2025 CATCH-UP : FLIGHT RISK

What a baffling movie. A fun concept and a good cast is grounded by a terrible screenplay (Jared Rosenberg) and atrocious direction (The once talented Mel Gibson). Michele Dockery and Mark Whalberg attempt to carry the proceedings, but fail. Dockery’s Madelyn Harris is given a tiny bit of backstory and pathos in an attempt to add gravitas to her character and stakes to her mission. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work as we are given very little reason to care about her (or any other) character. 

Mark Whalberg (with a very unfortunate balding hair line) tries to keep things fun, but also fails mostly due to him being a generally terrible and non-threatening hitman. He spends the majority of the runtime handcuffed or subdued by our leads. His abundance of terrible sexual threats/jokes grow stale and tiresome fast. 

Topher Grace struggles as Winston, a mafia accountant turned informant who acts as the unfunny and annoying comedic relief wet noodle. He is mostly useless except in one brief pivotal moment. There are attempts at humor that completely fall flat due to terrible comedic timing or misreadings of lines. 

There are also parts that are painfully cringe, like another pilot who is called to assist and almost immediately asks Madelyn out on a date, she happily accepts, then he playfully flirts with her for the rest of his scenes. I never would have guessed Mel Gibson was the man in the pilot’s seat. This could have been a fun B movie, but Mel Gibson steers course towards psychological thriller and winds up crashing his plane as a result. There’s hard to feel any tension when the big bad is handcuffed in the back for the majority of the film while our protagonists mostly ignore or disregard him and talk to each other/to FBI headquarters (there’s an uninteresting sub-plot involving a mole in the agency)/to the other pilot. They don’t appear to think of him as much of a threat, so why should we? 

Unfortunately, Flight Risk is a fairly dull and boring trip where very little of interest or import occurs during our time in the skies. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. This does not bode well for Passion of the Christ 2 or any future Mel Gibson helmed films. Gibson, you’ve been permanently grounded and your pilot’s license revoked.

1 STAR