James Berardinelli review - ** out of ****

https://www.reelviews.net/reelviews/flight-risk

Flight Risk represents Mel Gibson’s seventh outing as a director and it’s easily his worst. Best-known for the Oscar-winning Braveheart, Gibson shows that his strengths behind the camera don’t extend to Hitchcockian thrillers, although the limp screenplay credited to Jared Rosenberg doesn’t do him any favors. At best, Gibson’s direction could be considered pedestrian. He fails to generate much tension prior to the climax and the characters never do enough to engage the viewer. The protagonists are bland and the villain lacks charisma.

A majority of the story plays out in near-real time aboard a private jet flying in the not-so-friendly skies above the snowy, mountainous wilds of Alaska. There are two passengers: U.S. Marshal Madelyn Harris (Michelle Dockery) and the man she is transporting, informant Winston (Topher Grace). The pilot is Daryl Booth (Mark Wahlberg), who we quickly learn isn’t whom he seems to be. In fact, he is a hitman hired by a mobster to get rid of Winston (and presumably Madelyn as well). Following a struggle, an unconscious Daryl ends up restrained in the back while Madelyn and Winston face their most obvious problem: there’s no one to fly the plane.

Perhaps the most disappointing thing about Flight Risk is that it assembles a variety of elements that would seem to provide the foundation for a riveting cat-and-mouse psychological thriller – a limited number of characters trapped in a confined space with the clock ticking and each trying to push the others’ buttons – and does too little with them. These circumstances demand a deftness of writing that isn’t evident. Because the interaction among the principal characters isn’t sufficiently suspenseful, the movie includes a subplot about an obligatory law enforcement mole that plays out entirely through voice communications between the cockpit and the ground.

Despite having a skinny running time of 90 minutes, Flight Risk has trouble building momentum and, as a result, it often drags. The story contains all the expected beats, none of which are in the least bit surprising. The plane almost crashes into a mountain, Daryl frees himself from his bonds and nearly kills the others, and there are complications when it comes to landing. The movie is unable to scare up even a minor surprise or two to energize things. I kept waiting for one of the three characters to deliver a bombshell but none is forthcoming. Once we figure out that Daryl is up to no good (which happens quickly…even more quickly for anyone who has seen the trailer), Flight Risk has nothing else up its sleeve.

The best performance comes from Michelle Dockery, whose Madelyn does her best to maintain her cool in impossible circumstances. Topher Grace is a little too high-strung and whiny to be anything more than annoying. The real disappointment is Mark Wahlberg (bearing an uncanny resemblance to an unhinged Tim Conway once his toupe comes off), whose halfhearted approach to Daryl makes him too tame to enjoyably chew the scenery and too over-the-top to be truly menacing. As for the voices we hear coming from the ground…I kept wondering if one of those was Gibson but, at least judging by the end credits, it’s apparently not (apologies to Paul Ben-Victor).

The storyline is littered with contrivances that might have been overlooked (in true refrigerator movie fashion) had the narrative maintained a reasonable level of tension but become blatantly obvious when it sputters like this. One of the most annoying is how Daryl is able to meticulously saw through the leather strap restraining him while the other two don’t spare him more than a passing glance. That’s just an example, though…there are plenty of others – enough to provide the framework for a drinking game.

Flight Risk has all the earmarks of a “January movie” – a production made by a recognized director that has lost the faith of the distributor, a low-key marketing campaign, and a general lack of interest on the part of the public. Those signs augur something that is at best disappointing and at worst unwatchable. Flight Risk doesn’t quite fall in the latter category but those hoping for 90 minutes of white-knuckle excitement will wish they had waited until something better came along.