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Generally favorable reviews - based on 40 Critics What's this?

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Generally favorable reviews- based on 234 Ratings

  • Starring: Bruce Greenwood, Denzel Washington, Nadine Velazquez
  • Summary: Flight tells the redemption story of Whip, a commercial airline pilot who pulls off a heroic feat of flying in a damaged plane, saving 98 lives on a flight carrying 106 people. While the world begs to embrace him as a true American Hero, the everyman struggles with this label as he is forced to hold up to the scrutiny of an investigation that brings into question his behavior the night before the doomed flight. (Paramount Pictures) Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 33 out of 40
  2. Negative: 0 out of 40
  1. 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.
  2. Reviewed by: David Denby
    Nov 7, 2012
    80
    We get tired of watching Whip fail, and we're caught between dismayed pity and a longing to see him punished. Only a great actor could have pulled off this balancing act. [12 Nov. 2012, p.94]
  3. Reviewed by: Chris Hewitt
    Jan 28, 2013
    80
    A welcome return to live-action filmmaking for Zemeckis, who hasn't lost his knack for a brilliant shot or for extracting great performances. It may not exactly be a first-class experience throughout, but there's nothing wrong with premium economy.
  4. Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    Nov 1, 2012
    60
    A solid, often engrossing film that doesn't engage us overall the way Denzel Washington's work does.

See all 40 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 66 out of 85
  2. Negative: 8 out of 85
  1. 10
    As the movie begins you think you know where it is headed, but you (the audience member ) only really have a general sense of direction and you quickly learn that this screen play and director Robert Zemeckis have a much more involved journey planned. This film exfoliates like an onion to reveal much more of a surprise than you could have anticipated. For once the trailer isn't the best part and it doesn't reveal "all of the good parts." There are a number of great performances by both known veteran actors like Denzel Washington and a bunch of lesser known actors as well. This movie is packed with twist for certain, but they aren't the kind of supernatural twist that are typically overloaded with a generous helping of hyperbole, not this movie is packed with realistic moments that people will be able to identify with. There will most certainly be some Oscar nominations from this film, including perhaps best screen play, best supporting actor and may be best director. Go see this film! Expand
  2. A very good drama about facing who we are, taking responsibility, and change to the right direction. Mr. Denzel Washington's acting was great. A little bit slow, but worth watching im my opinion. Expand
  3. 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. Expand
  4. 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. Expand

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