Are we responsible for events in our lives, or can we blame them on greater powers? So is the debate driving Robert Zemeckis’ heavy-handed Flight, a lumbering descent into one man’s struggle between personal choice and influences beyond his control.
It opens with a flabby, hungover Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington) lying on his stomach and leering at a naked, cute young thing strutting around his bed in her panties. Drinking the dregs of beer bottles on his hotel night stand, he introduces a horrifying idea: Within minutes, he will be piloting a plane through a thunderstorm from Orlando to Atlanta, with 102 lives in his hands. A line of cocaine for breakfast, and he’s off.
After a couple of bursts of oxygen in the cockpit, three vodkas and a nap, the inevitable begins. Whether due to the storm, faulty equipment or pilot error, the craft begins to plummet. Passengers scream, the co-pilot sobs – and Whitaker calmly manoeuvres the doomed plane into a field.
No one, we learn, could have landed that plane like Whitaker. But celebrations are short-lived. Not everyone survived the crash and someone needs to take responsibility – and our hero has a blood system flooded with alcohol. Continue reading
LydiaWarren 