Flight

It's good to be the king! There aren't very many professions outside of music and movies where you can pour your heart and soul into something, hit it big, and then just coast to millions for the rest of your life. Granted your coasting is short lived in music unless you're the Stones or Tupac, who faked his own death and didn't even bother appearing in public when he released new albums. But you can stretch it out for decades if you're in the movie industry. Look, I love Denzel Washington, but the man hasn't really tried since Training Day. He finally got his Oscar and said screw it;  I can just show up, smile, half ass it, and I'll still be better than 98% of the actors out there. And he's right.  Now to his credit, every now and then he'll give a decent effort in something he believes in or actually likes such as Book of Eli or American Gangster, and these of course end up being really good movies. But when he's just collecting a check, you get Deja Vu and Pelham 1,2,3. I'm still haunted by John Revolta in that movie. Well lucky for you and for Bobby Zemeckis (the director), Denzel actually tries in Flight.

As a side note, wouldn't it be great if this applied to us normal humans? I just think it would be awesome if you only had to be good in bed like 3 maybe 4 times, word gets out about you, and then you don't really have to try anymore. Girls just keep showing up based off of what you did back in 09. This is the world I need to live in.

So you've all seen the previews at this point. Denzel is the best pilot that has ever lived and somehow he is able to crash land a defective plan safely without killing everyone on board. And while some people think he's a hero, others are finding fault and are trying to blame the crash on him. Well, the first 5 minutes alone are worth the price of admission because if you watch The League at all, Ruxin's wife Nadine Velazquez plays Denzel's girlfriend and she walks around naked while drinking and doing other questionable things. I was clearly glued to the screen and instantly thought that this was going to be the greatest movie ever! But sadly, that was the last unpredictable thing that happened in this movie. The first 40 minutes of it is unbelievably entertaining as it shows the actual flight and the numerous dangerous situations the flight crew and passengers are put through. And Bobby Z also does a good job of ratcheting up the intensity without adding distracting camera shots ala McG or being overly sapping with some of the passengers reactions like Michael Bay. There aren't any silly slow mo scenes of kids doing Americana stuff like eating a hot dog while holding a baseball mitt. But once you get past this actual crash, it just kind of falls flat.

Now Denzel takes the exact opposite approach of Training Day in this movie. It is a very low key but equally effective method he applies. And the entire time you are sucked into the "but it's Denzel, he can't possibly be the bad guy" mindset even though there is a ton of evidence to support the contrary.  He owns this movie from beginning to end but there are some some other bright spots in the form of Kelly Reilly from the Sherlock Holmes movies. Apparently she thought that qualified her from getting naked on screen as well. But little does she know that I thought she was from one of the Tales From the Crypt movies until the following day when I looked her up and had my "oh yeah" moment. She is great however in helping Denzel cope with what happened and what he's going through post crash. Also, John Goodman is great comic relief as Denzel's off the wall buddy who while he only has 3 scenes, absolutely kills it and you walk away remembering everything he said and did while on screen.

I wont give anything away but as the movie progresses you see where they are taking it and then you are just stuck there waiting the next 90 minutes for the obvious ending  to come. And that's what keeps this movie from being Booby Z's next Forrest Gump or Castaway; overall it's a good movie, it's just not great. And because of that I give it a rating a BARELY FRESH!