Overview
A U.S. Marshal escorts a government witness to trial after he is accused of getting involved with a mob boss, only to discover that the pilot who is transporting them is also a hitman that had been sent to assassinate the informant. After they subdue him, they’re forced to fly together after discovering that there are others attempting to eliminate them.
Directed by Mel Gibson, Flight Risk sees a US Marshall, Madolyn Harris (Michelle Dockery), arrest Winston (Topher Grace), an accountant hiding in Alska, who works for a mob boss. Winston will turn evidence against his boss, and so the pair charter a private flight to get them to Achorage so they can transfer to New York. The pilot of the plane, Daryl Booth (Wahlberg), turns out to be a hitman sent to stop Winston from testifying, and he makes his move when the plane is in flight, and Madolyn calls him out on some inconsistencies in his stories about himself. Subduing him and tying him up, she must work out how to control the plane, and also decipher the mystery of who the mole is within her agency who leaked the details of the flight. All the while Daryl seems psychotically determined to break free and finish his job.
Thankfully running for a short 91 minutes, this still feels far too drawn out, largely due to the limitation on plot threats with there only being 3 people on this flight. There isn’t much scope for additional peril, and so the film basically plays out with Daryl being obnoxious and trying to get into the heads of Winston and Madolyn, before getting lose and attacking, being subdued, then repeat. There’s little else going on aside from the radio communications with a pilot who is guiding Madolyn at the controls, and her calls to try to uncover the mole, that is ridiculously obvious, and feels underwhelmingly anticlimatical in the final act.
Topher Grace is moderately entertaining as Winston, but Dockery feels lost here. Wahlberg tries to give some menace, but comes across as crass and pathetic more than threatening (although kudos to his character for how much electrical charge he can suffer from a taser before he collapses), and the odd decision to have the character to be wearing a wig under his baseball cap does nothing to improve this. His one liner quips are almost painful, and made me wonder if his unique hitman ability was to get people to kill themselves to stop listening to him. Look, I get he’s supposed to be a bad guy, but that didn’t mean he needed to be overplayed to be abhorrent – sometimes the calm villain is the more menacing (look at Malkovic in Con Air for example).
Flight Risk won’t offer much risk to the box office, and it is safe to say it doesn’t stick the landing in the final act. Avoid this flight, and book yourself on a different one instead.