Sterling Washington pilots a craftily made tale of moral turpitude.

Rating: 9/10 (4 November 2012)

FLIGHT (2012) ***1/2 Denzel Washington, Kelly Reilly, Bruce Greenwood, Don Cheadle, John Goodman, Melissa Leo, Tamara Tunie, Nadine Velasquez, Garcelle Beauvais, Justin Martin. Washington gives a superb performance as a barely-functioning alcoholic pilot whose heroic act of saving his airliner from a catastrophe leads to an criminal investigation and has him on a path of salvation or self-destruction. With the unlikely aid from recently sober heroin addict Reilly (sublimely perfect) a fellow traveler and questionably moral support from colleagues (Greenwood as an airline rep and Goodman as Dr. Feelgood enabler), Washington's troubled anti-hero has some stumbling blocks to overcome: namely himself. Craftily and cannily directed by Robert Zemeckis (welcome back from the dead zone of motion captured animated crap) and an unorthodox screenplay by John Gatins incorporates state-of-the-art CGI (one dilly of a plane crash-landing) and moral turpitude.