‘Flight Risk’ is the worst kind of bad movie: the boring kind

PHOENIX (AZFamily) — This in-flight movie sucks.

Synopsis

In Flight Risk, U.S. Marshal Madolyn Harris (Michelle Dockery) is given the job of transporting informant Winston (Topher Grace) to Anchorage, Alaska, so he can testify against the Moretti crime family. Madolyn charters a small plane piloted by the charismatic Daryl (Mark Wahlberg), who is revealed to be a hitman for the Moretti’s tasked with killing Winston. Now in danger and without a pilot, Madolyn defends Winston and herself against Daryl, all while also trying to keep the plane in the air and en route to their destination.

My thoughts

Do you ever start a movie and within the opening minutes think to yourself, “Oh, no….”? That’s what happened to me during the opening scene of Flight Risk, which features Topher Grace being startled by a horrendously rendered CGI moose watching him through his hotel room window. This hotel features another poor case of CGI, with a hokey-looking “NO VACANCY” sign overlooking the Alaskan wilderness.

It’s not a good omen for a movie when my first thoughts are, “Oh, no…”, but it’s not exactly a bad one either. With the cheap visual effects that already abounded in the first few minutes, I was actually kind of gearing up for Flight Risk to be a fun time. It would be a bad time, no doubt, but at least a funny one.

Marky Mark and the Do-Nothing Bunch

Mark Wahlberg is also sort of a bad movie legend after M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening, so when he first appears on screen speaking in the absolute worst Texas accent I’ve ever heard in my life, the giggle fits began. I cozied into my seat and happily munched on my popcorn, ready for some schlocky, B-movie goodness.

This is unfortunately all a ruse, as Mark Wahlberg’s character isn’t a pilot or named Daryl at all! He’s actually the bad guy here and once he drops the facade, he also drops the hilarious “Aw, shucks, ma’am,” accent. This is unfortunate for both the characters and the audience, as the characters now have a threat to contend with and the audience now has a Mark Wahlberg performance that goes from hilarious to dull.

I guess that somewhat gives credit to Mark Wahlberg’s acting ability, as he was convincingly terrible during the first 20 minutes. The other characters even call out his corny accent, so I suppose Wahlberg being hilariously bad was on purpose. I would have taken a hilariously bad performance, though, as once Mark Wahlberg reverts into standard Mark Wahlberg mode, all comedy, intentional or not, completely evaporates. It’s nothing but boredom from here on out.

The other thing is, Daryl is a totally lame villain. He only ever feels like a threat when the movie demands him to be because other than a few sparse moments of him scuffling with Madolyn and Winston, he’s either tied up or unconscious in the back of the plane. He’s the main antagonist but not compelling or threatening in any way, literally taking a backseat for most of the runtime.

I just don’t get it. If you’re going to give Mark Wahlberg a ridiculous balding haircut (I’m still not certain it’s not a bald cap) and have him speak in a ridiculous accent, go all in on it! He doesn’t even need to be an antagonist, necessarily. Just make it a small group of people that have to survive on a rickety little plane and he’s the goofy, daring pilot. The movie would have at least been more fun and honestly made more sense.

Small plane, smaller ideas

The screenplay by Jared Rosenberg is poorly conceived and executed overall, with not an ounce of creativity or new ideas to be found here. The only somewhat original idea is setting the movie entirely within a tiny plane, but he does basically nothing with it. I’ve always liked movies confined to small settings because they can really show off a filmmaker’s talents with how they can maintain audience interest and suspense with such limitations. This feels like it was written on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Michelle Dockery, Topher Grace, and Mark Wahlberg are all perfectly decent actors, but the script and direction don’t really allow them to do anything. 90% of this is Michelle Dockery talking to her superiors on a radio with Topher Grace quipping and Mark Wahlberg doing nothing but looking ridiculous with his alleged shaved head. It must have been a nice easy paycheck, though, considering all they’re doing is just sitting around.

The dialogue is especially odd. It’s not just shoddily written, but straight-up bizarre. The kind of dialogue that makes you constantly think, “Who writes this?!” There are numerous references to characters going to the bathroom in their pants, which I guess is supposed to be funny. It’s hard to tell, because all of the “funny” lines, mostly courtesy of Topher Grace, are complete groaners. I had to give my eyes a rest from rolling so much after it was over.

There’s also this strange homophobic angle with Daryl verbally sexually harassing Winston and insulting him with slurs. Daryl is already a bad dude because he’s a psychotic, murderous hitman, so do we really need to make him viciously homophobic just to drive home how “bad” he really is? I’m not really sure of the creative intent behind it, but I am sure that it does nothing to build character or suspense, only serving to uncomfortably distract.

It’s so weird to me that Mel Gibson directed this, as it’s something so outside of his typical directorial wheelhouse, with no historical or religious elements to speak of. Even if this is a different kind of movie than he’s made before, there’s literally zero of his directing style or vision present here. If I didn’t know he was behind the camera before going into this, I never once would have guessed it was Gibson. It’s like somebody else directed this and reverse Alan Smithee’d it to say it’s directed by Mel Gibson or something.

Gibson’s direction is shockingly lifeless, taking literally zero advantage of its limited premise. I understand Rosenberg’s barebones script didn’t give Gibson much freedom, but you’re the director! This is your project! It’s your job to make this all interesting onscreen, yet it has all the flair you’d expect from a Tubi original. Yawn. Wake me up when Passion of the Christ 2 comes out. Now that’s something that should at least have Gibson’s uniquely bizarre directorial vision.

Final verdict

You at least think you’re going to get a fun bad movie when Flight Risk starts, but it doesn’t take long for it to turn into the worst kind of bad movie: the boring kind. The premise had promise and could have worked if it was written or directed with any sort of imagination, but when you have the entire cast and crew operating on autopilot (pun somewhat intended), this is exactly what you get.