"Heroic Crime-Fighting Story"

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What You Need To Know:
Despite its potboiler pedigree, FLIGHT RISK has lots of humor and suspense. It has a terrific, explosive finish. Director Mel Gibson applies his usual cinematic brilliance to what otherwise would be an average genre piece. As the psychotic villain, Mark Wahlberg brings a cocky, warped, intense, vicious attitude to the mind games he plays. As the federal marshal and the witness, Michelle Dockery and Topher Grace add some lively grit, humanity and humor to Wahlberg’s unsettling villainy. FLIGHT RISK has a strong moral, patriotic worldview. However, it has intense violence, lewd taunts and lots of strong foul language.
Content:
More Detail:
In FLIGHT RISK, super-talented filmmaker Mel Gibson applies his cinematic brilliance to a thriller about a heroic female federal marshal haunted by a mistake trying to protect a federal witness from a cocky hitman played by Mark Wahlberg. Despite its potboiler pedigree, FLIGHT RISK has a slambang finish and Michelle Dockery and Topher Grace as the federal marshal and the witness add some lively grit, humanity and humor to Wahlberg’s wacky villainy and Gibson’s deft direction, but the movie has lots of strong foul language, violence and lewd taunts, so MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution.
The movie opens with U.S. Marshall Madolyn capturing fugitive mob accountant Winston in a seedy Alaskan hotel in the wilderness. Reluctantly, Winston agrees to turn state’s evidence against his boss. Madolyn is tasked with flying Winston down to Anchorage in a local single-engine plane.
The pilot, Daryl, is a talkative, gregarious guy wearing a ball cap backwards. He’s curious about Winston, however, who’s handcuffed, strapped and chained in one of the two backseats. Daryl convinces Madolyn to put on radio headphones so they can talk up front. That’s okay with her, because Winston is annoying her by all his complaints.
However, Winston notices Daryl’s ID lying under Madolyn’s seat. He jiggles the mat under the seat to get a closer look at the ID and realizes that the man’s photo on the ID is not the man who’s piloting their plane. He tries to attract Madlyn’s attention, but she just wants him to be quiet for a while.
Eventually, their mystery pilot is exposed as a mob hitman assigned to kill Winston and Madolyn and make their bodies disappear in the Alaskan wilderness. With great effort, Madolyn manages to subdue the pilot. She uses her satellite phone to get help learning how to fly the plane. However, when the hitman wakes up, some things he says make Madolyn suspect that there’s a double agent in the U.S. Marshalls Office.
FLIGHT RISK is a potboiler thriller, but Director Mel Gibson expertly gives it the kind of flair and gravitas that lifts the movie above its potboiler pedigree. The movie has lots of humor and suspense. It also has a terrific finish. The claustrophobic confines of the single-engine plane are contrasted with the vast, majestic Alaskan mountains below it.
As the psychotic villain, Mark Wahlberg brings a cocky, warped, intense, and vicious attitude, to the mind games he plays with his adversaries. He reminded MOVIEGUIDE® of a warped Martin Riggs, the troubled cop Mel Gibson plays in the LETHAL WEAPON movies. As the federal marshal and the federal witness, Michelle Dockery and Topher Grace add some lively grit, humanity and humor to Wahlberg’s wacky villainy and Gibson’s deft direction.
FLIGHT RISK sides with the heroic U.S. Marshal as she tries to stop the hitman from killing the witness and expose the traitor in her department. So, of course, it has a strong moral, patriotic worldview opposing crime, favoring justice and protecting lives. The Marshall in the movie is haunted by a mistake she made in a previous case. In that case, she let the witness take a private shower, only to have the bad guys fire an explosive device into their safe house, killing the witness. FLIGHT RISK also builds sympathy for the eyewitness. For example, he saves the Marshal’s life in one scene. Also, he learns that his former boss may be targeting his mother’s house.
However, FLIGHT RISK has lots of strong foul language and some strong, intense violence. Also, the psychotic hitman taunts Madolyn and Winston with some lewd gibes.
So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution.