Film Review: Flight

Piloting Two Kinds of Nosedives

In Director Robert Zemeckis’s first live action film since Cast Away, his content matter is just as tragic, and coincidentally features another plane crash. Flight produces another roaring, cataclysmic trip in the sky, a feverishly palpable plunge to earth and equally as daring counteractive rescue. This time the problem for the leading man after the wreck is dealing with society, not coping without it.

Piloting the doomed plane is Whip Whitaker (a mesmerizing Denzel Washington), who within the first scene is introduced to us drowning himself in alcohol, snorting cocaine to even himself out, and having a relationship with one of his flight attendants. His lethargic body spread over the mattress, he receives a call to report for a flight in several hours. A few sniffs of white lines, a drugged out jolt from the camera, and in a subsequent shot, Whip walks out of his hotel room as a freshly starched and uniformed Pilot.  Joe Cocker’s “I’m feeling all right” plays over his struts, a song used deftly again, later functioning in a more intimate way. Listen how subtly lyrics are implemented throughout the narrative, how they magnify Whip’s clutching addiction.

He flies a plane headed from Orlando to Atlanta, still intoxicated from the night before which startles his copilot, played by strict, subordinate Brian Geraghty. After escaping a rough patch of turbulence – this film is not for the faint of heart- Whip sneaks three bottles of vodka into an orange juice container and starts sipping. Suddenly the plane loses control and heads into a nosedive. Whip, calm and collected, shouts the orders, tailspins the plane upside down to level out, and then crash lands in an open field. Only several die. He is deemed a hero. But we wonder- is his composed, domineering recital of commands a product of his calculated experience in the cockpit, or the equivocating sedation of alcohol and cocaine.

The remainder of the film is where things get tricky. Toxicology reports- told to him by his appointed lawyer Hugh Lang (Don Cheadle) – show Whip to have had alcohol in his system. He may be found in court to have been ill-equipped flying a plane. Aiding his side is head of the pilot’s union Charlie Anderson (Bruce Greenwood), relaying the trauma to a hospitalized Whip and teaming with Hugh to prep for an eventual trial. The heroics are laudable, but his condition prior is the sticking point. Are his merits in the line of death-defying duty enough to submerge questions over his physical state?

Zemeckis (whose previous performance capture work includes The Polar Express and Beowulf) is particularly fascinated with the nature of questions like these, intimately connecting us with the ethicality, the blame, the guilt, and the moral weight of someone managing an alcohol addiction and corporate, public responsibility. Nurtured by a script from John Gatins, Flight’s craft and content mingle artistically and powerfully, sincere but sometimes implausible. Regardless, the drama is rich and the implications of his story volatile.

Whip escapes to his grandfather’s farm to avoid the press, and his addiction is shown manifest in his cupboards and fridge, bottles and cans which he empties in desperation until the toxicology reports surface. It’s here, sequestered away, where he also takes in a heroin junky (Kelly Reilly) whom he met at the hospital. It’s an obscure subplot, like Whip’s domestic trouble- including his ex wife and estranged son. But it also manages to expose the spiritual connection of two addicts, communal prey to vices relentless and unforgiving. She encourages him to visit an AA meeting with her, but he feels more in danger there than in the cockpit that fateful day.

Much is hidden behind Whip’s aviators, and much is said with them off. His red eyeballs, disheveled nude blackouts, and quickly clothed sober-ups build (or rather disassemble) his character. Washington is magnetizing in that way, taking us with him on his crippling journey, promoting resentment while provoking our commiseration. John Goodman also shows up as his hippie wingman, with stashes of cocaine to set him straight, especially before the big trial. He packs the comically absurd and oftentimes game saving into his “first-aid” bag, providing improbable elixir for Whip’s damaging hangovers.

In a year in which we’ve seen legacies torn and corporate images take heat, Flight resonates in the heart of the ethical quandaries and uncertainties we face in prematurely defining acts, decisions, and people themselves. Slowly, we find the tidy “moral of the story” emerge out of the film’s dirtier corners. But in a case like this, Whip Whitaker is still an undefined man: hero, guilty, alcoholic. As French philosopher Jacques Ellul writes succinctly, “The truth about the devil is that he created ambiguity.”

4/5

The Guard Review: A Bloody Good Time

No matter how many times a certain movie duo genre is repeated, there are certain actors who have the ability to make the familiar interplay seem like an original concept. Take the pairing of Brendan Gleeson, the tall, heavy, personable bloke, and Don Cheadle, the shorter, wiry, stern and sensible man, and you see their immediate impact on a film. The formula might use the same flasks per say, but their chemistry bubbles into an off the book creation, unable for replication.

The Guard zooms through the settling Western Irish fog onto a small-town countryside, patrolled by policemen known as the “guarda.” One of them is Gleeson’s character Gerry Boyle, whose persona is shown at the immediate start: an officer who slips himself some of the drugs he catches teenage scoundrels trying to consume. It’s not that he is corrupt, but maybe just a bit too confident his job his safe at hand within the force.

Boyle is teamed up with another guarda official Aidan McBride (Rory Keenan) for an investigation after a rare murder has taken place. In the quiet seaside town, the death is obscure and a sign of a foreboding presence. McBride is from Dublin, and no one wastes any time making sure he doesn’t fit in, just one of the many naively bigoted stereotypes so bluntly displayed. The murder is linked to a drug deal postulated by the force, an expected handoff worth an estimated five-hundred million, or “half a billion” according to the guarda chief. The FBI sends American Agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle) to Ireland to work on the case. That means joining forces with Boyle, thoroughly unimpressed with and uninformed about special agents, and his humorous disregard shows.

The two collide heads in a non-aggressive and more curious, inquisitive manner, trying to contemplate the motives and characteristics of each other rather than their partner’s brash actions. Yet Wendell is usually the beneficiary of Gerry’s sardonic nature, one that is deceptively intriguing  for an officer so blatantly forward. If you get past some of the irish slur, the subtle prejudiced remarks burst through without any remorse, unbridled declaratives displaying the cultural un-awareness of the small town Sargent. Boyle’s verbal slurs and their forthright insertion into conversation create dumbfounded expressions onto the 21st century black man from Atlanta. The race-related remarks start to pose many questions for Wendell, who responds to the insults with reverence and fist-clenching calmness. Could a cop really be this uneducated about the world around him?

Then again, Boyle is the kind of guy that will drink a pint before the day’s work, call up some strippers on his day off, and then find in his heart the time to visit his dying mother. His misleading characteristics due to his own moral compass are confusing to forecast, unlike the cloudy, rainy coast of Ireland. Gerry’s poignant moments with his frail mother however outline the smart balances of emotion, distinctly giving insight into the rugged exteriors of differently proportioned cooperators.

This type of black comedy never gets too bleak though, as even the three ”evil drug-dealers,” headed by actor Mark Strong, contain enough gaffes that their corrupted police pay-off plan starves off a sadistic mannerism. The oddball trio works for their protection while the polar-opposites learn to respect the other’s individual antics. The friendly forgings don’t take the typical route to a respectful cohesion however. Their jobs and dedicated roles lean them into different directions and their mutual family suffering ties similar emotional strings. The ultimate motivation comes in their duty to protect and serve, above the impropriety and malfeasance easily succumbed by their peers. For all of the bad habits, the most important ones are kept sacred.

Director and writer John Michael McDonagh blends this drama and injects it with unlikely humor which makes its laughs much more authentic, and much less scripted. Its darkness gets curtailed with meldings of good-intentioned care and the interplay between the two unlikely paired blokes serves the buddy cop dynamic well, a comical interweaving of independents that become forced to rely on each other. McDonagh’s brother directed the dark comedy In Bruges, that also starred Gleeson, a similarly toned film with a confused sense of self-righteousness its own characters pondered. The Guard achieves this sense of questioning amidst its goofy behavior, even in its soundtrack that mixes natural irish noise with smooth transitions of guitar and drum folklore.

McDonagh is clear about not letting Boyle fall under too much gloom or darkness. In a scene at a diner, Boyle is threatened to take a bribe from one of the drug traders. Instead of responding, he sucks down a shake in one sip, and is more disappointed about his brain freeze than a looming decision of valor. Such is the dilemma for Agent Everett, working with someone with a strong ego but not always for the best reasons. It’s a unique coupling to say the least, but one equally beneficial for both sides.

It’s good and bloody fun. I’ll raise a Guinness to that!