FLIGHT RISK Never Soars, But...

FLIGHT RISK (Blu-ray)

2025 / 91 min

From Lionsgate

Review by Princess Pepper😼

Say what will about Mel Gibson as a person…until now, his directorial career was pretty damn impressive. Even that dour slab of Christian torture porn known as The Passion of the Christ was an ambitious achievement. 

But I sensed no ambition behind Flight Risk. Gibson’s previous movies all felt like passion projects. Whether one liked any of them or not, we never doubted he was putting his heart & soul into every shot. Conversely, this one is aesthetically underwhelming, looks cheaply cranked out and plays like the recent direct-to-video stuff Gibson's acting career has been regulated to ever since he went all funny on us. If I had paid to see this in a theater, I’d have felt short changed.

Not that I ever actually intended to see it in a theater. The generic title & trailer, stupid tagline (Y’all need a pilot?) and the fact that Mark Wahlberg hasn’t done a good movie in years precluded making it part of any expensive date night plans. But at home, where my expectations are always significantly lower? I have to concede that Flight Risk isn’t half bad. At no point does it exceed those tempered expectations, but there are worse ways to kill 90 minutes.

That might be faint praise for a movie directed by the guy responsible for Braveheart, Apocalypto and Hacksaw Ridge, but it’s safe to say Mel Gibson is no longer that guy. His work in Flight Risk reflects a director-for-hire. As such, he knows how to keep the story chugging along with perfunctory skill, but does little beyond that. 

Marky Mark flies coach.

Actually, the film’s MVP is Mark Wahlberg, which I never thought I’d say with a straight face. If you can get past the standard-issue plot, cavernous lapses in plausibility and Topher Grace obnoxiously re-channeling Eric Foreman, Walhlberg’s scenery-chewing performance is a real hoot. He plays Daryl Booth, a sadistic hitman hired to kill fugitive mob accountant Winston (Grace), who’s being escorted by disgraced FBI agent Madolyn Harris (Michelle Dockery) to testify at a trial. To do this, he poses as the pilot flying them back to civilization from a remote Alaska location where Winston’s been hiding. Naturally, chaos ensues.

Almost the entire story takes place in the claustrophobic confines of the airplane, but Wahlberg compensates for the setting’s limited cinematic possibilities with a wonderfully unhinged performance. As Booth, he leers, sneers, intimidates and assaults his prey like a man who’s really into his work. And despite being repeatedly (and violently) bested by Harris, he’s as resilient as Jason Voorhees, bouncing back from a variety of injuries that would likely kill most mere mortals. 

More importantly, he (sort of?) disappears into the role. Though his character’s pattern baldness looks more like a freshly-shaved head, this is one of my few times watching Mark Wahlberg where I wasn’t constantly reminded I was watching Mark Wahlberg. The movie needs him too, because elsewhere, Flight Risk is a comparatively minor action flick from a director whose movies were once events. It’s watchable and sometimes fun, but only marginally better than the kind of stuff that typically premieres on Netflix.

EXTRA KIBBLES

FEATURETTE - Risk Management: Making Flight Risk is an eight-minute featurette consisting of interviews with Gibson, screenwriter Jared Rosenberg and some of the cast.

TRAILER

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