Entertainment |
I really wasn’t too hyped to see this. Nothing about any of the “Flight Risk” trailers particularly enticed me: Not its early 1990s action movie “Die Hard” but in an Alaskan propellor plane premise; not Mark Wahlberg, who hasn’t put out a worthwhile performance since “Pain & Gain” over 10 years ago; and certainly not having to sit through another ham-fisted Mel Gibson helmed flick.
Nothing else was on the marquee at my local theater, so normally in these situations, I would just take a drive somewhere to see something that actually gets my blood boiling; but I have a massive, massive crush on the ticket counter girl at that local theater, so I went to see her. AND SHE WASN’T EVEN THERE! So now, you and I are stuck with this bottle thriller.
In the opening scene, I thought I would have my bias confirmed when the audience is hit with a poorly done, green-screened middle-of-nowhere motel — and then a CGI moose, a minute after that. It made me feel so … sad. Not lockstep-with-the-art sad but sad in a “the state of movies” sort of way. It was such a half-effort, half-hearted bummer opener that I was now even more prepared to detest “Flight Risk.” I know I have an eye that’s trained for this thing, but I ask anybody to watch these examples, then look me in the eye and say that the film still feels authentic. It felt removed from human hands — that it would be the closest we’ve gotten so far to a movie made by AI.
But now, I must get the truth out there: The film has quality. Wahlberg turns in a really solid performance despite it being his first turn playing a villain. That’s not a patent Jack Simon exaggeration either; I checked his filmography. In his 78 credited roles, I could not find a single one where he played anything but the undisputed good guy. My mom was the first to point this out.
“It’s nice to see him play a new character” was her observation when we saw the preview a few weeks ago.
“You mean a bald one?” came my facetious retort.
“Yes. But also somebody who’s a little mean.”
She was right — as moms usually are. It was refreshing to see him play against type and lean into it. At times, his pilot/hitman character, Daryl, makes your skin crawl, as he slithers through his lines. Then he’ll bark out a random one-liner that makes you giggle despite yourself.
Wahlberg has always been able to be funny on command, which is way more difficult than people realize. This base he builds for his character is fantastic; it is both believable and organic, but the performance stops before extraordinary, as it never builds from that foundation. It was not as if there were no chances to do so; before he reveals his true identity, he could have done a cool thing where his face contorts in fury and softens whenever Federal Air Marshal Madolyn Harris (Michelle Dockery) looks away, and then back at him. But, Wahlberg struggles mightily moving on from his one-notes. He commits to an idea and then chews on it until there’s no flavor left.
Gibson weaves in several strong supplementary scenes that add some nice texture to the narrative. When Topher Grace’s mob-accountant-in-witness-protection character, Winston, is let free from his chains moments after offering to sell out the marshall, the audience is left to ponder where his loyalties will ultimately lie. We get an unexpected romance injection, when the marshall gets on the phone with charming Anchorage Air Traffic Control Officer Hasan, which provides buoyancy to the film. But ultimately, the film suffers from a script that does not quite match the direction.
Gibson paces it as a slow burn, despite the twist being known from the beginning. Not only was Wahlberg being the fake pilot revealed in the trailer, but also anybody with an inkling of media literacy could see where this was all going once he sat down in that cockpit. We are supposed to feel this claustrophobic terror coupled with Alaska’s isolated wilderness, but even as the plane spirals towards the snow, we feel no rush.
Gibson can get the most from his actors, but I feel with a different director in the chair, “Flight Risk” could have been an action movie to be celebrated. Instead, we get something somehow mixing remarkable and moot.
Critic Score: 6.4 out of 10
Jack Simon is a mogul coach and writer/director who enjoys eating food he can’t afford, traveling to places out of his budget, and creating art about skiing, eating, and traveling while broke. Check out his website jacksimonmakes.com to see his Jack’s Jitney travelogue series. You can email him at jackdocsimon@gmail.com for inquiries of any type.
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