Did you ever want to see Eric Forman from That 70’s Show get kidnapped and attacked? That seems to be the idea behind Flight Risk.
According to Rotten Tomatoes, “In this high-stakes suspense thriller, Academy Award® nominee Mark Wahlberg (Actor in a Supporting Role, 2006 — The Departed) plays a pilot transporting an Air Marshal (Michelle Dockery) accompanying a fugitive (Topher Grace) to trial. As they cross the Alaskan wilderness, tensions soar and trust is tested, as not everyone on board is who they seem.”
However, the film never really feels all like a “high stakes suspense thriller”. At no point did I actually believe that one of the two “good guys” would actually die. I found myself more interested in how they would fill the time between while waiting for the bad guy to escape and attack again.
I will say that Mark Wahlberg certainly went for it. His over-the-top bad guy routine felt overdone and a bit forced. Yet with such a small space to play in and spending most of the film in restraints, he likely felt he needed to push to bring energy to the role.
Somehow the 91 minute run time, while shorter than most films released into theaters feels about 20 minutes too long. There are a couple of plot lines that seemed added just to stretch the run time and give the characters something more to do. It would have been much better to have a second act that took place outside of the plane in my opinion, there is only so much you can do in the plane.
Aside from Wahlberg’s scene chewing performance, I was mostly impressed with Topher Grace and Michelle Dockery.
While the script was intent on packing in some awkward and uncomfortable jokes and one-liners, Grace found moments to give some more subtle humor to his character. From his introduction through the climax, he comes off as less a brilliant criminal mind and more a clever fool who took the easy path and is now in way over his head.
Dockery holds her own as a Marshall caught in a situation, they are ill-prepared for. I also give the movie credit for casting a woman in her mid-forties as the lead. Far too often actresses in Hollywood find roles beyond ingénue and mother/grandmother nearly impossible to find. Dockery was completely new to me as I hadn’t seen any of her previous work. I will be interested to see what kind of roles she inhabits in the future.
In all, Flight Risk isn’t as bad as the Critic’s reviews (26%) and it’s not quite as good as the audience score seems to be settling on (63%). It falls in that all too common muddled middle. I find myself wondering if I would have enjoyed it more as a streaming choice rather than having bought a ticket and some underwhelming popcorn.
Overall, I rate it a 3 out of 5 with a wait for streaming recommendation.