Ryan McNeil
There’s an old saying that tells us that we are supposed to love the sinner and hate the sin. It’s a way of saying that while we may find certain acts and deeds morally reprehensible, we should not necessarily turn our backs on those who partake in these acts and deeds. It epitomizes clemency and empathy, and putting another person above their worst mistake.
What to do though if the sinner’s sin is putting lives at risk…including their own?
Flight is the story of Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington). Whip is a pilot, and an addict of the first degree. On a routine flight from Florida to Georgia, Whip’s plane begins to catastrophically fail, sending it and its 106 passengers into a nosedive. Thanks to Whip remaining calm, and his ability to pull off a truly daring manoeuvre with the aircraft, he is able to set the plane down in an open field. The crash landing causes minimal damage, and keeps the fatality total to only six people (two of them crew members).
While in the hospital being treated for his injuries, Whip meets Nicole (Kelly Reilly). Nicole is an addict herself, but senses a connection with Whip. The two strike a chord, likely because as addicts they are cut from the same cloth, and he promises to rally up with her when he leaves the hospital.
While under intense media scrutiny, Whip is able to stay sheltered thanks to his union rep Charlie (Bruce Greenwood) and union attorney Hugh (Don Cheadle). In their first meeting, Hugh breaks the bad news: That the obligatory toxicology report conducted while Whip was unconscious showed that he was both drunk and stoned when he flew that fateful flight. As such, it will be difficult for Whip to be hailed as a hero…
Hell, it will be difficult for him to stay out of jail.
While FLIGHT isn’t out to make its bones on originality, there are a lot of interesting elements in play – most prevalently the nature of heroism. The movie gives us a badly broken man – a man whose best cure for a hangover is a line or three of cocaine. He’s so broken that he should in fact be kept far away from his car, let alone his plane. However, when thrust into a crisis, he is able to do more through the blur of a hangover than most can stone-cold-sober. If the truth comes to light, should he be vilified? Maybe…maybe not. It blurs the line of what might have happened, and what did in fact occur.
Whip’s conundrum sits smack on the intersection of the need for blame and the desire to send a message. That’s not to suggest that the man deserves to be commended, but it is a question about the merits of punishing such a person. He was the right man in the right place at the right time. However, when such things happen someone needs to be held accountable, which means everyone involved is under the microscope. So even though what Whip did was heroic, he doesn’t get to be a hero. He didn’t pass the background check we demand of our heroes.
This leads to the other interesting element in FLIGHT; the performance that Denzel Washington gives. Through the years, it feels like he’s made his bones playing cops and soldiers. Even when he isn’t (ie MAN ON FIRE) he still embodies a certain such badassery that he might as well be a cop or a soldier. Washington has so seldom played a “shell of a man” one had to wonder if he even had it in him.
And yet here he is.
Washington is so very damaged as Whip that we don’t know whether to pity him, or hope he gloriously flames out so that he can be prevented from hurting anymore people (including himself). There’s an undeniable authenticity on display as Denzel wrestles with himself to do what’s right. He never has to say things like “I’m done, and this time I mean it”; he puts it in his eyes, his posture, in his entire demeanour. He is so very far removed from all of those badasses we’ve come to know him as, truly pushing himself for the first time in a long time. Before it’s all over, he evokes a sense of pity from us we didn’t realize we could feel for him.
Put those elements together and you arrive at what makes FLIGHT work. We take a tragedy that involves a hero, find ourselves questioning whether the hero is worthy of being hoisted up on our shoulders, and get a notorious Hollywood Golden Boy to embody the addict in question. Not only are we left wondering if we should be thankful or indignant, but the person on the hot seat is a person we don’t know whether to love or spurn. It’s like knowing your best friend has just saved your house from foreclosure, but did it with money he made selling hard drugs.
Where Whip is concerned, FLIGHT shows us how hard it can be to separate the sinner and the sin. There is no defending a person who has fallen so far, that they would put so many lives at risk. All the same, when we see someone who would do something so reckless, how can we not feel compelled to show them the way? How can we not try to prevent them from putting people in harm’s way? How can we not try to save them from harming themself? FLIGHT reminds us that the mercy to do so takes a large degree of fortitude – the fortitude to look beyond blame and see the truth for what it is.
Even if that truth involves a sin we might hate.
Glad to hear someone liked this movie because I didn’t. As far as I can tell its a manipulative written mess. But great that you like it.
I’ll bite – what about this film didn’t you like?
FLIGHT ends with two of my least favorite movie cliches. Another great Washington performance, but the script doesn’t merit it.
Which two cliches would those be? I can think of one (the location of his final monologue), but am not quite sure which two you’re thinking of.