TV • PAGE 27
THE BULLETIN • JANUARY 13 - 19, 2022
BY JAY BOBBIN
Denzel Washington’s strong work lifts ‘Flight’
If you’re about to travel on an airplane, this might not be the time to see “Flight.”
That’s not because the 2012 drama – which EPIX presents Monday, Jan. 17 and Tuesday, Jan. 18 – isn’t a good
movie. It’s extremely good indeed, but early on, it presents a crisis-in-flight scene that will stand your hair on
end. That’s no surprise, since “Flight” is directed by someone who had done such a scene before with great and
terrifying skill: Robert Zemeckis, who put Tom Hanks through a similar emergency with the crash that set “Cast
Away” in motion.
That’s just the beginning of “Flight,” which primarily is a character study that gives Denzel Washington a crack
at a somewhat different kind of role. He surely has played flawed people, but here, he tries to conceal the flaws as
the pilot who becomes a media hero after maneuvering his passenger jet out of seemingly certain doom during a
fierce storm.
Not all such heroes necessarily want to be that widely praised and looked at; even Capt. “Sully” Sullenberger
seemed a bit uncomfortable with all the justified praise after his “miracle landing” in New York. But Washington’s
character, the charismatic and somewhat arrogant “Whip” Whitaker, has another reason for not wanting the
spotlight shining so brightly on him. He had drugs and liquor in his system when he performed his heroics.
As many people as he saves in the near-disaster, he can’t save everyone, and the National Transportation Safety
Board comes calling to start the preliminaries of an
investigation. This is where a story such as “Flight” takes
a star as skilled as Washington. Once the scary special
effects and aerobatics that set the tale in motion are over,
the movie needs somewhere to go, and Washington
steers it there most ably.
That being said, the show isn’t his alone. Strong
impressions also are made by Don Cheadle as the
attorney who tries to help Whitaker through the
inquiry, and the ever-welcome John Goodman as a
cheery supplier of chemicals the pilot should not be
indulging in ... especially pre-flight. Kelly Reilly (lately
of the series “Yellowstone”) also makes her mark as
another addict, and Bruce Greenwood (“The Resident”)
is typically solid as a Whitaker friend who’s also a liaison
between the pilots’ union and the NTSB.
Ultimately and expectedly, though, “Flight” really
does take off on the strength of Washington. That’s
often a quiet strength, a firm indication of why the star
in charge here remains one of today’s best and most
Denzel Washington
in “Flight“
compelling performers.
Solution on page 18