Flight Risk (#642)


The critics and I disagree strongly on this film which stars Mark Wahlberg as a small plane pilot and Michelle Dockery whom I fondly recall from Downton Abbey.  She is cast as a U.S. Marshal charged with accompanying a vital witness set to testify against a crime boss. She has chartered Wahlberg's plane to fly them from Alaska to Seattle, with the witness shackled in the rear of the plane. Mid-flight, she realizes that Wahlberg is really a paid assassin assigned to kill the witness and her. She manages to subdue him and is flying the plane with no previous experience. And she learns through radio conversations that the plot was arranged by someone inside the marshal's service. Sure it's hokey and contrived, but it comes across as an old-fashioned mystery thriller, the kind Hollywood doesn't make any more, and we enjoyed it even with its flaws. Only 26% of critics and 64% of audiences gave FLIGHT RISK a thumbs up. perhaps because they don't like Mel Gibson who directed the film. Wahlberg is a vile and crude villain; Dockery is a bold and accomplished heroine.  


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