"I'm gonna land this plane!!!" As in Guy Ritchie's The Gentlemen (2019), Michelle Dockery does all kinds of things that Downton's Lady Mary never got to do in the new Mel Gibson-directed Flight Risk. The mere sight of Gibson's name on the film seems to have been enough to send the majority of critics off the deep end, with the unreliable Mark Kermode deeming it "one of the worst films I've ever seen" (a bit much for the man who gave Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again [2018] 5 stars).
Viewed without such prejudice, though, Flight Risk emerges as a knowingly hokey and perfectly enjoyable comedy-thriller that feels a lot like a 1980s/90s throwback. It's an unabashed airborne popcorn movie that lands somewhere between Narrow Margin (1952/1990) and Passenger 57 (1992).
Dockery plays a US Marshal tasked with transporting a witness (Topher Grace) to trial and finding out that the pilot (Mark Wahlberg) taking the pair over the Alaskan wilderness is not all he seems to be. The film is basically a three-hander set on the tiny plane, and Gibson keeps the fun and tension quotients high as the trio play cat-and-mouse in the space.
Jared Rosenberg's quip-strewn script is only serviceable but the film is pleasingly distilled, and gains a lot from its slightly berserk casting choices. Topher Grace starts out doing comedy schtick as the chatty prisoner/witness but notably deepens the character later on. Wahlberg snarls and gurns with aplomb, but though his face is on the poster it's Dockery who's the star here and she's wonderfully committed, bringing surprising variety to the role whether kicking ass, responding to flirtatious overtures, or revealing what's actually at stake for the character in this scenario. What happened to the Gibson who had the sensitivity to make The Man Without a Face back in 1993 is quite another story, but Flight Risk remains a smashingly silly and fun ride.
Flight Risk in in cinemas now.
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