Batteries, party poppers, alarmed brief cases and of course our Editor after a meal of Brussel sprouts, baked beans and pickled eggs washed down with ten pints of Guinness are all deemed as a flight risk on an aircraft (‘You’re fired!’ – Ed) but in the new thriller the flight risk in question is initially Winston (Topher Grace) a crooked accountant for the mob who has gone on the run and has been apprehended in Alaska by marshall Madolyn (Michelle Dockery). With a flight on a small plane booked she has him handcuffed into the three seater plane piloted by Daryl (Mark Wahlberg) to fly them both back to another state in order to convey him to a New York court room to give evidence. But what actually turns out to be the Flight Risk is Daryl himself when Madolyn soon realizes that he’s a henchman for the mob sent to make sure that Winston never makes it. And with the GPS not working, the radio apparently broken the three engage in a cat and mouse game of oneupmanship with Madolyn soon finding that she doesn’t know who she can trust.
Essentially a three hander set in a confined space it gives each of the three actors a chance to play a role away from their norm : Dockery continues to distance herself from her Downton Abbey persona in an action role as the marshall with a failed past, Wahlberg gets to play the bad guy for a change and Grace is the comic relief in a script by first time writer Jared Rosenberg. And orchestrating this is Mel Gibson in his first film since 2016’s ‘Hacksaw Ridge’ and is pure escapism in a world away from his previous projects as director. It is only his sixth film in such a role in the past thirty years and is very much a small scale film compared to his previous contained for much of its running time inside the plane with tensions and tempers rising as Madolyn tries to keep herself and her witness alive as she tries to get the plane to safety not knowing who she can trust. Perhaps this is a warm up for the long awaited Lethal Weapon 5 he’s rumoured to direct.
But ultimately Flight Risk is a workman like if unremarkable thriller and very much falls into the category of a Saturday night popcorn movie
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Here’s the Flight Risk trailer……
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