Blu-ray Review: Incredible Performance, Complex Script Elevate ‘Flight’

CHICAGO – Robert Zemeckis’ brilliant “Flight” has garnered some interesting responses from my friends in that they seem to not like the film because they don’t like Whip Whitaker, Denzel Washington’s alcoholic asshole of a lead character that earned him an Oscar nomination. The fact that Whitaker doesn’t beg to be liked and allows for such a morally gray performance is why I love the film. It’s complex, character-driven storytelling that is becoming increasingly rare in cinema.

Rating: 4.5/5.0

Washington plays Whitaker, a character introduced swilling backwash from a beer bottle and doing drugs before boarding a plane where he essentially takes dozens of lives into his hands. When a mechanical error sends the plan hurtling to the ground, Whitaker pulls off a miracle by saving most of his passengers. However, he was wasted. Should he pay for being drunk? Or be a hero for being a life-saver? The movie offers no easy answers and features great performances from not just Washington but Kelly Reilly, Don Cheadle, Bruce Greenwood, and arguably the best cameo of the year from James Badge Dale. Zemeckis has learned so much about visual storytelling from his time in motion-capture animation and it shows in every scene of this stellar drama.

Flight was released on Blu-ray and DVD on February 5, 2013
Photo credit: Paramount

Synopsis:
Academy Award winner Denzel Washington stars in this “riveting and powerful nail-biting thriller” (Pete Hammond, Deadline Hollywood) from Robert Zemeckis, the Academy Award-winning director of Forrest Gump and Cast Away. Airline pilot Whip Whitaker (Washington) miraculously lands his plane after a mid-air catastrophe. But even as he’s being hailed for his heroic efforts, questions arise as to who or what was really at fault. Action-packed, engrossing and powerful, Washington’s performance is being hailed as “a triumph” (Richard Corliss, Time) and one that “will be talked about for years” (Peter Travers, Rolling Stones).

Special Features:
o Origins Of Flight
o The Making Of Flight
o Anatomy Of A Plane Crash
o Q&A Highlights
o Digital Copy Included

[14]	By BRIAN TALLERICO [15] Content Director HollywoodChicago.com brian@hollywoodchicago.com [14]