Flight (***)

As with Saving Private Ryan, Flight features a terrifyingly riveting early sequence than nearly overshadows the merely competent drama that follows. Here that involves unhappily divorced Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington), who begins the most memorable day of his life by finishing off last night’s beer, saying a temporary goodbye to the much-younger flight attendant who shared his bed, perking up with a bit of cocaine, and heading for work. He’s a pilot, and will become a hero, but one with a secret. It’s better not to know exactly how; credit must go to screenwriter John Gatlin (Real Steel, Coach Carter), who has come up with a novel scenario.

The rest of the film is no thriller, but plays out a conflict that is mostly interior, with Washington in virtually every scene. Notable supporting roles belong to Kelly Reilly as a woman whose own struggles draw her to Whip, John Goodman as Whip’s personal Dr. Feelgood, Bruce Greenwood as a former colleague, and Don Cheadle as Whip’s lawyer. Goodman supplies light humor, but I’d have most wanted Cheadle’s role to be larger. Liability law as it pertains to the aviation industry may not be a box-office draw, but I might’ve have liked the story as a legal thriller. At least it would have been novel. Aside from this aspect, there’s nothing here that wasn’t done in Days of Wine and Roses, with its melancholy Henry Mancini soundtrack, or The Lost Weekend. As for Washington, he is best at projecting an implacable exterior; playing a man falling apart, he is no Jack Lemmon, but he excels at the scenes in which he’s trying to hold it together. Meanwhile, director Bob Zemeckis, better known for breezier fare like Back to the Future and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, keeps the story from seeming ponderous and imbues an easily anticipated outcome with some suspense.

IMDb link
 

viewed 10/27/12 7:00 pm at Annenberg Zellerbach Theater [Philadelphia Film Festival closing night screening]   

Stranded: I've Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains (***1/4)

If you saw the underrated drama Alive, you know this story: a Uruguayan rugby team crashes in the Andes en route to Chile, is forced into cannibalism to survive. For this well-edited documentary, the survivors of the 1972 plane crash reunite on the mountain and tell their story.

Watching this was a lot like watching the feature film. There is something perfect about the story. The plane crashes in the mountains, but in such a way that most of the 45 passengers are not killed immediately. Yet they wind up in a place least conducive to either short-term rescue or long-term survival. Besides having to subsist on the remains of the dead, there are other perils.

Although modest photographic re-creations prevent this from being solely a parade of talking heads, the experience is not as visceral as watching Alive. As with that movie, the many characters blend together. In a way, that’s the point. Having to act as one was what enabled them to live to tell the tale. The bond the survivors have maintained—each participated in the movie—is nearly as remarkable, a testament to the uniqueness of their death-defying tale.

IMDB link

viewed at Ritz Bourse and reviewed 12/18/08