Friday 8 March 2013

Flaght

If you've seen the trailer, then you've seen the moment most people will watch this movie for. Which happens at like 20 minutes into it. Then it sloooooows for the next two hours.

Denzel Washington is Forrest Whitaker... I mean Whip Whitaker, pilot with a few drinking problems... and drug problems. But totally able to fly a plane, even spin it upside down, and make a landing no other pilot can. But when the NTSB start looking to play the blame game, Whip is square in the 'fucked up pilot' category of error, when the real error is the plane is broke-ass old. And so the tense court action never happens, and instead we have Whip break down as a human being and be nasty to the nice drug addict with a heart of gold. But it all boils down to is he willing to lie about one question?

Frankly that one question was the only interesting part of the whole movie, bringing the character into actual focus (outside of the big plane sequence, which most people saw in the trailer, but that's just a big effects sequence, not a character piece). I was willing to forgive the movie almost anything at that moment... but it's still over two hours long with nothing happening other than watching one person sitting and drinking. Exciting drama that is not. Denzel is a great actor, but that was not a great role.

Trimmed down, this would be a shorter talky piece that at least... was shorter.

[END]

1 comment:

Meromo said...

I hoped that the movie was going to avoid the American moral trope where everyone who is shown having a fun drinking time *has* to be an alcoholic.
But...I hoped in vain.