Editor’s Note: Freeline Media’s movie critic, Mike Fried, is back with a review of Flight Risk on HBO Max.
By MIKE FRIED
FLIGHT RISK (now on HBO Max)
*** 1/2
Flight Risk is Very Dumb!
But it is also a hell of a lot of fun. Saw this initially in the theater and just rewatched as it is streaming on HBO Max.
Winston is a rat. He’s going to testify against the mob and has been taken charge of by federal Marshal Madelyn who is going to escort him to trial to testify against the mob boss. The fastest way to get there from a little Podunk town in Alaska is to go by plane. So they charter a single engine plane flown by an unassuming really nice guy with the southern accent named Daryl. However, Daryl turns out to be a hitman for the mob who has killed, and replaced, the pilot who was chartered to fly them.
Telling you anything else would probably ruin the fun. But there’s a lot of fun. The decision to keep 95% of the action contained within the confines of a single engine plane really works. The claustrophobia is quite evident and, quite frankly, makes it an easier film to direct. Mark Wahlberg is just good as the hitman, which he portrays as a caricature. He starts with the southern good old boy accent and when his true identity is discovered, he lapses back to his tough guy Boston accent. But he is not given a lot to do and his goofy faces with that shaved head (yes shaved – no bald cap) are too goofy to take seriously or be frightening. However, it was his choice to have the shaved head, remarking that he wanted to look like Dennis Rader, the BTK killer. Mission Accomplished.
Michelle Dockery is really good as the Marshal escorting Winston and make no mistake she is the lead actor in the piece and does it well. But it’s Topher Grace, as the comic relief, who keeps this movie afloat. He is very funny in his nervousness, which is no different than many of the other characters he has played.
Credit should also has to go to Mel Gibson, who has wisely paced this film at less than 90 minutes (without credits) because if the movie were any longer, it would probably fail miserably. He took an efficient approach to making the film and completed the movie in just 22 days. Braveheart took approximately 100 days longer.
The worst thing about this movie is its rather flabby script. Written by Jared Rosenberg, this script is full of clichés and tropes that we’ve seen before in other films. Oh, there’s a leak in the Federal Marshall program? Oooh, like we’ve never seen that before! Has anyone ever seen Eraser and remember James Caan?
But Mel Gibson-in his shortest directorial effort yet keeps the film going nicely despite its script flaws. I am really surprised that the script made it onto the 2020 blacklist, the group of the most liked unproduced screenplays. Unless, of course, there were on set rewrites.
There are logical gaps as well. When the trio take off in the plane, Wahlberg and Dockery need headphones to hear each other but after Wahlberg reveals his true self, they don’t? Come on!
This movie has a 2.0 rating on letterboxd and reading a lot of the reviews, it is because of Gibson and Wahlberg’s politics. If they trigger you, then don’t watch it. If you can separate the art from the artist, like I can, you will enjoy this rather amusing but thoroughly forgettable piece.
I saw this in a packed house and the audience was actually cheering. Now, maybe that’s too much of a reaction but it just goes to show what a well paced decently acted film that doesn’t overstay its welcome can do to please its audience. Regal’s RPX didn’t hurt either.
HAVE A BEER AND SIT BACK AND LAUGH !
Now, Extra Aviation related film commentary:
AIRPLANE!
*****
Most of us have seen this film and know its greatness. But most don’t know its greatest in-joke.
All you need to know is that the guy that Ted Striker leaves in the taxicab with the meter running and who is still there at the end of the credits giving Ted another ten minutes is none other than Howard Jarvis, a lawyer who gained prominence in the 1970s as a consumer advocate who was responsible for lowering property taxes in California.
So the fact that he sits in the cab for such a long period of time is the joke.
Michael Fried has no formal training in movies, except having watched over 26,000+ movies — if not more — in his 60-plus years on this planet, starting with Goldfinger as his first cinema experience. He knows what he likes and he knows what he doesn’t like, and it’s quite often different from the conventional wisdom. He knows that the best franchise is Godzilla and he loves action movies and comedies. He has not been nominated for any awards except some boring insurance awards which has no applicability to movies (with the possible exceptions of Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity and John Cassavettes’ Big Trouble). He is part of a team that won the 1980 SUNY Albany Trivia content by correctly guessing the question, “Who played the president of Klopstockia in Million Dollar Legs?” So he has that going for him, which is nice.
Contact Mike at moviemike3@yahoo.com and mike.fried@yahoo.com.
