A View From the Couch: Flight Risk Stumbles in Midair
Rating: 4/10
A lot of risks were taken in the production of this film, including the casting of Michelle Dockery and Topher Grace in two of the leading roles.
Upon its release Flight Risk was marketed to the movie-loving public as an action thriller, yet Dockery and Grace aren’t two industry professionals that you would associate with this genre of film.
So, before even pressing play it will certainly feel like audiences are venturing into the unknown with these two.
Can Dockery pull off an American accent?
Will that American accent be convincing enough for the role she is playing?
Will she have a strong enough script to help mask some of her shortcomings?
The good news is that there are now answers to all three of those questions, and the bad news is that the answers to the final two questions are not even remotely positive, whichever way you try to slice it.
So, the answer to the first question is a dubious YES, but a YES nonetheless.
Dockery plays U.S Marshall Madolyn Harris, providing a suitable segue into the answer to the second question, which is that the accent is not at all convincing, especially for the role she has been given.
The answer to the third question is that Dockery is not at all helped by the script for Flight Risk, written by Jared Rosenberg…but there will be a little more on that later.
At this point it is just worth noting that Director Mel Gibson has done very little to help Dockery’s cause in this film either, which is harmful to all the performances, really.
Perhaps the author of this review has misread the room, but it does not feel like there was meant to be a comedic spin on this movie.
The Flight Risk poster certainly does not suggest as much — if anything the picture of Mark Wahlberg, who plays hitman pilot Daryl Booth, on that poster is pretty menacing.
To that end, it does seem odd that an actor like Grace, who we most associate with romantic comedy and Sony’s Spiderman Universe, would feature in a movie that was meant to be tense and thrilling.
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Grace, who plays mob accountant Winston in this film, is a remarkably funny guy, and we all love him for it, but Flight Risk simply wasn’t the right movie for him.
If this movie was in any way meant to have a comedic element about it, then all three actors deserved a considerably better script, with a better plot, and significantly improved dialogue.
While we could have a go at the actors, which would also be justified, Flight Risk falls in the absence of those three pillars.
The script is mediocre, the dialogue is atrocious, and the plot is underdeveloped.
It is a tremendous pity that all three of these actors found themselves associated with this cinematic drivel, but them’s the breaks!
The film is only 91 minutes long, but they will quite possibly feel like the longest 91 minutes of your cinematic life — and all of this despite such a promising opening, and to a lesser degree ending.
In both instances, Winston appears at his most terrified or fearful, when in truth that terror should have featured much more prominently throughout the body of the film.
Yet all audiences seem to get for much of the film’s middle stretch is countless inferior attempts at humor.
But maybe I am just reading it wrong, and that when people are terrified they crack poor jokes.
That would be plausible if Madolyn didn’t also come across as less interesting or convincing for the duration of the middle stretch in this movie.
She makes a strong entrance to this film, when she tracks down Winston, and makes a strong exit when she coldly guns down a secondary hitman while he is trying to eliminate Winston at the back of an ambulance.
Perhaps it is also pretty telling that where Madolyn fares well in this film, she does very little talking too.
So, it feels conclusive that both the accent and script committed Dockery’s character to a slow and painful “demise”. The movie might even have fared a little better if the character was killed off altogether.
So, where Madolyn and Winston account for the start and end of this film, the middle stretch is really dominated by Pilot Daryl Booth, but even he spends most of it tied up.
Wahlberg, who has become accustomed to genuine action, was really given very little to work with here.
I have put a review together out of duty, to feel like my time wasn’t completely wasted watching Flight Risk, but sadly, despite all my love for Dockery, this is not a film I can recommend.
And as Forrest Gump would so eloquently put it, that’s all I have to say about that!
