When it comes to high-octane action thrillers, there's a formula that many follow for a box office hit. Flight Risk follows said formula to a tee: a high-stakes situation, an action star (Mark Wahlberg) and an Oscar-winning director (Mel Gibson). Unfortunately, the film fails to take off, with the story being the weakest link.
Flight Risk follows Air Marshal Madolyn Harris (Michelle Dockery) accompanying Winston (Topher Grace), a mob accountant Madolyn captured in a seedy motel in Alaska, to trial in New York by way of Anchorage, AK. As they cross the Alaskan wilderness, the pilot (Wahlberg) makes a move, proving he's the mob's dangerous hitman Daryl Booth — clearly a psychopath, but even so, his lewd sexual remarks throughout the film are in needlessly poor taste.
A fight ensues onboard and Daryl is locked up in the back while Madolyn tries to fly the plane herself, seemingly forgetting the whereabouts of the knife he used to attack her. Of course, Madolyn fails to turn around and check on her prisoner, who's attempting to escape his cuffs, completely frustrating the audience. Meanwhile, Madolyn uses a satellite phone to ask for assistance, all while trying to figure out who leaked the information about the charter flight.
The story, written by Jared Rosenberg, is poorly written, with little to no suspense. A good thriller amps up the tension, and while Flight Risk does so at the start, it never gets the engine going. As the plot unravels to reveal the leak in the organization, the little suspense generated dies down quickly without as big of a twist as the film lets on.
Flight Risk provides Mark Wahlberg with his second villainous role in his career (the first being Fear in 1996), and he nails it. He's always played the good guy; he has a knack for leading solid action thrillers. If it wasn't for the terrible script, it would have been fun to watch him step into the shoes of a despicable, menacing character who relishes in violence and torture. His bald cap, however, was more hilarious than menacing.
Often underrated, Topher Grace ends up being a delight to watch and a wise casting choice. He plays to his strengths with his comedic timing, and the audience will likely care more about him than anyone else in the contained thriller.
Unfortunately, Michelle Dockery might not have been the best person to be cast — at least not for this script. She plays the role of air marshal a little too calmly in the face of a crashing plane and a lunatic prisoner on board, compounded by the poor choices Madolyn makes that are unbelievable decisions. Dockery is too smart and talented for a role like this. Her past work, especially in Defending Jacob and Downton Abbey, prove her talent, but she just didn't fit this part.
On top of a poor script and questionable casting, the character of Hasan (Maaz Ali), the pilot who guides Madolyn on how to operate the plane via telephone, doesn't land, particularly the script calling for the happy-go-lucky Hasan to speak with a strong South Asian accent. Haven't we moved past stereotypical, caricatured representations of Asians playing doctors, cab drivers and pilots?
There are countless aviation thrillers and, typically, it's the suspense and edge-of-your-seat thrills that audiences are looking for, but Flight Risk is so poorly constructed and lacking in originality, it just doesn't have enough fuel to keep it from crashing.