Y’all want a pilot? It’s time for Mark Wahlberg and Mel Gibson to proceed their string of collaborations. These two beforehand co-starred within the two Daddy’s House films and the 2022 biographical drama Father Stu, and now, Gibson steps behind the digital camera to direct Wahlberg in Flight Threat. This motion thriller options Michelle Dockery as Madelyn Harris, a Deputy U.S. Marshal who should switch a witness named Winston (Topher Grace) to trial. However when the pilot, performed by Wahlberg, reveals himself to be a hitman, she should get Winston to security.
Flight Threat is enjoyable at instances however in the end finally ends up as a mediocre try at a popcorn film. It’s fascinating that Gibson returned to the director’s chair for this movie. Most of his different directorial efforts (Braveheart, The Ardour of the Christ, Apocalypto, Hacksaw Ridge) have been extra grandiose, incomes Oscar nominations. This film certain gained’t be getting any awards, neither is it making an attempt to. Gibson’s strategy to this film is easy enjoyable. He’s aiming to make a blockbuster, adapting author Jared Rosenberg’s script right into a one-location motion thriller.
Whereas many will consider a film like Non-Cease to match this airplane motion movie with, Flight Threat additionally comprises similarities to the 2020 Joseph Gordon-Levitt thriller 7500 and final yr’s criminally underrated South Korean movie Hijack 1971. However this film doesn’t work in addition to others on this style. The premise of two characters trapped on a airplane with a hitman is gripping on paper. They’re trapped in a transferring car, neither of them know how you can fly a airplane, and the one one who can fly it’s a murderous lunatic hell-bent on killing them each. Whereas components of this movie provide the joy you’d count on, it’s a surprisingly inconsistent movie.
The primary act of Flight Threat is okay. Topher Grace has all the time been a pleasant presence in films and TV, and he does some Eric Forman ranges of sarcasm as Winston. He’s fed up with Madelyn early on and she or he’s not precisely a fan of his both. Quickly sufficient, Marky Mark arrives on the airplane, changing his signature Boston accent with a thick Southern drawl. There’s some great rigidity right here as Winston discovers that this pilot shouldn’t be who he says he’s and tries desperately to get Madelyn on the identical web page as him.
After the pilot reveals himself as a hitman, he’s rapidly subdued. Right here now we have the primary situation with the movie: the great guys are successful for much an excessive amount of of the story. Although Wahlberg is the face of all of the advertising, he spends many of the movie handcuffed within the background. level of reference for why this film doesn’t work very effectively is the 1994 film Pace. That’s one other movie that has our characters trapped in a transferring car. However the villain in that film is all the time successful, and the great guys are all the time in peril. Right here, the villain is sitting down, tormenting them verbally however bodily unable to place them in any hazard.
It’s nonetheless good to see Wahlberg as a nasty man. He hasn’t had lots of villainous roles since his 1996 film Concern, usually enjoying the hero in his motion roles like The Household Plan, Uncharted, and Infinite (which I don’t assume is as dangerous as individuals say, by the best way). He will get to play probably the most mustache-twirling villain ever right here, and he’s not dangerous. His character hurts and kills as a result of he has enjoyable doing it, identical to it appears as if Wahlberg is having a blast on this function. His character isn’t very attention-grabbing as a result of he’s probably the most one-dimensional evil man ever, however Wahlberg is basically swinging for the fences right here.
However let’s return to Pace—that film works so effectively as a result of whereas they’re driving that bus, they’re consistently going through obstacles, from visitors to schoolchildren to a child carriage stuffed with cans. Flight Threat works each time it does that, however there are moments the place the momentum vanishes and the hazard subsides. Madelyn doesn’t know how you can fly a airplane at first, however she will get the dangle of it too rapidly, and the screenplay doesn’t benefit from her lack of ability.
It will possibly typically really feel like Flight Threat is a dumb film making an attempt to disguise itself as a sensible one. Whereas that is your easy actioner, there are some questionable writing decisions. For instance, the hitman pulls a knife on the heroes early on. By some means, each Madelyn and Winston utterly overlook in regards to the knife, whereas I used to be mentally screaming at them each to seek out it and cease it from getting again into the hitman’s fingers. There’s additionally a really contrived plot level that requires Madelyn to placed on an article of clothes for no motive after which someway not discover that it goes lacking. It’s an thought vital to extend the stakes within the later half of the movie, however Madelyn’s ignorance of the whole lot merely made me really feel like she was horrible at her job.
Total, Flight Threat by no means absolutely takes off. There’s a subplot surrounding occasions taking place on the bottom, however the movie solely has us hear these occasions relatively than see it in order that we will keep within the claustrophobic airplane. It may be difficult to attach with these different occasions and characters consequently. This film had potential, however it will get held again by lots of ineffective humor, makes an attempt at crowd-pleasing moments that don’t please crowds and Wahlberg being incapacitated for almost all of the runtime, repeating some variation of, “I’m gonna harm you, and I’ll get pleasure from it!”
SCORE: 5/10
As ComingSoon’s overview coverage explains, a rating of 5 equates to “Mediocre.” The positives and negatives wind up negating one another, making it a wash.
Disclosure: ComingSoon attended a press screening for our Flight Threat overview.
