Take this Flight

Denzel Washington as Captain William "Whip" Whitaker in Flight.
Captain William "Whip" Whitaker is a horrible person. He has demons that he refuses to deal with and he's flying a plane with 102 souls on it.
He was already drunk and high when he came to work. Refused to use the auto pilot and took more drinks while flying. And how did he spend the night before? Having sex, alcohol and drugs with sexy flight attendant Katerina Marquez.
When the plane begins to dive and Whip has to take bold, dangerous and extreme measures to save the plane and the people on it, he unleashes a storm that shows how messed up Whip really is.

But as horrible as Whip is, Denzel Washington plays this tragic character brilliantly. He's cocky when he should and shouldn't be. He owns up to his problems, privately, while dealing with the NTSB investigation and a damning toxicology report.
Whip also bites the hand that feeds him, his pilot's union rep, Charlie Anderson played by Bruce Greenwood, is on the receiving end of a tongue lashing and the lawyer, Hugh Lang played brilliantly by Don Cheadle is the object of Whip's disgust.

Washington and Cheadle were best friends in one my favorite movies, Devil In A Blue Dress. Though Mouse and Easy are back together, friends they are not. I feel like Cheadle was underutilized in this movie, but when he was on the screen, he was magical.

Make no mistake, though, this is Denzel Washington's movie. He lights up the screen as this drunk, drugged out airline pilot. His relationship with John Goodman's character Harling Mays is pure comedy. After all, we all need a friend who brings porn and cigarettes to us when we're in the hospital.

The build up of this movie and the twist and turns does lead to a disappointing ending, which I won't give away. Despite the ending, Flight is worth seeing.

Running time: 139 minutes

Cast

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Woman rapes a dead man and gets pregnant

Image
So, stop me if you've heard this one. Woman has a last romp with a dead man and gets pregnant. No, this isn't the beginning of a short story, this is a true story . A 38 year old female mortuary worker is being held on $250,000 bond after becoming pregnant by one of her clients-a dead man. The alleged crime took place at the Mourning Glory Mortuary just outside of Lexington, Missouri. Police have charged Felicity Marmaduke with desecration of the dead and necrophilia. According to a statement made to police by Marmaduke, the alleged victim experienced a post mortem erection while being bathed. Being alone, Marmaduke straddled the dead man and proceeded have sex with him. Much to her surprise, the alleged victim came to orgasm after several minutes. A few weeks later, Marmaduke had a positive pregnancy test while receiving a routine medical exam. Upon telling her doctor the circumstances leading to the conception, the police were notified. Marmaduke was...
Read more

Django Unchained or The live version of Catcher Freeman

Image
Forget what Spike Lee has to say about Django Unchained , I want to know if Aaron McGruder recognized his work on the big screen. After reading what Quentin Tarantino said about Roots , I had plans to sit this one out. Then I got an invite to see it.  Tarantino called out Roots as inauthentic as a part of his battle with Lee, who accurately said Django was disrespectful to his ancestors. About ten minutes into this overly long spaghetti western/blaxplotation flick, I wanted to make a tee shirt that would read, SPIKE WAS RIGHT.  Tarantino should've made a western with a black hero -- the slavery aspect of the movie was just so unnecessary. Granted, this movie is a work of fiction and not based on any historical slavery story. And yes, people go to the movies to be entertained, but overly violent movies aren't entertaining to me. However, I digress.  The fact that some many people are talking about how "original" this movie is proves one thing: Y'all don...
Read more

Naughty or Nice. . .Is Liza Palmer being naughty or nice?

Image
In my upcoming release, Rumor Has It,   Liza Palmer discovers that her best friend Robert Montgomery isn't the man she thought he was and she's willing to do what ever it takes to stop him from winning the state senate seat he's trying to get elected to. Powering down his iPad, Jackson crossed over to the breakfast island in the kitchen to brew himself a cup of coffee. He had about an hour before he needed to get ready and head to the campaign office. He could n’t believe the big debate was less than a week away and the election was just two weeks out. Reaching for a banana nut muffin, Jackson was ready to relax for just a minute. Then he heard the doorbell ring.             “Really?” he muttered as he put his muffin down and headed to the door. Looking out the window, he was shocked to see Liza Palmer standing on his doorstep.             When Jackson opened the...
Read more