Flight
In the opening scenes of Flight, Denzel Washington portrays Whip
Whitaker, a lonely, drunken, and horny pilot, with a brash and easy confidence.
He wakes up in bed with a flight attendant, answers a call from his ex-wife,
takes a swig of beer, and does some coke, all before his 9:00 AM flight. These
early scenes make it clear that Whitaker has a bad relationship with his
ex-wife and son and a functional one with alcohol. As his life begins to
unravel following his miraculous actions during a plane crash, Whitaker violently
cycles between clinging to the bottle and forsaking it. Meanwhile Whitaker’s friends
struggle to save his career and deflect any potential liability for operating a
plane while drunk and high. Throughout the film, Washington ably fuses Whitaker’s
superb flying skills, alcoholism, and his desperate attempt to stave off
responsibility for his actions into a damaged but redeemable character. His
confrontation will ex-wife and son represent Washington at his best. It is the
part for a movie star and Washington plays it well.
Director
Robert Zemeckis surrounds Washington with a host of professional actors who
ably support Washington’s performance. John Goodman embodies Whitaker’s stoner
neighbor who shows up with booze and drugs at two opportune moments in the
film. Don Cheadle plays Washington’s amoral criminal attorney who with the help
of Bruce Greenwood’s pilots’ union rep enables and protects Whitaker from any
consequences of his drinking and drug use. Leo offers a competent
professionalism as her NTSB investigator draws the redemptive moment out of
Whitaker.
The film,
however, overplays its themes of redemption. Zemeckis and screenwriter John Garnis
don’t effectively demonstrate why the audience should root for Whitaker’s
salvation. When Whitaker asks a flight attendant not to mention his drunken behavior,
it is unclear why she would protect him. Loyalty, his miraculous piloting, a
desire to protect the airline and shift the blame to the manufacturer are all
offered as possible reasons, but the film doesn’t offer guidance or clarity. The
audience is left wondering whether Whitaker was always just a manipulative alcoholic
and drug addict. Whitaker’s confession and reconciliation with his son feel
forced, like the plot and comforting the audience necessitated the addict
confess his sins. The film’s music choices bludgeon the viewer—when Goodman
arrives at the hospital, The Rolling Stones’ Sympathy for the Devil plays. Washington carries the film with a
movie star performance, but the rest of the film doesn’t quite match up.
Olympus Has Fallen
This year
featured a string of films depicting the wholesale destruction of major cities
or large swaths of Earth. Man of Steel,
White House Down, World War Z, all typify the recent film obsession with
biblical levels of destruction. Olympus
Has Fallen falls right into this pattern. Its comically predictable
plotting, low-rent special effects, and dreadful characterization mark it as
somewhere far south of entertaining summer blockbuster and just north of
downright atrocity.
Gerald
Butler’s Secret Service agent, Mike Banning, drives the banal plot. All the cheap
CGI merely undergirds Banning’s attempts to win back his best friend. His girlfriend or wife or whoever complains
that he’s too distracted and doesn’t pay enough attention to her. He’s
distracted because he’s been kicked off the President’s protection detail. Banning,
in the midst of car accident solely created to drive plot, manages to save
President Aaron Eckhart, but not Mrs. President Ashley Judd. Too traumatized by
the loss of his wife, Eckhart banishes Banning, despite their close relationship
as boxing buddies and Banning’s friendship with Eckhart’s son. When North
Korean terrorists boldly seize control of the White House in a series of
unrealistic and absurd plot contrivances befitting Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly’s
deepest fantasies, Banning has his chance to get his best friend back. The film
constantly reminds us that Banning is a Secret Service agent with Special
Forces training. Indeed he seems to be the only Secret Service agent throughout
the entire assault on the White House capable of pointing and shooting a gun at
an enemy advancing slowly across a wide open lawn. When the film ends with Banning
carrying the wounded president out of the burning hulk of the White House, the
reconciliation between them is complete. The scene offers a homoerotic subtext,
but such an interpretation would require the screenwriters and director to have
crafted any sort of text at all.
The script
moves from predictable plot point to predictable plot point. The North Korean villain
issues demands, Banning messes them up, the film’s MacGuffin complicates
things, only Banning recognizes that a SEAL attack won’t work, that the
supposed death of the President is really a diversion etc. In the end, he must
kill the North Korean villain, save the President, and disable the MacGuffin. Butler
makes his best attempt at playing the action movie hero, but he lacks the charismatic
ruthlessness of Liam Neeson in Taken or
the weary charm of Bruce Willis in Die
Hard. His banter with evil North Korean villain bores. Dylan McDermott
appears as a traitorous Secret Service agent merely to offer a half-assed
speech about the evils of political corruption. Melissa Leo wears a terrible
wig and offers the aforementioned unintentionally hilarious recitation of the
Pledge of Allegiance as the White House crumbles around her. Eckhart spends
much of the film reacting to his staff being beaten and killed and giving evil
North Korean terrorist everything he wants. The film seems woefully cheap as
the film mostly occurs in the White House bunker, some hallways, and a Pentagon
briefing room. The CGI seems conjured up by some lazy video game programmers on
their off-day. This cheapness extends to the cast, as Secret Service agents
seem to do everything including greet visiting dignitaries, get killed in huge
numbers, and act as aides Acting President Morgan Freeman. All this cheapness
adds up to one thing, one lousy movie.
