With the Oscar announcements having come out; I decided to jump the gun and post some of the full reviews I had already prepared for films that are nominated.
Starring Denzel Washington & Kelly Reilly.
Directed by Robert Zemeckis.
Rated R.
Story: 3 / 5
Direction: 2 / 5
Acting: 4 / 5
Visual: 4 / 5
Overall Rating: 3.25 / 5
Explanation of rating categories appears at the bottom of each review posting.
Story: 3 / 5
Direction: 2 / 5
Acting: 4 / 5
Visual: 4 / 5
Overall Rating: 3.25 / 5
Explanation of rating categories appears at the bottom of each review posting.
Flight opens with a scene of our protagonist, Whip Whitaker (Denzel
Washington), waking up after what appears to be a night of partying, downing a
beer, arguing with his ex-wife about money over the phone, snorting a line of
coke, all the while a fully naked woman paces the room, and finally donning his
flight captain’s uniform. This is brilliantly effective character
establishment, if only the rest of the picture had taken all of its cues from
this scene.
The film has the unfortunate job of telling what is essentially a personal
story about substance abuse amidst the background of an epic and awesome
disaster. In the end did it need that epic background? Everything
surrounding the disaster was incredible, even having seen the trailer, and
knowing how the scene ends, I was on the edge of my seat, but that’s all there
is. From that point forward it’s a simple story of how a man has to admit he
has a problem and seek help for it.
Did Flight need to be 2 hours and 20 minutes long? Absolutely not. In the
build up to the disaster we’re being introduced to Nicole (Kelly Reilly) in
cutaway. She’ll become important later, but when she finally meets Whip she has
to introduce herself to him anyway. Fiction Writing 101 dictates that the
audience doesn’t need to be introduced to her twice, unless one of those scenes
tells us something we won’t get from the other. As it plays out her early
establishing scenes don’t add any depth that the audience couldn’t get while
watching the two characters interact later on.
Despite these other minor failings, the performances are amazing, with the
possible exception of John Goodman hamming it up every second he’s in front of
the camera. I’ve heard it said already that Denzel is likely to get nominated
for an Oscar, but has the unfortunate luck of doing so in a year when Daniel
Day Lewis was also in a film. Washington is brilliant in striking the right
balance between utter contempt for his failings and a sympathetic admiration
for his merits.
Would I recommend this film? Yes, if just for the opening 30 minutes
alone and the performances. And maybe you’ll be a little less critical of the
ham fisted treatment of the story than I was.
Explanation of Ratings
All ratings are on a 5 point scale where 1 is the lowest possible score. A
score of 3 indicates the film was simply effective in this regard. A score of 5
indicates perfection in a given category. The overall rating is a simple
average of the four scores.
- Story -- How well the
film was written? Did the story make sense? Were there plot
holes? Was the dialogue natural for the style/genre?
- Direction -- How well
was the film put together? Did all of the elements come together
properly? How was the pacing? Was the tone consistent and
effective? A subcategory of this would be editing, but for the
purpose of these reviews it is combined into one category.
- Acting -- How good
were the performances? In a drama did the lead actor/actress draw
the audience in? In a comedy where the performers funny? This
is an amalgam score of all the performances in the piece. A single great
performance can elevate the entire score, but a bunch of bad performances
can just as easily bring it down.
- Visual -- How did the
film look? If there were visual effects were they used appropriately
and did they look good? Did the overall look enhance the telling of
the story?
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