employed. After the amazing first 45 minutes, a character drama develops that lasts the rest of the film.
Denzel- simply amazing, grounds his character and really makes you believe you are watching an alcoholic. He will most certainly be nominated for an Oscar. Other characters that shined were John Goodman as Harling Mays, Whitaker's Big Lebowski-esque drug dealer, and Brian Geraghty as the G-d loving co-pilot.
Onto direction, Zemeckis has not lost a step after his 12 years away from live-action filmmaking, the script is very solid, and the film is beautifully shot. On the downside, I thought the film could have been a bit shorter, while still getting across the same message.
Overall- 7/10
P.S. I attended the New York Film Festival as a reporter, and you can see some of the reports I put together from the red carpet here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dk-aUeF9DeE and here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmUNOe7ZAsU