Flight, or how I stopped worrying and learned to love 12 Step Programs

**½

The FAA and the NTSB took 10 pilots, placed them in simulators, recreated the events that led to this plane falling out of the sky. Do you know how many of them were able to safely land the planes? Not one. Every pilot crashed the aircraft, killed everybody on board. You were the only one who could do it!

Denzel Washington is Whip Whitaker in FLIGHT, from Paramount Pictures, © 2012

That sounds like something from an amazingly exciting movie. Unfortunately this has an amazing scene, with twists and turns and is full of excitement, but this is not an exciting movie. Robert Zemeckis—Forest Gump—got great performances from everyone on that plane. Denzel Washington’s drunken, coke-fueled pilot Whip Whitaker steals the show as he turns the plane upside down to halt its free fall before crash landing it in a field, saving almost the entire flight of people. Whether or not Whip should be held accountable is a great question. Fact 1. Whip was drunk. Fact 2. Whip was high on coke. Fact 3. Mechanical failure caused the crash. Fact 4. Whip, using his amazing set of skills, saved most of the people on the flight. Fact 5. Six people died. Fact 6. Whip has an extremely high tolerance for alcohol and cocaine. Should Whip’s amazing deed make up for the violation, both moral and legal, of flying planes while under the influence of drugs. In fact, the way the movie presents him, his high functioning seems to make his alcoholism seem not so bad.

For that synopsis, you are welcome. Now you, review reader, need not see this bloated, star-filled infomercial for Alcoholics Anonymous. Zemeckis’ movie would have been panned by Mel Gibson haters and adored by Christians had Mr. Anti-Semitism made this. In Flight enablers are everywhere, but fortunately a beautifully trashy Kelly Reilly—Mrs Henderson Presents—shows up to Mary her Magdalene for Whip. In the beginning we see her story, even as the plane flies upside down over head. This evoked a potential Crash or Babel crisscross of stories and themes. Fortunately Zemeckis, and cheese screenwriter John Gatins—Real Steel, Coach Carter, did not go in that direction, since the message would have probably gotten even more heavy handed and deprived me of the pleasure of watching Denzel Washington bring Whip to life.

Returning to the glorification of AA, it appears throughout media and those who go to the meetings are held up as noble. Seeking to better yourself and to get rid of your addictions is a positive thing, clearly. However, after someone with a history of overeating gets lap band surgery, no one seeks him out to provide the surgery to others. They go see a damn doctor. Here and Here are the articles that led me to question the effectiveness of AA. I include this in my review because addictions kill people every day and the wrong approaches to treating them lead to fatal relapses, suicides when addicts blame themselves, and crimes to support these addictions. Stop reading if you do not want to know the end of the movie.

So when Whip winds up in prison, speaking at an AA meeting, this is presented as a positive. Going to prison was much better than seeing a psychologist! He talks about how lying before the NTSB got him to his bottom. He mentions how he wrote letters to the families of the six people whom he failed to save with his heroic plane landing, and sought their forgiveness. APOLOGIZED FOR WHAT!? HIS STATE DID NOT CAUSE THE CRASH! He saved 96 lives, including his own, but in this 12 Step context he had to apologize. Even Denzel’s serious, impassioned face cannot disguise how this craps out for the sake of some message that screws up the wonderful premise I described above. If you want to see a good movie about dealing with morally ambiguous choices and trying to become a better person watch Win Win, not this Zemeckis crap.