U.S. Marshal Madolyn Harris is back in the field again after a couple years chained behind a desk. She’s loath to share any reasons for that assignment, but it’s safe to say that something went terribly wrong on her last case. Now that she has a second chance at field work, she doesn’t want to mess it up.
Fortunately, her current job is pretty simple. She’s tracked a weaselly little embezzler (who stole money from the mob, no less) down to his crusty hiding spot somewhere in Alaska. His name is Winston. And he’s about as threatening as that name would suggest.
Now, all she has to do is transport this nervous little dude from Nowhere Alaska to some city with an actual courthouse. There he’ll become the government’s witness against a mob boss and his connections.
Easy-peasy.
In fact, as Madolyn and Winston climb into the small cockpit of a single-prop airplane that will fly them to Anchorage, then Seattle, the marshal is feeling fairly good about the whole case. (She still takes time to securely cuff and chain Winston to his seat. But frankly, he seems more apt to wet himself than to cause any trouble.)
Yep, it looks like her first assignment back in the field will go off without a hitch. In 90 minutes, Madolyn will be getting pats on the back from other marshals and the offer of a drink or two.
Except … the good-old-boy pilot, who just climbed into the plane, isn’t exactly who he appears to be. He may be setting his instruments, chomping his gum and drawling out stories of snowy mountain flights and moose hunts that went astray, but there’s something else on his mind.
You see, the mob has connections.
Madolyn has her flaws, and she’s made deadly mistakes in her past. (When confronted, she readily regrets those choices.) In light of those things, she sincerely wants to keep Winston alive and repeatedly puts her own life in jeopardy for his sake.
Eventually, Winston returns the favor, fighting to save Madolyn. He admits that he had plenty of opportunities in life, but he chose the easy path: He used his smarts to pursue crime and money. He apologizes for his wrongdoing. And Winston begs Madolyn to visit his elderly mother and tell her that her son did “one good thing.”
None.
Crude sexual commentary flows repeatedly in Flight Risk.
Once the pilot is revealed to be a hitman, he tries to shake Winston and Madolyn with crude and nasty threats. He implies that he will sexually abuse both of them and peeks down Madolyn’s shirt while sharing one threat. He also talks about his own gay sexual encounters while in prison and tells Winston how much he’ll enjoy it himself (while making physical movements that illustrate his point). And when Madolyn fights back against the pilot, the man talks of his sexual excitement because of the punishment she delivers.
Before that point, Winston jokes about the “sexual tension” between himself and Madolyn. He also complains about being cuffed, face-down, on a hotel’s “crusty” bedspread. Etc.
Madolyn talks with a pilot via a radio call, and he repeatedly flirts with her.
Early on, Madolyn notices blood on the pilot’s neck and shirt, which leads to her realizing his deception. But once the truth comes out, the violence does as well. People are beaten bloody; they’re tied up by stout security ties and strangled with straps; someone is zapped repeatedly with a taser gun (to the point of leaving flesh seared and smoking); a man is shot with a flare gun; and several people are slashed and/or impaled by a small knife.
In fact, in that latter case, one victim’s knife wounds are severe enough to leave him on the verge of bleeding out—blood seeping into bandages, clothes and smearing on helpers. Two different people are also shot: One person is shot in the leg and torso. Another is shot in the head, splattering gore across a wall. Someone falls out of a crashing plane and is then hit by a truck.
We hear about an individual who burns to death while cuffed in place. And we also hear of another innocent who is intentionally killed via a car crash. And it’s reported that a dead victim was tortured—losing teeth and eyes in the process. Someone breaks his own thumb to bloodily squeeze his hand out of hand cuffs.
A plane veers through several near crashes; it skims a snowy mass on a mountaintop but stays aloft.
The dialogue in Flight Risk is riddled with some 35 f-words and 20 s-words along with two or three uses each of “a–,” “h—,” “d–n” and “b–ch.” God’s and Jesus’ names are misused a total of 11 times (the former paired with “d–n” three times).
Someone is badly wounded and given a shot of morphine. People talk about sharing drinks on a potential date. The pilot offers Madolyn some kind of nicotine product (though we don’t actually see the package).
We find out that a government official has been receiving payments from the mob. Jokes are made about people befouling themselves during frightening moments.
Mel Gibson is back in the directorial pilot’s seat with Flight Risk, a predominantly one-location thriller. And since some 95% of the tale takes place in a small prop plane’s cockpit, Gibson and his trio of actors, Michelle Dockery, Mark Wahlberg and Topher Grace, keep the movie’s action surprisingly taut and edgy.
None of them are able, however, to keep the script from riddling the whole project with problems. And even if you’re willing to look past the screenplay’s logic gaps and forgive the beat-stab-sear bloody bits, you’ll still be strapped in with 90 minutes of foul language and creepy sexual inuendo.
Discerning cinematic fliers will find that stuff more irritating than a crying baby. There’s an edgy thriller packed in this 90-minute plane flight pic. But Flight Risk is strapped in with a whole lot of caustic cargo, too.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
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