My advice would be to watch the first half of this film, which is generally original and captivating. When it gets about an hour in, you will begin to notice some overt cliche thrown in casually. By the end of the film, you will walk out feeling appalled that you have once again been tricked into watching a predictable and non-sensical hollywood plotline tailored for the un-thinking audience. Damn you Hollywood producers for relying on formula and ill conceived moral banality to ruin yet another film that had great potential.… Expand

An art film about drinking pretending to be a Hollywood film about an airplane crash. If you want an art film about being self destructive and using drinking as the vehicle and being able to guess the ending just after the crash than this is your film. It is filmmaking 101.

I managed to watch half of the movie, and by then I knew what the movie was about. But I still felt like the director was going to pull something great and save the movie. But the whole movie was about a drunk who at the end, confesss. That he does have a drinking problem. Yup over 2 hours of boredom.

Middle class pap, trite, and hackneyed. Basically about one reprehensible guy who struggles with his addictions. If you would like to see Denzel drinking, smoking, and snorting without any larger message then this is the movie for you. Basically a movie devoid of meaning except for a nice, safe upbeat end which, in my mind, is the hallmark of something below even a B-movie.

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.… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. As long as you go into it accepting that airplanes and piloting are a plot devise, and you want a tale of alcoholism and the struggle of addiction as the actual theme then it may be enjoyable. The trailer is more entertaining than the movie.… Expand

See another movie. Don't waste your time here. It is a drama about a drunk.

This movie is no more about a "Flight" than the movie "Animal House" is about animals. The 1st 30 minutes or so are compelling. A pilot, presumably a party animal, pilots a jet with mechanical problems to an unlikely landing, saving countless lives. However, that is only the special effects lead-in to the latter half of the movie - almost 90 minutes, and the TRUE plot - a despicable journey with an alcoholic and his un-entertaining habits, drug use, drinking to excess, lies, more lies, and boring conversations that are at times entirely stereotypical. Denzel Washington does NOT create a new character for himself here. Don Cheadle plays the exact same character he plays in every other movie - the stoic. The movie drags on endlessly and becomes almost unbearable at times. See another movie. Don't waste your time here. It is a drama about a drunk.… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. whatever else may be wrong with this film it certainly has nothing to do with Denzel Washington's committed and convincing portrayal of an alcoholic pilot under suspicion for negligence after the aircraft he was piloting crash lands killing six people on board. The crash sequence is extremely well handled wringing out maximum tension. Once grounded, though, the screenplay introduces us to sundry supporting characters that tend to make the story seem very disjointed. Each scene seems to feel like a tiny vignette filling in the background detail of his life which holds little real interest.. The Introduction of drug user Kelly Reilly also doesn't really add the necessary spark. In fact her main purpose is to show that her road to recovery is a lot quicker than the path Denzel's character chooses. The final outcome is somewhat predictable, but before the cloying reunion scenes with the estranged son, there is a really good key scene where bye Denzel is interrogated by a wonderfully understated Melissa Leo. Here the film really packs a punch, but for most of it's excesive running time Flight just doesn't take off.… Expand

I went to a lot of trouble to register so I could write a review for this movie. Although the term 'Movie' implies 'Moving Picture' This one moves along quite well for 12 ish minutes, And then staying awake becomes problematic. Without spoiling it, I can tell you it turns to **** BORING **** YOU WOULDNT BELIEVE HOW NOTHING HAPPENS. I was waiting for ghosts, secret agents,men in black, hell, even ALIENS! SOMETHING!? It Reels you in and you think; 50 minutes in ;Any minute now this film is gonna peel out tyres smoking, and;. . NOTHING!! Just a boring innacurate like my spelling take on alcoholism, and some directionless mumbo jumbo .
As we say on the other side of the pond, its complete Pants! ( or utter B@LL*X after 9.45 p.m.)
I have two nephews not yet ten yrs old and they would nod off to this. ITS
RUBBISH !
YAWNN… Collapse

Though a huge fan of Denzel Washington, I simply never cared about this character or the story in which he found himself. Though there are many technically brilliant things about the film (the plane crash in the beginning is stunning) and the actors and the director fully deliver, but the story they are telling ultimately, does not have a point large enough to justify the darkness of tone. Hope to see them all again in something more worthy of their efforts.… Expand

After dabbling in the world of creepy pseudo-realistic motion capture with Beowulf, The Polar Express and A Christmas Carol, Robert Zemeckis returns to the land of the living with the tonally muddled, Oscar-ripe drab-drama Flight.

Read the full review here:
http://theframeloop.com/2013/01/30/reviewflight/