Film Review - Flight Risk

Mel Gibson's airborne action thriller is entertainingly ridiculous

Credit: Lionsgate

In the UK, there were two big releases last Friday. One is a deep, determinedly serious, thought-provoking, Oscar-tipped drama about art, architecture, immigration, the dark side of the American Dream, and much more (The Brutalist). The other is Mel Gibson’s Flight Risk. This is known as counterprogramming, so all audiences are catered for. Or, as one of my snobbier cineaste acquaintances put it, “both ends of the evolutionary spectrum”. Personally, I liked each one for completely different reasons. Not every film needs to be the cinematic equivalent of haute cuisine. Sometimes, you just want fast food.

Let’s be clear: Flight Risk is nonsense. But I’d be lying if I said I I didn’t find it entertaining. Fast food may be bad for you but it can be tasty and satisfying. Besides, with my higher brain functions still analysing The Brutalist, it’s fun to watch something undemanding that goes in one ear and out the other.

The plot concerns US Marshal Madolyn Harris (Michelle Dockery); an uptight, po-faced, cliché do-gooder with the obligatory traumatic error in her past. She plays straight to cowardly, wise-cracking mob accountant-embezzler Winston (Topher Grace), with whom she has made an immunity deal in return for testimony against a suitably unpleasant mob boss. After tracking Winston down in some obscure corner of Alaska, Madolyn has to get him back to Anchorage on an aircraft Winston describes as “a kite with seatbelts”. Unfortunately, the Texan pilot, Daryl (Mark Wahlberg), is a psychopathic hitman assigned to ensure Winston meets with an accident.

Cue a multitude of suspenseful airborne shenanigans as the tiny plane flies over the Alaskan mountains. The perils pile on thick and fast, inside and outside the cockpit. In between brutal scuffles, Madolyn tries to sniff out the regulation traitor in their ranks via radio conversations, whilst also finding time for a spot of flirting with the man teaching her to fly the plane. It’s absolutely ridiculous, but action thriller fans will find it enjoyable. At a tight 91 minutes, the film doesn’t outstay its welcome either.

Flight Risk is the kind of high-concept hokum that used to be all the rage in the 1990s. Working from a screenplay by Jared Rosenberg, Gibson tackles the daft premise with characteristic blunt force, though goodness knows why he (and presumably Wahlberg) insisted on what might be the most unconvincing bald hairdo in the history of cinema. It all builds to a silly and predictable climax, but the film delivers exactly what it promises. For that reason, I’m giving it a pass, and I refuse to be snooty about it (unlike my aforementioned film buff acquaintance).

In short, if The Brutalist sounds too weighty and serious for your taste, but you have a penchant for nasty, violent thrillers that are dumb as a bag of hammers, you could do a lot worse than Flight Risk. I enjoyed it, so there’s certainly no judgement from me. Don’t let the film snobs look down their noses at you. Go and enjoy it without guilt.

(Originally published at Medium.)

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