Flight is the story of a pilot who lands an airplane in a field and doesn’t kill everybody onboard. Thereafter, there is an inquisition into the causes of the crash and an effort to place blame. Naturally, the Airline wants to blame the manufacturer… the manufacturer wants to blame the pilot and the pilot thinks they both suck. And that’s where this story begins…

Story: The story is told well and is 100% believable. Having covered airplane crashes as a reporter, I remember the details and the active effort to cover up the speculation about where the error occurred. This film shows the behind-the-scenes conversations that lead to the in-the-public statements. But clearly, this film was derived from the US Airways crash where Sully Sullenberger landed the plane in the Hudson and every passenger walked away.

My only surprise was how deep the pilot was into his demons. The trailers for the film seem to downplay exactly how intense the pilot’s situation is. The film goes into much greater detail and reveals a lot more than I expected.

Performances: Denzel Washington is an award-winning actor, so, I would expect a performance worthy of such. I got that. But, I was surprised when I saw his nomination for Oscar/best actor. Then I saw the film and it did click. In fact, I thought his performance in this film was a slight better than his Oscar-winning performance in Training Day. And since we know he got that Oscar as payback… Just making a point…

Don Cheadle, John Goodman and Bruce Greenwood all played characters. They had very distinct personalities and styles that complimented Denzel’s torchured pilot. Each actor did a good job of delivery for their character…

Visual: This was not a film filled with special effects or computer-generated gimmicks. So don’t see this to get a light show spectacular. The details of this story are what sell it. Having said that, the costumes were spot-on… the airplane cockpit was spot-on… the landscape for the crash and the actual crash were well played. As well played as a plane crash can be…

Rating: Flight gets a B+ from me. It was more of a surprise to me than expected, but, I was not moved by the story. However, because of the serious nature of the film and the combination of performances, it can’t be discounted.

Flight is worth seeing if you have a free afternoon or you’ve seen everything else out there or you need to see all Oscar nominated films (did I say that out loud?). Or if you just love Denzel Washington. Pick your reason, see it if one works for you…