Chickened out

Rating: Null/10 (12 April 2013)

This is a pretty good movie, with a fatal flaw. First I want to tell you what I liked about it, then I want to show you what I think was its fatal flaw.
First of all, I liked the characterization of an alcoholic. As a family physician and a suboxone prescriber, I have worked with a lot of drug addicts and alcoholics, and I found this movie to be one of the best portrayals of the struggles they face that I have seen. I liked the scene especially where he comes home and cleans out all the alcohol he has hidden; then, as soon as he is under more stress, he buys it all back. I like the way he got totally drunk the night before his big make or break hearing. That's what they do. (Even though it was a bit contrived; I have never seen anywhere near that amount of alcohol in a room fridge of a hotel; nor have I ever seen anyone leave a door open while closing the dead bolt; but whatever). Anyway, back to the praises, the writer here clearly knows his stuff and has been around drinkers; or maybe is one, I dunno.
It must be acknowledged that this is a great performance by Denzel Washington. I have never seen him act like this. I didn't know he was capable of it. He too must have been around drinkers, and knows their ways. The facial expressions, the lies, everything. He has it down, and is pretty much in character most of the time.
Now for what I think is the fatal flaw. OK, the thesis is that drinking and driving is bad, right, because it impairs our ability, and places ourselves and others at risk. This is accepted, and there is plenty of data to back this up. Motor vehicle fatalities are down as a result of stricter enforcement of DWI laws, etc. Except, drinkers know it ain't always so. In New York, for example, until very recently our limit was 0.12, and I many times drove over that. Today, if you are even at 0.09, you can become a felon. There is quite a difference in performance between someone who is used to drinking, and someone who is not. I have seen a man walking and conversing normally, who later had a 0.60 on a blood test! Kids have died from less than that.
The movie seems to be making a case for this unpopular viewpoint when it has Whip, sporting a 0.25, do a super human flight maneuver that 10 expert pilots tried later (on a flight simulator) to equal, and could not, and thereby save a 100 lives, more or less. At this point, the movie seems to be making a powerful argument FOR drunk driving, or at least, drunk piloting of passenger jets with disabled elevators.
Then the movie returns to its anti-alcoholism motif, as Whip slowly begins to fall apart, then in a heroic confession, owns up to it all and begins the painful process of taking responsibility and becoming rehabbed. This also didn't quite ring true; my alcoholics don't own up to anything unless they are absolutely forced, and he clearly still had an out here, and a rather easy one at that.
Well, which is it writers? Is alcohol really that bad, and if so, why did you have Whip save the day with this expert feat of flying. while drunk? (would that be FWI?)Why this uncertainty, writers, that results in such a confused message? I don't know. But my thought is that a more real life scenario, in which Whip crashes the plane, and the autopsy shows that he was drunk and died in disgrace, must have been unacceptable for some reason. Or, alternatively the co pilot takes control, saves the day, and again Whip is hauled off in tears into disgrace. That too, must have been deemed unacceptable for some reason.
I think that reason, for it having been written the way it was, is the phenomenon of THE STAR. Denzel Washington is a star, man, a celebrity, and a member of an historically denigrated minority. We can't have him playing a moral reprobate such as his character would have become, in either of the more realistic scenarios that I propose. Why, Hollywood could even have been accused of racism, having a drunken black pilot rescued by a sober white one, or killing all them white folks. An unacceptable bow to stereotypes! It couldn't be done.
So instead we come up with this far fetched and contradictory business of a drunken black pilot outperforming 10 expert (?white) ones, then heroically turning himself in, saying "Boys, even though I just showed that drunks CAN fly, I am not saying drunks SHOULD fly!", and going off nobly to prison, where he rehabilitates not only himself, but a bunch of others while he's there. And along the way, he also rescues a forlorn heroin addict that he happened to pick up looking for a little sex. The real villain of the plane crash? Those bad corporate guys, trying to make a little extra money by not doing the required maintenance. Oh, I should have guessed! Now that's a movie, and that's a star! Hollywood style. Don't make no sense, but it's good entertainment. And a great visual of a plane flying upside down.