Wednesday 2 October 2013

Flight

At the 85th Academy Awards at the start of the year, Flight was nominated for a couple of awards namely Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay. I hadn’t heard too much about it except for an appearance by Denzel Washington on The Graham Norton Show but I thought the trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlFMZ5D8FNc) looked quite good so I gave it a watch. Directed by Robert Zemeckis (who also directed Back to the Future, Cast Away, Forrest Gump and Who Framed Roger Rabbit), it definitely promised a lot.

The film is about Captain William ‘Whip’ Whitaker (Denzel Washington) who is a pilot and on one flight the plane becomes a critical danger and starts to crash. Whitaker successfully crash lands the plane, minimising the casualties. He is lauded as a hero, but the problem is that he is an alcoholic. He is in denial about this for the majority of the film and is brought before a hearing that might result in a prison sentence if he is found to be guilty.

Denzel Washington is absolutely stunning in this as Captain Whitaker and was nominated for the Best Actor award, losing out to Daniel Day-Lewis. Washington’s portrayal of alcoholism is sensational and, although I don’t have any experience of it, I thought he was pretty spot on with some of the mannerisms he showed. Washington makes his character spectacularly engaging to the point that the audience is concerned about him. Towards the end of the film, with his hearing approaching, Whitaker is put in a hotel room and not allowed any alcohol. However he inadvertently finds the minibar in the unlocked room next door. He finds some alcohol and then appears to leave it alone, before taking and drinking it. I felt such a sinking feeling when he did this, and found myself to be far more responsive to his actions than I thought I would be. For Washington to create a character this engaging is to his credit and he definitely deserves the Best Actor nomination.

The rest of the cast is fairly impressive too, but are completely outshone by Washington. I particularly liked Don Cheadle as Hugh Lang, Whitaker’s attorney who seems to start as a dislikable character but turns out to be a guy who only has his client’s best interests at heart. Harling Mays was a character of nearly endless amusement for me, and I particularly liked how he seemed to balance out the seriousness of the film. However it was the character of Nicole (Kelly Reilly) who I found to be most entertaining from the rest of the cast. Her character also struggles with addiction, and finds it to be particularly damaging. She takes solace and seeks the company of Whitaker but soon realises that his addiction problem is far worse and is slowly destroying the both of them. She too is a character to engage with, and that’s one of the best things about this film.

However I think Flight is perhaps missing an emotional level that would take it from being a nominee for Best Original Screenplay to a contender for Best Picture. As it is, it is a good film that you can get into quite easily, but there’s nothing to hold your attention. I watched it with my family, and by about halfway through my Dad and brother had both got bored and left. I feel that if there was more emotional attachment to Whitaker then the audience might leave the film more affected by the outcome. It wasn’t that I wasn’t connected to the character, but I just didn’t feel the film left any particular impact on me after I had finished it. The best films are the ones that you remember for long after you’ve watched them, and the ones that you continue to enjoy again and again. I don’t think I’d watch Flight again to be honest.


It’s not that I didn’t enjoy it, but I thought it was probably the sort of film that some would enjoy and some would find boring (as evidenced perfectly by my family). Denzel Washington is very good and manages to captivate you with his character. However despite the alcoholism and destructive effect of addictions displayed here it is missing something that would make it incredible.