{"id":10871,"date":"2025-01-25T23:19:37","date_gmt":"2025-01-26T04:19:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=10871"},"modified":"2025-02-17T18:14:51","modified_gmt":"2025-02-17T23:14:51","slug":"flight-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/01\/25\/flight-risk\/","title":{"rendered":"Flight Risk"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Flight Risk<\/strong> (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lionsgate\/Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 91 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence and language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Mel Gibson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jared Rosenberg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Antonio Pinto\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Johnny Derango\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 24, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Michelle Dockery, Topher Grace, Leah Remini, Monib Abhat.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0I have a feeling that action fans twenty years from now will look at Flight Risk<\/strong> with the same nostalgia as we look at 90s actioners like Passenger 57 and Executive Decision. Maybe. There are a few differences. It\u2019s set on a small private plane with only the pilot and two passengers on board. It unfolds in real time. Also, it lacks a strong action hero like Wesley Snipes and Kurt Russell. Instead, we get Michelle Dockery who looks lost being so far away from Downton Abbey. She\u2019s easily eclipsed by the villain, played by Mark Wahlberg in a deliciously hammy performance that simply calls for a generous slathering of spicy brown mustard.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The plot is simplicity itself. Madelyn Harris (Dockery), a U.S. Marshal back in the field for the first time after botching an assignment, is escorting a government witness (Grace, BlacKkKlansman) to Anchorage where he will be flown to New York to testify against a mob boss. They can\u2019t fly commercial for obvious reasons so they\u2019re traveling by private plane. It\u2019s the only way to keep the witness, an accountant with a lot of incriminating information, safe from harm. That\u2019s the idea anyway.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The pilot, a talkative good ol\u2019 boy who introduces himself as Daryl Booth (Wahlberg), turns out to be the threat they were trying to avoid. He\u2019s a hired assassin sent to kill the witness and the agent somewhere in the Alaskan mountains. Much to his chagrin, Harris overpowers him and knocks him unconscious. It\u2019s as much as a problem as it is a solution. With their pilot incapacitated, who\u2019s going to fly the plane? Neither one of them knows how. Not only that, they\u2019re low on fuel and don\u2019t know where they are. \u00a0It\u2019s up to Harris to take control of the situation and get them to their destination alive.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I shouldn\u2019t have liked Flight Risk<\/strong> as much as I did. It\u2019s dumb. To be fair, it\u2019s not as dumb as the average Michael Bay noisefest, but it definitely rests in the shallow end of the IQ pool. The acting is all over the map. The three cast members are never on the same page. It\u2019s like they\u2019re making different movies. Grace plays a character that seems to be channeling Charles Grodin from Midnight Run except he\u2019s not even a tenth as funny. He\u2019s whiny and annoying. Dockery is clearly out of her element even though she\u2019s not new to the genre. She was in the Liam Neeson vehicle Non-Stop (which also took place on a plane). She doesn\u2019t make a believable heroine.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Let\u2019s talk about Wahlberg now. He\u2019s the best thing in Flight Risk<\/strong>. His character is completely bonkers starting with the surname Booth. Even if the trailer didn\u2019t give it away (which it does), that name would be a definite tip-off that he\u2019s the bad guy. If you know your history, you know what I\u2019m talking about. Wahlberg is really into it. Instead of wearing a bald cap, he partially shaved his head each day for the role. He affects a cartoonish Southern drawl which increases the OTT levels. It\u2019s too bad he\u2019s unconscious for most of the film. It sputters and jerks a lot while he\u2019s down. His two co-stars can\u2019t carry the load alone.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The most shocking thing about Flight Risk <\/strong>is that it\u2019s directed by Mel Gibson. It feels like a big step down for the Oscar-winning director of the historical epic Braveheart. His other credits include The Passion of the Christ, Apocalypto and Hacksaw Ridge. I wonder what drew the one-time A-lister to what\u2019s essentially a B-movie. Mel does a serviceable job with the material delivering a lean action-thriller that doesn\u2019t overstay its welcome at a scant 91 minutes. It helps that newbie writer Jared Rosenberg trims the fat from his screenplay. In this case, the fat includes character development. We\u2019re told no more about the characters than we need to know. We\u2019re eventually told what happened on Harris\u2019 last assignment and how it affected her career. We\u2019re told that the witness has a mother he\u2019s worried about. We\u2019re told nothing about Booth except that he\u2019s insane and likes New Order. Basically, we\u2019re talking about stock characters here.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Flight Risk<\/strong> has a few decent action scenes and a finale that\u2019s as ludicrous as it is abrupt. Speaking of ludicrous, I don\u2019t even know what to say about the relationship that quickly develops between Harris and the pilot giving her instructions over the phone. He starts flirting with her from the word \u201chello\u201d. She accepts his invitation for drinks after she lands the plane, if<\/em> she lands the plane (come on, we know there\u2019s no if<\/em> about it!). You see, I told you Flight Risk<\/strong> is dumb!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Flight Risk<\/strong> is junk more or less. It\u2019s predictable all the way through. It doesn\u2019t bring anything new to the table. I can see why the studio bumped its release date to January. If they want it to be a success, it\u2019ll have to be by default. It doesn\u2019t have a hell of a lot of competition this weekend other than the Steven Soderbergh ghost story Presence and the expansion of the three-and-a-half hour opus The Brutalist. Yeah, it\u2019ll probably make a few bucks this weekend, but that\u2019s it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Flight Risk<\/strong> is a bumpy ride, but I liked it. And I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll like it even more when I regularly revisit it twenty years from now (if I\u2019m still here).\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Flight Risk (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lionsgate\/Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 91 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence and language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Mel Gibson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jared Rosenberg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Antonio Pinto\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Johnny Derango\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 24, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Michelle Dockery, Topher Grace, Leah Remini, Monib Abhat. Rating: *** \u00a0I have a feeling that action fans twenty years from now will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10881,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action-adventure"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Flight-Risk-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10871"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10882,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10871\/revisions\/10882"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}