FLIGHT RISK: Wahlberg’s Villainous Turn Can’t Stick The Landing

Flight Risk. A movie thrown into theatres during the lean winter month of January, historically a dumping ground for Hollywood’s trash. This movie, with its truly nonsensical plot of an FBI agent caught on a plane with a hitman as the pilot, stood no chance. From its blasé advertising, to its barebones runtime, to its outdated Die-Hard-on-a-plane plot, this movie felt destined to die a quiet death at the box office.

And so, it attempted to fly south for the winter, towards a new salvation: the land of “so bad it’s good.” Featuring a truly baffling villainous turn from the usually stoic lead star Mark Wahlberg, Flight Risk tried to avoid its own destiny by leaning into the stupidity of its own existence.

Bold strategy, but did it work? Not really. With uninspired performances, bland writing, and half-baked plot twists, Flight Risk found its wings clipped before it ever had a chance to take off. It played itself too safe, too mediocre, and settled into the middle ground between gripping its audience and allowing them to laugh at the craziness. Sadly, there’s a word for that middle ground: boredom.

Where did it all go wrong? Fasten your seatbelts, and let’s review:

It’s Die Hard, But On A Plane

FBI agent Madolyn Harris (Michelle Dockery) arrests accountant Winston (Topher Grace) in remote Alaska, where he’s in hiding due to flipping on his former mafia employers. With no other option, Harries hires a private plane to get them back to civilization. Unbeknownst to them both, their pilot (Mark Wahlberg) is an impostor, a hitman secretly hired to take Winston out.

After blowing his identity, Harris and Winston work together to subdue the pilot. However, the plot thickens when Harris realizes her FBI supervisors (Leah Remini  and Paul Ben-Victor) are corrupt, paid off by the mafia. With no other options, Harris and Winston work together to land the plane safely while the subdued Pilot taunts their impending death.

The pilot escapes his shackles, injuries Winston and nearly kills Harris before they manage to kill him first. With the help of an air traffic controller, Harris successfully touches down. As Winston is led off, Harris uncovers another corrupt cop and vows to bring down the corrupt FBI once and for all.

A Narrative That Missed The Landing Zone

The concept of a single-location action-thriller is no new feat. The magic of increasing the tension by subtly changing the environment to include new dangers is a masterclass in environmental filmmaking. Flight Risk decides to buck storytelling conventions by stretching out a single conflict for 80 minutes instead. And hoooooo boy, does it get tedious.

With a glacially-paced plot that fails to take advantage of its own premise, Flight Risk is left with precious little to work with. The central premise falls apart at the slightest scrutiny (Why hire a private plane with no backup? If the FBI was dirty, why was Harris allowed to keep investigating the crime family? Why would an impostor display an ID of the man he killed? [yes, that actually happens]), and the film lacks the goofiness to lean into a more satirical tone. So instead, we’re left with a film too self-serious to enjoy, yet too bland to be invested into.

Any attempts at tension feel undercut by badly paced lines, and set-pieces that simply stop rather than end with a bang. Side characters feel underbaked, with character actors like Leah Remini literally phoning in their performances via VO. And the film’s third act introduces a random romantic angle that comes across more skeevy than charming.

Director Mel Gibson’s directorial eye remains the film’s sole high point. His kinetic style injects a tiny bit of life into a stodgy 91 minutes, and he knows how to let his actors own the space and reclaim some form of character in the thinly-written script. It’s a far cry from the gloriously stylized action of Braveheart, but it’s still the eye of a veteran filmmaker with a semblance of style.

Wahlberg’s Villain Role Makes A Crash Landing

But the biggest talking point of the film is its star, Mark Wahlberg. Having settled himself into a comfortable formula of goofy comedies and middle-of-the-road action films, one could forgive Marky Mark for wanting to mix it up. Unfortunately, his attempts at playing a villain for the first time in decades feel like the equivalent of a plane crashing and burning.

Trading character nuance for a bald cap and a grab-bag of physical tics akin to a Looney Tunes character, Wahlberg is certainly having the time of his life. And for a while, it’s fun to watch in a car-crash sort of way. But with time, the sheen fades off and Wahlberg fails to provide an engaging antagonist in the film’s third act, leading to his onscreen death being a welcome relief so the film can finally focus again.

Reliable co-star Michelle Dockery plays a government agent capably enough, rising above her one-dimensional character to ground the film’s goofiness. Grace, meanwhile, doesn’t get much to do beyond look worried, but the two make a decent enough tag team.

Their chemistry is one of the film’s few bright spots, but the film feels more concerned letting Wahlberg spew more “threatening” lines and shove in half-baked attempts at world-building with a corrupt FBI subplot. Flight Risk, you’re not Locke; you’re not written well enough to craft sympathetic characters via phone conversations.

Conclusion

Mel Gibson starring Mark Wahlberg in an action movie sounds like a blast on paper, doesn’t it? Even if it wasn’t good, you’d be intrigued by that combo to at least give it a try. And yet somehow, these two men known for their badassness and controversial characters (on and off-screen) turned in 91 minutes of boredom. On some level, it’s actually impressive.

Flight Risk is a movie caught between two poles. On one end is Die Hard, a single-location action movie that uses all of its tools to the best of their ability to create an instant classic. On the other end is Money Plane, a movie with a plot so stupid it becomes legendary. Flight Risk can’t decide where to make its landing, and therefore crashes in a pile of mediocrity.

It’s not even that bad. There’s a few sequences that kept me interested enough to not walk out of the theatre, and the acting (Wahlberg aside) isn’t terrible. But when I’d rather see the star and director in Daddy’s Home 2, Flight Risk has failed to hit its audience, plain and simple.

In summation?

…

I’d rather fly Spirit Airlines.

Flight Risk is now playing in theatres nationwide.