This movie is about a man that is the pilot on a plane that is traveling somewhere that has a bit of mechanical trouble as the title and previews imply right? A little yes but a lot more no. We are introduced to Whip ( Denzel Washington ) waking up from an all night bender in a hotel room still drunk. He has to head out to the airport for his schedule flight but before doing that he needs to do a line of coke to "level" himself so he can be the functionally addict that he is. His scheduled flight is only about an hour from Florida to Georgia and everything is fine even though there is severe turbulence. About to begin the plane's descent is when everything goes wrong. What follows is a harrowing ten minutes of Whip trying with all his know how to get the plane down without killing everyone on board. He ends up flipping the plane ( no spoiler as its been shown on tv previews ) and levels it off before crash landing in a remote area. Instead of 102 people dead only 6 perish. All things considered he did a miraculous job.
The movie moves from being a special effect/action flick to a human story about addiction and how it effects the person and everyone else around you. Whip ends up meeting a fellow addict named Nicole who is trying to get back on the straight and narrow. Whip tries to avoid all people and for a short time cleans himself up. But like most addicts he falls of the wagon hard and takes everyone down with him. The pilots union led by Charlie tries to get him cleaned up and covers all his mishaps as he has being doing for most of their friendship as they both flew in the war. The union's lawyer, Hugh, played by Don Cheadle is great in "killing" off reports and redirecting Whip's shortcomings to saying everything was either mechanical error or an act of God.
We see that Whip with his addiction has caused his divorce and the distancing of him and his son. Even Nicole who is a recovering addict sees that all Whip is doing is killing himself slowly and anyone that has if not love compassion for him leave. The story finally makes its way to a hearing where it has been arranged due to technicalities that all Whip needs to do is give some vanilla answers to a panel and he should walk away with no harm. His decision and answers will shape a lot of lives and more importantly his. Does he lie like he has his whole life and just live day to day or does he finally figure out enough is enough and he owns what he has done and deals with the repercussions of his actions? Either way is going to hurt a lot of people.
Verdict : Addiction and redemption, trials and tribulations of the actions of people are what the themes are of this movie and it delivers on all levels. Denzel does a great job of being an addict and killing off all love from people. I have and do see a lot of people suffering with alcohol and drug addictions and he comes up with a realistic portrayal of this struggles. The supporting cast is top notch and fleshes out the journey. This movie can be hard for some people to watch due to what is about. Addiction does hurt and possible kill the person doing it but the people around the loved one watching and seeing the decline of their loved ones are the ones that suffer the most and are left with the most heartache at the end of the day. Maybe an addict will watch this movie and have a vision and realize that their life needs to change. I give this movie a strong THUMBS UP. Denzel will probably be up for the Oscar for Best Actor and it would be deserving.
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