Flight

Year: 2012

Grade: B+

Country: USA

Director: Zemeckis

Review

good, solid film. washington turned in a good performance, as did everyone else, and the writing was good.

didn’t really get the god angle to the film. not sure where they were going with it, but there were a lot of references to religion and god. i think the crash site was the church that the stewardess had mentioned prior to takeoff.
perhaps the most notable part of the film for me, though, was the fact that the audience was so enabling of the pilot’s drug abuse problems. for example, near the end he falls of the wagon, hard, and needs to get ready for a major appearance before a committee that is investigating the crash. so, he takes some coke to get up after his hangover. the crowd essentially cheered this section of the film. it was played for laughs when his dealer (john goodman) comes into the hotel to get him up for the testimony, but i saw it as the character’s nadir and they seemed to view it as a triumph of his will. pretty sad. in the end, it’s a good way of presenting the story of drug abuse. he’s able to do heroic things and be charming and funny, but ultimately he’s a drug addict who fails the most important people around him – his ex-wife, his new girlfriend, his son. i don’t know if the people in the theater didn’t see that or didn’t care.

Watched in theater