Whip Living A Lie Despite His Heroic Status!

Rating: 8/10 (4 November 2012)

Really love Denzel Washington in everything he is in. As still this movie, despite the character being a drunk and a cheat, proves that Denzel can do everything and anything.
He plays a pilot named Whip Whitaker who lands a plane after nearly crashing due to his alcohol and drug abuse. As he is divorced from his wife and estranged from his teenage son.
As he becomes a hero after 96 of the 102 people on board were saved. But then a NTSB National Transportation Safety Board found out there was alcohol in some of his staff's system. As that would mean a prison term.
Whip is forced to live a lie and lie in order to save himself from prison and to keep his job as a pilot. As his friend and lawyer respectfully, played great by character actors Bruce Greenwood as the friend, and the great Don Cheadle as a lawyer, that is where they come in hopes of saving his career and his freedom.
While the investigation is underway, Whip meets Kelly Reilly's character a heroin addict trying to go straight with her own issues. As that clashes with his own issues and troubles.
We see Whip being such a jerk but also how alcohol can ruin not just him as a person but, his relationship with his friends and family. With the upcoming NTSB hearing pending.
Will Whip lie more in order to save himself and his freedom, or will the truth come out before then? You have to see this movie to really know what a person with an alcohol and drug problem goes through and how it messes them up and how at times, they will lie to do anything and everything to save themselves like Whip.
Whip is his own antagonist, not just protagonist in this movie. John Goodman is funny and always scene stealing as the drug dealing friend of Whip's and Melissa Leo could have had a bigger role. But she is great nonetheless in what she is given as the tough, no-nonsense NTSB head investigator.
Movie will make you think of what alcohol and drugs does to people and to relationships. I have a family member that is an alcoholic even though he won't admit to it. Hope that he will see this movie as what he is doing to his family. It will make alcohol and drug addicts see the harm they are doing to themselves and to others around them!