Flight (2012)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future, Cast Away)
	Actors:  Denzel Washington (The Book of Eli), Nadine Velazquez (My Name is Earl TV-series), Don Cheadle (Iron Man 2-3), Kelly Reilly (Sherlock Holmes 1-2), Bruce Greenwood (Star Trek 1-2)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 02.03.2017, VOD, 32" TV screen.
Synopsis: Whip Whitaker (Washington), a pilot with alcohol problems, miraculously lands a defective plane with only few casualties.
Review: I had seen the trailer to this movie already some time ago and even mentioned it in my review of Passengers, so I was glad I could finally see it. Already from the trailer I found the story interesting and the movie confirms it: are you going to judge this man on his actions or on his reputation and state even though it has nothing to do with the accident? I thought the movie would spend a lot of time in a law court while in fact it stays very close to our main character, and I understood that in an intimate scene that I love, in the staircase of the hospital where he meets Nicole (Reilly). She appears a bit out of nowhere in the movie, and I realized she is here to give the character of Washington a relationship outside of the world of the airline company. Washington plays wonderfully this broken character, from a calm confidence during the incident in spite of (or thanks to) his alcohol level to his very human ups-and-downs through which we follow him, and until the conclusion. His behavior is quite unpredictable but not at all unrealistic like I often complain nowadays in Hollywood movies, and I love the random touch brought by the character played by John Goodman, leading to another scene that I loved just before the court room. With this movie Zemeckis proves that he still is as talented as 30 years-ago, although I could reproach him to have used the cheap trick of showing a fully naked gorgeous Nadine Velasquez (Catalina in the My Name is Earl TV-series, anybody remembers Jump! Jump! ?) in the first minute of the movie to get the (male) audience hooked to an otherwise very emotional story, but who am I to judge. In the end I find it of course unacceptable that a pilot would fly a plane inebriated, there is no question about that, but post-facto if this condition had nothing to do with the incident and the heroic actions of the pilot, does this have to be mentioned at all? An answer is yes because this could have lead to a much worse outcome. Another answer is big money: anything can be used to move the blame away from the airline or the plane manufacturer.
Rating: 8 /10