Flight Risk
review by Bobby Blakey
Love him or hate him, there is no denying that Mel Gibson has had an outstanding career and established himself as not only a great actor, but even better director. His latest film Flight Risk reteams him with Mark Wahlberg along with Michelle Dockery and Topher Grace. Could his latest film bring action and tension it promises, or will it not be a risk worth flying with?
Flight Risk follows a pilot transporting an Air Marshal accompanying a fugitive to trial. As they cross the Alaskan wilderness, tensions soar and trust is tested, as not everyone on board is who they seem.
Gibson is known for his usual directorial efforts to be huge historical efforts with long run times and although typically fantastic was a nice change of pace with something different. This film offers up a tight hour and a half run time and keeps the action pretty much to inside the plane throughout giving it the chance to be some great tension and action, but sadly falls short of much of anything outside of a few shining moments.
The film keeps things streamlined with just enough at the beginning and the end to cap the story and allow us to just enjoy the chaos in the skies, but sadly a lot of it falls flat and silly. The idea works and Wahlberg is a blast to watch taking on a villain role. He is chewing up the scenery fully going all in as a horrible character complete with the best hair style or lack there of yet. He is the saving grace to the film with every moment worth checking out but sadly wrapped around a film that fails more often than not outside of him.
The rest of the trio in Grace and Dockery are fine but saddled with silly dialogue and so many decisions it becomes laughable made all the worse with the varying
phone conversations. I assume there was an idea to use the various people that she is having to converse with as a way to bring some lighthearted banter to the otherwise serious subject, but it just makes no sense. From a mayday call assuming it was a joke to an ongoing banter with the voice trying to help her fly and/land the plane constantly making jokes and hitting on her. These people are literally fighting for their lives in the plane and trying to land it and yet let’s bring some laughs. It took all the tension out of the seriousness of what is supposed to be going on and just a strange choice.
The use of the plane as the setting obviously means there is plenty of in-flight action, but the overused CGI here doesn’t always work. Some of it just looks bad and makes it less believable. Believe it or not, the movie is not horrible and when it works is enjoyable. This didn’t feel like something Gibson usually directs and leads me to believe it was more work for hire situation as opposed to his usual passion projects.
Decide for yourself and check out Flight Risk in theaters now from Lionsgate.