Flight Risk (2025)

Dir: Mel Gibson

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Michelle Dockery, Topher Grace

Despite a promising setup, not even a scene-chewing, villainous turn from Mark Wahlberg can help get Mel Gibson’s tonally incoherent airborne thriller off the ground

While I may not have seen every major release in 2024, I can largely look back at last year as a pretty successful year for cinema. A year that not only saw huge blockbusters such as “Dune: Part Two” and “Wicked” wow audiences, but also smaller, yet equally as impressive releases such as “Anora”, “Conclave” and “The Brutalist”. It truly was a diverse year for cinema, with strong representations across all genres, which is remarkable given the poor start to the industry the industry faced. With audiences generally low on cash following a hectic and expensive festive period, January has historically been one of the weaker months at the global box-office, which results in little-to-no new major releases hitting the big screen. Here in the UK, we do not suffer quite as much at the start of a year thanks to several belated releases of films up for award contention, but as far as new worldwide releases go…it tends to be pretty dire.

January, and to some degree February, are seen as a dump months, where distributors drop titles that they have very little faith in, knowing at least they will have sparce competition at the box-office. For example, the first two new releases I saw in the cinema in 2024 were the uninspired swimming pool horror “Night Swim” and the painfully cringey action-comedy “Argylle”, both of which were critically panned, with the latter bombing significantly at the box-office. Both films also happened to appear in my year-end worst of 2024 list, so with the exception of films such as Best Picture nominees “The Brutalist”, “Nickel Boys” and “I’m Still Here”, which have a 2025 UK release date, I will be pretty apprehensive going in to most screenings this early in the year.

One of the first films out the gate in 2025 is aviation thriller “Flight Risk”, directed by non-other than Oscar-winning director and actor, Mel Gibson. Having shot to stardom in the late seventies following the success of George Miller‘s “Mad Max”, Gibson soon became a household name in Hollywood, going on to star in multiple big-budget, American productions, most notably buddy cop action-comedy “Lethal Weapon”, and its sequels. Gibson would go onto direct and star in the historical epic “Braveheart”, which earned him his two Academy Awards, for Director and Picture. However, despite his obvious talent as an actor and filmmaker, Gibson has been a source of controversy throughout his career, having faced accusations of homophobia, racism and antisemitism, the latter coming in response to his contentious 2004 biblical drama “The Passion of the Christ”. Having been blacklisted by Hollywood following a string of offensive comments and his outward beliefs, Gibson made an impressive comeback in 2016 with the excellent pacifistic war film “Hacksaw Ridge”, which seemed to rebuild his reputation. However, in the wake of his latest release, his first as a director in almost a decade, Gibson was appointed Special Ambassador to Hollywood by the recently inaugurated Donald Trump, in an effort to “save” the industry from an influx of foreign media. Strictly as a movie critic, I try to avoid as much political background surrounding any movie release, and try to focus purely on the film in isolation.

“Flight Risk” follows U.S. Marshall Madolyn Harris (Michelle Dockery), who has recently apprehended fugitive accountant Winston (Topher Grace), who had been hiding out in a remote Alaskan motel. Pleading for immunity, Winston turns informant against his former employer, a crime lord named Moretti who is currently awaiting trial in New York. Madolyn charters a small private plane to take them both to Anchorage, so they can transfer to New York, where she intends for Winston to testify against Moretti. Upon boarding the plane, Madolyn and Winston meet their Texan pilot Daryl Booth (Mark Wahlberg), who reassures them of the plane’s structural integrity after explaining that the radio and communications are broken.

During their short-haul flight over the Alaskan wilderness, Madolyn and Winston soon realise that Daryl is not actually their intended pilot, but a hitman sent by Moretti to kill Winston-also he’s bald. Having detected his accent slip into Italian-American, Madolyn is able to subdue “Daryl” with a taser, rendering him unconscious but leaving the plane without a pilot. Having taken over piloting duties, Madolyn uses her satellite phone to contact her superior for help, unaware that there is a leak inside her department. With a restrained witness and an incapacitated psychopath on board, Madolyn has to safely transport Winston to Anchorage so he can help prosecute Moretti and his insider accomplices.

It has been nine years since Gibson last took his place in the director’s chair, and it is evident. Despite helming some ambitious and visually stunning features in the past, Gibson clearly has lost all his creative flair with this formulaic aviation thriller. Like many films that have come before it, “Flight Risk” spent several years prior to its production on the Hollywood “Black List”, a list of the most liked, unproduced screenplays to have been distributed around Tinseltown. Having seen the film, I am curious as to the contents of this initially lauded script, as it must be a far cry from the incoherent, yet formulaic nonsense that made it onto the screen. On paper, there is plenty of promise with the movie’s initial setup, which largely focuses on three distinct individuals who occupy a sputtering, winged jalopy; one on the right side of the law, one who remains morally ambiguous, and one who is a bona fide lunatic.

It is simple but high-concept, and given to the right filmmaker could have been a suspenseful and claustrophobic action-thriller. Instead, what we have been given is a clunky and tonally chaotic mess, with all three leads seemingly acting in completely different movies. I understand he is portraying an authoritative figure, but Michelle Dockery takes her role as Madolyn far too seriously. Stone-faced, and largely without emotion apart from some mild, workplace flirting over the radio with a grounded pilot, who is tasked with talking her through the seemingly simple procedures of flying an aircraft. Conversely, Topher Grace -who have never been much of an advocate for outside of his role in “That 70’s Show” – serves as the movie’s comic relief, relentlessly delivering poorly written one-liners in a pathetic attempt to make his character more likeable. Grace’s ability to continuously relieve this supposed thriller of any tension or peril is unprecedented, especially when paired with Dockery’s humourless protagonist.

This leads me to everyone’s rapper-turned-actor, “Marky Mark” Wahlberg, who largely spends the thankfully brisk 85-minute runtime unconscious, despite being front and centre of the movie’s marketing campaign. Wahlberg has been guilt of some stinkers in the past, with his collaborations with Michael Bay first springing to mind, however, he has also proven to be a talented comedic and dramatic actor in films such as “Boogie Nights” (1997), “The Departed” (2006) and “The Other Guys” (2010). I have noticed than Wahlberg has recieved the bulk of the criticism following the film’s release, and while he may not be particularly great, I am willing to defend is ridiculously over-the-top performance here, as I believe he is the only one of the three leads who matches up to the tone “Flight Risk” should be aiming for. If Dockery and Grace were able to match Wahlberg’s tongue-and-cheek approach towards the film, we may have had a half-decent B-movie actioner on our hands, something akin to Simon West‘s “Con Air”.

I went into “Flight Risk” not expecting much in the way of character development or overall smarts, but with Gibson failing to fully grasp the nature of his three central characters, it even fails to be a successful dumb-but-fun action flick. Thankfully last year’s theatrical output still fills me with hope that cinema is back, it just takes its time to get going once in a while.

Flight Risk is now showing in UK Cinemas.

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