Flight
Metascore
76 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 40 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 33 out of 40
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 40
  3. Negative: 0 out of 40
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  1. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    Oct 31, 2012
    100
    It is nearly flawless.
  2. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Phillips
    Nov 1, 2012
    100
    Flight is exciting - terrific, really - because in addition to the sophisticated storytelling techniques by which it keeps us hooked, it doesn't drag audience sympathies around by the nose, telling us what to think or how to judge the reckless, charismatic protagonist played by Denzel Washington.
  3. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    Oct 31, 2012
    100
    Flight opens with one of the most harrowing in-flight-disaster depictions of all time.
  4. indieWIRE
    Reviewed by: Eric Kohn
    Oct 14, 2012
    83
    Slickly paced and carried by mature performances, Flight embodies one of the finer strains of Hollywood filmmaking in recent years.
  5. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    Oct 29, 2012
    90
    No actor is as brilliant, or as cunning, as Denzel Washington at portraying superhuman coolness and the scary prospect of its loss.
  6. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    Nov 1, 2012
    88
    Flight is neither a simple story of heroism, nor one of a fallen hero. Things are more complex than that - and it is its complexities that make the film all the more rewarding an experience.
  7. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    Nov 1, 2012
    88
    You might bitch that Flight levels off after its shocking, soaring start. But you'd be missing the point of an exceptional entertainment that Zemeckis shades into something quietly devastating – not an addiction drama, but the deeper spectacle of a man facing the truth about himself.
  8. Slant Magazine
    Reviewed by: R. Kurt Osenlund
    Oct 17, 2012
    88
    A unique, audacious studio movie, kicking off as a star-driven spectacle before whittling itself down to a raw and riveting character study.
  9. St. Louis Post-Dispatch
    Reviewed by: Joe Williams
    Nov 1, 2012
    88
    We can quibble about the punitive punchline of John Gatins' script, but keeping complexity aloft for so long makes Flight a miraculous feat.
  10. Tampa Bay Times
    Reviewed by: Steve Persall
    Oct 31, 2012
    91
    Exhilarating drama, and a triumphant return to glory for both Zemeckis and Washington.
  11. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Keith Phipps
    Oct 31, 2012
    91
    Directing his first live-action film since 2000's "Cast Away," Robert Zemeckis paces it brilliantly, slowly ramping up the energy from hungover lethargy to coke-fueled confidence, while creating undercurrents of dread as Washington hits his stride.
  12. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Todd McCarthy
    Oct 14, 2012
    90
    This absorbing drama provides Denzel Washington with one of his meatiest, most complex roles, and he flies with it.
  13. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Manohla Dargis
    Nov 1, 2012
    90
    Flight is freakishly real; it's one of those big-screen nightmares that will inspire fear-of-flying moviegoers to run home and Google car rental deals and Greyhound schedules.
  14. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Corliss
    Oct 17, 2012
    90
    A canny director and a top star decided to dig deep to find the core of a compromised hero. And when they reach that center of gravity, Flight soars.

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
7.2 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 234 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 66 out of 85
  2. Mixed: 11 out of 85
  3. Negative: 8 out of 85
  1. jelon
    2
    Flight had a potential to be a compelling psychological and moral drama but squandered all that it built up in the last 30 minutes by pandering to the worst Hollywood stereotypes of preachy sentimental commercialism. I wanted to throw up when Denzel sanctimoniously decides to go all repentant at the hearing, and then makes his schmaltzy confession to fellow inmates. When his son (with whom he established no relationship in the film) showed with a school assignment, I was ready to strangle Zemeckis, Denzel, and especially the scriptwriter for the most saccharine sappy weepy sell out. I really don't know how any intelligent viewer could have related to that concluding half hour of the film and I can't recall any recent film that undermined itself so irredeemably. What a waste of money and talent, especially Denzel's. The recovering drug junkie's role was woefully underwritten, and only Goodman in his walk-on role can safely dissociate himself from the rest of the film. The bright spots were the secondary characters, especially the black stewardess who should have had more screen time and the dying cancer guy in the hospital. When I say the film had potential, just imagine a complex, ambiguous film where Denzel lies at the hearing (without the psychologically and dramatically ridiculous drunken binge the night before), the corporations are punished (as they should for unsafe aircrafts), Denzel retires with a nice severance package that gives him time to first realize that without cocaine he would have not saved the plane and then brings him out of the cycle of self-abuse. He moves to Jamaica with his white girlfriend. She does photography, he just chills, and in the last scene, we see them listening to raggae and smoking weed, a great pitch for legalizing marijuana.… Full Review »
  2. TVJerry
    5
    From the previews this looks like the nail-biting experience of a plane crash. That's pretty true
  3. NedRyerson1
    7
    Flight is a very interesting movie because of the plot that presents; a pilot landed a plane that was falling in flames and save most of the people on it, but a blood test indicated that he was with a considerable percentage of alcohol in his blood. In this point the protagonist start living in a big contradiction, because he is a national hero, but also an alcoholic. That is why the story moves between two worlds, in one he is a questioned pilot trying to defend his image; and in the other one he is immerse in drugs and liquor failing to acknowledge his problem. This theme of a protagonist facing to worlds is recurrent in the filmography of Robert Zemeckis, for example past versus future in Back to the Future; expectations about the world versus real world in Forrest Gump; and life in the island versus life in the civilization in Cast Away. In the same way of these mentioned pictures, the protagonist of Flight will enter in a rediscovery of himself, to finally become a new person, with no possibilities of returning to what he was before. Despite that the film is slow, Denzel Washington is great and Zemeckis did it again.… Full Review »
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