Hero and Zero

Washington is unstoppable in Flight.

«««« Flight. Written by John Gatins. Directed by Robert Zemeckis. 

They say you won’t be seeing Robert Zemeckis’ terrific Flight as an in-flight movie. Given the subject matter, it’s understandable, but still sad, for Flight is well worth seeing under any circumstances. We’ve spent the better part of a year watching Hollywood try to prove that scripts and characters aren’t enough to carry a movie—and juvenilize its audiences with effects pictures and too-clever cartoons. Flight is a reminder that there’s still room for functioning adults at the multiplex.

“Functioning adult” may be a generous way to describe William “Whip” Whittaker (Denzel Washington). Divorcee, estranged father, and gifted pilot, Whip can only get through his job with the help of booze and coke. Bad as that maybe sounds, it works for him: on the day we meet him, he coolly pilots a plane full of 100 passengers through a nasty storm before his first drink. Three vodkas later, he guides his flight to a crash landing, “Sully” Sullenberger-style, after a mechanical failure takes out his hydraulics. Instead of a hundred fatalities, there are only six.

So he’s a hero, right? In John Gatins’ sharp, wise script, we see the other, less sweet side of heroism, as his sudden fame brings scrutiny that threatens to rip the mask off Whip’s personal charade. He can land any plane, but can he avoid crash and burning his unlikely relationship with Nicole (the ethereal Kelly Reilly), a heroin addict and certified pistol who sees right through the creaking machinery holding him together?

This is an oddly character-driven drama for Zemeckis, the guy who’s given us Back to the Future, Polar Express, the CGI-gimmicky Beowulf and A Christmas Carol—and Forrest Gump, the movie that almost single-handedly made intellectual mediocrity a virtue in this American life. There’s such justice given to the sophistication of Gatins’ script, and such scope for Washington’s acting, that we have to wonder what other great films haven’t gotten made because Zemeckis has been so busy juvenilizing not only audiences, but himself. (His next project, alas, is a 3-D remake of Yellow Submarine.)

Washington is just about perfect for this role, and he does it in a way that is typically his. That is to say, Washington is not a great actor in the way Daniel Day-Lewis or Meryl Streep are, by utterly vanishing into their roles. Playing the blue collar hero in Unstoppable, or the haunted soldier he did in Uncommon Valor, he’s always pretty much himself. Much like Morgan Freeman, he somehow manages to be utterly believable as he assimilates his roles into his own particular personality. I bought him so much in this role, I want Denzel Washington’s voice to come over the intercom on my next white-knuckle flight.

It’s not a spoiler to say that Whip isn’t just an addict or a hero—he’s both. That’s easy to say, of course, but hard to get away with in practice. Notwithstanding anti-hero TV shows like Breaking Bad, we still tend like our categories neat, hero or zero. Joe Paterno is either a legend or a moral embarrassment; Barack Obama either saved our economy, or flew it into the ground. Admittedly, Flight gets away with this ambiguity because, you know, it’s Denzel in the pilot seat. Would this story have worked so well with an equally talented but less likeable actor in the lead? I’d like to give audiences enough credit to say “yes”. But I’d lying if I said I was sure. 

© 2012 Nicholas Nicastro