I'm not sure why I watched this entire movie, but did so I could write about it, I guess. In "Flight" (2012), Denzel Washington plays a rake of an airline pilot who has more vices than a plane full of people have virtues. Having seen the preview, I thought it would be interesting, especially in the wake of the real-life airline heroics by the fearless captain of a flight in real life by Chesley Burnett "Sully" Sullenberger, III.
Something you need to know: Denzel's character, and the entire movie have nothing in common with Captain Sully. That much is very, very clear. Oh, I wish it was...
Was there a purpose to this story? Possibly, but to get to final minutes where (spoiler alert) the main character finally stands for something besides his own selfish interests, you are dragged through enough painful and awkward moments of his waning life all rolled into one tragic, selfish, misguided alcoholic. He probably also contracted AIDS from the heroine-addicted girlfriend he met, but the writers probably just forgot to add that out of sheer clutter of the screenplay.
I can hear all the Hollywood writers sitting around the table, working on the redraft before the execs would approve production: "Let's make Denzel's character one unsaviory dude where nothing goes right for him -- American audiences want to see people worse off than them in these hard economic times."
Despite all his shortcomings, Denzel still manages to snort cocaine on screen while drunk and beseech his few friends with not-so-surprising self-destructive behavior. You hope more for the character, I felt sorry for him and have to admit that I felt sorry for Denzel even though he probably made millions acting out such a travesty of human indignity and debauchery. I added that last word "debauchery" just to round out my disdain of this movie and to hopefully impress upon the viewer that I'm so bored writing this review after being even more bored having watched this movie that I'm throwing out terms from another era that were once used to express my half-hearted outrage.
Don Cheadle, John Goodman, Bruce Greenwood all have one thing in common with Denzel Washington -- they all gave excellent character performances in an aimless movie so void of authenticity it's as if you are watching bad adult behavior before your eyes for the sake of pushing this meandering script to an "R" rating so it would simply have an excuse to have done poorly in the theaters. "Oh, if it was toned down to PG-13, it would have done better." This entire movie just seems to be written to reach the very same goal of Denzel's main character: No where
Are you rooting for vindication or hoping Denzel's main character learns his lesson? Perhaps, I was just rooting for the end credits to arrive as soon as possible -- like a flight that catches the right tailwind and you arrive 40 minutes earlier to your destination. Believe me, I was hoping for a tailwind. I'd suggest passing this up for Disney's "Frozen", even if you don't have kids.
It was long and fairly painful. I think the story could have been better serve than it was.
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