Movie Review: Flight Risk

By John Corrado

Flight Risk is the new movie directed by Mel Gibson. It’s the actor-turned-filmmaker’s first since the World War II drama Hacksaw Ridge in 2016, which provided a stunning Hollywood comeback for him when he received a Best Director Oscar nomination.

Gibson’s latest is also his most constrained and straight-forward directorial effort yet; mostly unfolding on a small plane with only three people, Flight Risk is a departure from his more elaborate, historical productions like Apocalypto, The Passion of the Christ and the Oscar-winning Braveheart.

The result is a mostly enjoyable B-movie thriller, that works well enough, largely because it has no real pretences of being anything more. This is Gibson at his most economical, making the most out of a single location and a trio of actors (the film in some ways feels like a byproduct of both the pandemic and the writers and actors strikes).

The film follows Madelyn Harris (Michelle Dockery), a United States Air Marshal who is put in charge of transporting fugitive informant Winston (Topher Grace) to testify in court. After apprehending him in Alaska, Madelyn and Winston board a small cargo plane piloted by Daryl Booth (Mark Wahlberg) to fly them out of the wilderness, but things begin to go awry. That’s the basic setup. From here, Flight Risk basically unfolds in real time, up in the air.

It’s a pretty solid premise for a chamber piece thriller, and the execution is adequate enough for it to remain mostly entertaining across a brisk ninety minutes. Gibson is a solid director when it comes to building suspense, and the real time conceit is one of the best things going for Flight Risk. This ticking clock element means the film is never really boring, even as some of its plot machinations become borderline ridiculous.

Wahlberg and Grace are hamming it up, and the cheesy banter suggests the film is trying to have some fun with the premise, even if the humour doesn’t always land. This leads to a bit of an odd tone at times; the amount of creative variations that screenwriter Jared Rosenberg comes up with for characters to reference soiling their pants under stress is almost impressive. Almost. The film is also held back by some spotty CGI (including a rather fake-looking moose in the opening scene), that gives the whole thing a lower budget feel.

It could be said that Flight Risk feels like a streaming movie, but the fact that it is being given a January theatrical release by Lionsgate is almost refreshing; this feels like an old school January movie, the type that might have starred Liam Neeson a decade or so ago. This is a film that is designed purely to offer some popcorn thrills in the moment, hopefully shared with a crowd. It’s a B-movie through and through, but largely scrapes by because it knows it is one.

Film Rating: ★★½ (out of 4)