Cast: Look, Denzel is the only one that matters in this movie. There's a lot of actors in this (John Goodman, Nadine Velazquez, Bruce Greenwood, Don Cheadle, to name a few), but none of them were well served. This was a showcase for Denzel Washington, and it's an interesting shortcoming of the awards system that he wins a best actor Oscar for Training Day but stands no chance of winning with this much better performance. Seriously, he is very good in this. My problem is that the cast is too large to support. Everyone else felt like someone temporarily in his story and I question is that was the intent going in. I would like to say, Kelly Reilly was certainly the next best thing in this, after Denzel. Also, I'd like to give a shout out to Tamara Tunie of Law & Order fame. She was solid.
Plot: This ended up being a much different movie than I expected, even with the warning that it isn't what the advertisements pegged it as. This movie is about an alcoholic. The fact that he made an impossible crash landing is secondary, if not tertiary. As I mention above, this movie is really similar to The Wrestler in that it follows a character who can't help himself. He has a problem and he makes the wrong decision every step of the way, and it is often handle with such levity that I wonder what message they are even trying to get across. In the end, there's some really gripping stuff with the crash landing in the beginning and the rest of the movie is spent showing you what a mess Denzel is without adding much to it. For me, I have no sympathy for a character who can't help himself. If I'm given no reason to root for him, I won't. I realize that that's the point to this movie. That doesn't mean I have to like it.
Elephant in the Room: If he landed the plane with minimal casualties but was drunk at the time, is that still okay? That's a great question to ask.Several times, the movie asks that question but it never looks to address the answer. In that way, I felt cheated. It spends so much time tearing the character apart, that it doesn't bother to answer the question central to the movie. While I think there's a way to do this that turns on the audience to ask their opinion, this was not made to do that.
To Sum Things Up:
I thought this was a damn intriguing idea for a movie. Everyone in this movie removed all trace of vanity to play their parts and I applaud them for that. In the end, I found this to be all warm-up and never putting on the show it promised. This was so devoid of conviction that I left the theater really disappointed. It was made well enough, that I wouldn't recommend against it, but it certainly left me wanting more in all the wrong ways.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
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