BY ROGER EBERT
After opening with one of the most terrifying flying scenes I’ve witnessed, in which an airplane is saved by being flown upside down, Robert Zemeckis’ “Flight” segues into a brave and tortured performance by Denzel Washington — one of his very best. Not often does a movie character make such a harrowing personal journey that keeps us in deep sympathy all of the way.
Washington plays Whip Whitaker, a veteran commercial airlines pilot who over the years has built up a shaky tolerance for quantities of alcohol and cocaine that would be lethal for most people. At the film opens, he’s finishing an all-night party with a friendly flight attendant named Katerina (Nadine Velazquez) and jolts himself back into action with two lines of cocaine. His co-pilot (Brian Geraghty) eyes him suspiciously, but Whip projects poise and authority from behind his dark aviator glasses. Read More
