Y’all want a pilot? It’s time for Mark Wahlberg and Mel Gibson to proceed their string of collaborations. These two beforehand co-starred within the two Daddy’s Residence films and the 2022 biographical drama Father Stu, and now, Gibson steps behind the digicam to direct Wahlberg in Flight Danger. This motion thriller options Michelle Dockery as Madelyn Harris, a Deputy U.S. Marshal who should switch a witness named Winston (Topher Grace) to trial. However when the pilot, performed by Wahlberg, reveals himself to be a hitman, she should get Winston to security.
Flight Danger is enjoyable at occasions however in the end finally ends up as a mediocre try at a popcorn film. It’s fascinating that Gibson returned to the director’s chair for this movie. Most of his different directorial efforts (Braveheart, The Ardour of the Christ, Apocalypto, Hacksaw Ridge) have been extra grandiose, incomes Oscar nominations. This film positive gained’t be getting any awards, neither is it making an attempt to. Gibson’s strategy to this film is easy enjoyable. He’s aiming to make a blockbuster, adapting author Jared Rosenberg’s script right into a one-location motion thriller.
Whereas many will consider a film like Non-Cease to check this airplane motion movie with, Flight Danger additionally accommodates similarities to the 2020 Joseph Gordon-Levitt thriller 7500 and final yr’s criminally underrated South Korean movie Hijack 1971. However this film doesn’t work in addition to others on this style. The premise of two characters trapped on a airplane with a hitman is gripping on paper. They’re trapped in a shifting automobile, neither of them know tips on how to fly a airplane, and the one one that can fly it’s a murderous lunatic hell-bent on killing them each. Whereas elements of this movie provide the joy you’d anticipate, it’s a surprisingly inconsistent movie.
The primary act of Flight Danger is okay. Topher Grace has at all times been a pleasant presence in films and TV, and he does some Eric Forman ranges of sarcasm as Winston. He’s fed up with Madelyn early on and she or he’s not precisely a fan of his both. Quickly sufficient, Marky Mark arrives on the airplane, changing his signature Boston accent with a thick Southern drawl. There’s some fantastic stress right here as Winston discovers that this pilot just isn’t who he says he’s and tries desperately to get Madelyn on the identical web page as him.
After the pilot reveals himself as a hitman, he’s rapidly subdued. Right here we’ve got the primary challenge with the movie: the great guys are successful for much an excessive amount of of the story. Despite the fact that Wahlberg is the face of all of the advertising and marketing, he spends a lot of the movie handcuffed within the background. level of reference for why this film doesn’t work very properly is the 1994 film Velocity. That’s one other movie that has our characters trapped in a shifting automobile. However the villain in that film is at all times successful, and the great guys are at all times at risk. Right here, the villain is sitting down, tormenting them verbally however bodily unable to place them in any hazard.
It’s nonetheless good to see Wahlberg as a foul man. He hasn’t had a variety of villainous roles since his 1996 film Worry, typically enjoying the hero in his motion roles like The Household Plan, Uncharted, and Infinite (which I don’t suppose is as dangerous as folks say, by the best way). He will get to play essentially the most mustache-twirling villain ever right here, and he’s not dangerous. His character hurts and kills as a result of he has enjoyable doing it, similar to it appears as if Wahlberg is having a blast on this function. His character isn’t very fascinating as a result of he’s essentially the most one-dimensional evil man ever, however Wahlberg is actually swinging for the fences right here.
However let’s return to Velocity—that film works so properly as a result of whereas they’re driving that bus, they’re consistently dealing with obstacles, from site visitors to schoolchildren to a child carriage stuffed with cans. Flight Danger works each time it does that, however there are moments the place the momentum vanishes and the hazard subsides. Madelyn doesn’t know tips on how to fly a airplane at first, however she will get the cling of it too rapidly, and the screenplay doesn’t make the most of her incapacity.
It may well typically really feel like Flight Danger is a dumb film making an attempt to disguise itself as a sensible one. Whereas that is your simple actioner, there are some questionable writing decisions. For instance, the hitman pulls a knife on the heroes early on. By some means, each Madelyn and Winston utterly neglect in regards to the knife, whereas I used to be mentally screaming at them each to search out it and cease it from getting again into the hitman’s arms. There’s additionally a really contrived plot level that requires Madelyn to placed on an article of clothes for no purpose after which one way or the other not discover that it goes lacking. It’s an concept vital to extend the stakes within the later half of the movie, however Madelyn’s ignorance of all the things merely made me really feel like she was horrible at her job.
Total, Flight Danger by no means absolutely takes off. There’s a subplot surrounding occasions occurring on the bottom, however the movie solely has us hear these occasions relatively than see it in order that we will keep within the claustrophobic airplane. It may be difficult to attach with these different occasions and characters because of this. This film had potential, nevertheless it will get held again by a variety of ineffective humor, makes an attempt at crowd-pleasing moments that don’t please crowds and Wahlberg being incapacitated for almost all of the runtime, repeating some variation of, “I’m gonna harm you, and I’ll get pleasure from it!”
SCORE: 5/10
As sondramedia’s overview coverage explains, a rating of 5 equates to “Mediocre.” The positives and negatives wind up negating one another, making it a wash.
Disclosure: sondramedia attended a press screening for our Flight Danger overview.
