Flight [Blu-ray] [2012] [Region Free]

Denzel Washington never fails to put in a brilliant performance. The film and story line are brilliant. Washington plays a brilliantly talented and experienced, but arrogant Captain of a Passenger Airline. He is however, an alcoholic drug abusing pilot.The start of the film sees his character flying an internal American flight under the influence of alcohol although not presenting as drunk to his co-pilot and crew. The plane goes out of control due to a catastrophic manufacturing fault. Falling from the skies fast with everyone on board doomed, Denzil's character, remaining calm, takes some last ditch crazy and an unheard of courses of actions by inverting the plane, slowing its speed and descent and then righting the plane up the right way gliding to safety with only 6 lives lost.Running through the film is the dichotomy of Washington's extreme bravery that saved so many lives contrasting with his extreme arrogance and refusal to face his drink dependence depicted by flying drunk. No other pilot would have had the ability to glide the plane to safety and would have caused all on board to lose their lives.You see his character slowly stripped of his arrogance. His further descent into drink and drugs and facing life in prison for 6 counts of manslaughter if the public enquiry finds out he had been drunk, sees his own personal decline in character willing to do and say anything to protect himself and his career and freedom. The realisation of real imprisonment sees him testing the friendship of the surviving crew on board asking them in various ways not to testify that he had been drinking. The airline put themselves on the line to back up Washington and arrange a cover up. Washington is unable to remain sober, even for the Enquiry, despite his own attempts to stop drinking along with the protection of the airline.Will he take the way out offered to him by the airline to blame a dead crew member for the missing alcohol bottles on board? Thereby tarnishing her memory forever despite her having saved the life of a little child. Or will he finally take responsibility for his own actions?A thought provoking film in that but for the drunk Washington flying the plane all would be dead. There is no doubt that the accident was caused by a major part of the plane detaching and falling off mid flight. However, their lives were in danger by being flown by an intoxicated pilot. It also demonstrates the difficulty of drink dependant people to find and take the path to recognition and fight for sobriety.

Given the absolutely gratuitous full-frontal female nudity in the opening scene, apparently just an excuse to get this Emily Ratajkowski lookalike naked for the pleasure of Denzel, the crew and the audience, it is particularly strange that we never see another nude female again, and that the film takes a swing into leftfield with such a heavy-handed anti-alcohol message.The story you think you're going to see which is alluded to a number of times - in which the airline and the manufacturers use Whip's alcohol intake to scapegoat for their own failings, with plucky lawyer Don Cheadle and Chris Greenwood's character fighting for the truth - takes place nearly entirely off-screen and we get to watch Denzel mope about getting drunk, then not getting drunk, then getting drunk again for 2 hours. There's a female love interest, but she disappears about half way through the film and never returns.It wasn't a bad watch, and there is some value in Denzel's fairly accurate portrayal of an alcoholic in denial, but I'm left wondering what the point of it was other than "get sober, kids".

I loved this film. It's a true account of how something like alcohol can and does take over - and more so when the job you do is stressful and life fails to support you. So you do what you can - you reach out for the 'friend' who is always there to take the edge off, to help you sleep. Over time the friend becomes the demon that possesses you in every way because they only have you as their friend and they want to keep it that way by removing everything you do have in your life. Bit by bit it destroys it all until you do eventually see that it is just a demon - no more, no less, just like yourself and you really do not need it at all in your life. You existed before it and you can, and will continue to exist, after. SPOILER ALERT SO STOP READING HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW -- The moment Whip knew he could not lie anymore and certainly not in taking advantage of a dead woman, that is when it all stopped. And like he said at the end, for the first time, in a long, long time, he felt free. Watch this movie , it will help you realise many things.

I don't really like Denzel Washington films, that's not because I don't like the actor, but I don't like the type of films he's usually in. However, this was different and I did like his character in this because it was different from the norm. The film was good, well paced and I especially liked Don Cheadle as the lawyer. The pre crash scene and crash itself were really well done and were as realistic as they had to be, without being too graphic. What I didn't like was the sub story line where he hooked up with the addict, I just think there was enough going on with the crash, investigation and his own alcaholism to need another sub plot - it was distracting rather than an enhancement to the story line. Also I didn't like John Goodman as Harling Mays he hammed up his performance much to much, it didn't work for me. Overall it was a good watch but I wouldn't watch it again.