Flight is a "Flight of Fancy"

Rating: 4/10 (24 February 2013)

Not sure if a spoiler in here but out of an abundace of caution decided to add the warning. I very much disliked this film although Denzel Washington was very good in it. It is a cautionary tale, but it goes way over the top in terms of taking a real issue and turning it into a Flight of Fancy. Nothing in the film is real, everyone is a enabler, everyone things pilots are "special", which just isn't so, and drug abusers are nice and clean. The world of Flight is a journey to Oz where the brick road is paved with whiskey bottles and cocaine but the characters are flat. The real nastiness of alcoholism and drug addiction is ignored, the only beautiful women are those who abuse drugs and alcohol and alcohol only produces a hangover that can be cured by more abuse. Religion is recognized in this film but it hovers only in the background like a watchful but uninvolved presence, like the Fairy People of Oz who have no strength, no real character. The film itself has no courage, no heart,no intelligence, not even a Toto (unless you count John Goodman's character), as it stumbles along. It gives no revelation, it stands for nothing.