‘Flight Risk’ Review
Stars: Michelle Dockery, Topher Grace, Mark Wahlberg, Leah Remini, Paul Ben-Victor | Written by Jared Rosenberg | Directed by Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson returns to the director’s chair for the impressively economical single-location thriller Flight Risk. It’s undeniably trashy, thanks to an egregiously over-the-top performance by top-billed Mark Wahlberg, but it’s also surprisingly enjoyable.
In fairness, it’s not entirely a single-location thriller, as the film starts with fugitive mob accountant Winston (Topher Grace) being apprehended in his remote Alaska motel hide-out by Air Marshal Madolyn (Michelle Dockery), and offered a deal to testify against his boss in an ongoing trial. Winston takes the deal, and Madolyn charters a three-seater plane to fly him to New York, but her plan hits a snag when the pilot, Daryl (Mark Wahlberg) turns out to be a hired killer with orders to kill them both.
Given the fact that almost the entire of Flight Risk takes place within the aircraft, Gibson does a commendable job of maintaining tension throughout, and the pacing never flags, even when Wahlberg’s character inevitably has to spend a fair amount screentime being incapacitated in some way. In a similar way, the location limits the action, but the various fight sequences are nicely staged, with a real sense of urgency.
On top of that, the script, by Jared Rosenberg, weaves in enough twists and turns to keep the in-flight entertainment going. That said, it does overstretch itself a little bit – for example, it’s a little ridiculous, not to say downright inappropriate that one of the people Madolyn calls for help ends up playfully flirting with her. As a result, it feels a bit like a studio note insisting on a love interest, and it fails to convince.
As for the performances, Michelle Dockery is terrific in what is effectively the lead role (ignore the Wahlberg-heavy marketing), comfortably nailing an American accent and proving that she has action chops to boot – she’s clearly been taking lessons from Downton Abbey co-star Dan Stevens when it comes to putting the boot into typecasting and trying to move away from Lady Mary-type roles (see also Please Don’t Feed the Children).
By contrast, Topher Grace sticks closely to his established screen persona, delivering exactly the sort of nervy wisecrack-heavy performance you’d expect. However, it works a treat, and he has surprisingly decent screen chemistry with Dockery.
As for Wahlberg, he comes perilously close to derailing the film, because his performance is so wildly over-the-top that is becomes irritating, to the point where you’re quite glad when he gets knocked out for a bit. He’s already annoying enough, even before he starts aggressively hitting on both Dockery and Grace’s characters, while also displaying characteristics that are more in common with a movie psychopath than a supposedly professional hitman.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the make-up department have saddled Wahlberg with the weirdest bald-head make-up imaginable, a prosthetic that’s so awful that it actively takes you out of Flight Risk whenever you’re forced to look at it for more than a second or two.
In short, Flight Risk is a perfectly passable piece of switch-off-your-brain Friday night entertainment, but it works in spite of Wahlberg’s performance, rather than because of it. On that note, the film is worth seeing just for a particular choice it makes in the final act. Expect whooping and cheering from the multiplex crowd.
*** 3/5
Flight Risk is in cinemas now.
