Academy Award-winning director, and controversial Hollywood star, Mel Gibson
, is back behind the camera for this month’s action thriller, Flight Risk
. Reuniting with his Father Stu co-star Mark Wahlberg
, who stars as a tricksy, balding assassin and the villain of the piece, the reviews for Flight Risk are now in, with the action outing crash landing with critics and debuting with a score of 30% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Peter Gray of The AU Review couldn’t have enjoyed Flight Risk much less, awarding the movie a rating of just 1.5/5 and criticizing Gibson’s surprisingly lackluster direction.
“Gibson’s unable to land this thing successfully. He doesn’t even revert to autopilot, instead content with a crash landing, failing to let us brace for any immediate impact.”
Subsequent reviews did not get much better, with the film’s chances of really flying being grounded from the start. The Wall Street Journal’s Zachary Barnes puts the failings of the movie down to a “witless screenplay” that “no director could make exciting or even minimally endurable.” For Barry Hertz of Globe and Mail, however, Gibson’s direction had to take its fair share of criticism. He said:
“A C-grade thriller that is further dumbed down to dunce-cap calibre, Flight Risk might have worked as an enjoyably grimy piece of genre trash had Gibson not made every single wrong directorial decision along the way.”
Naturally, there are some who have been happy to tip the scales more in favor of the movie, such as IndieWire’s Christian Zilko, who shared that “Flight Risk is some of the finest stupidity Hollywood has gifted us in a long time.” And that is meant to be positive, so make if it what you will.
‘Flight Risk’ Lands in Theaters on January 24
There is probably a good reason why the review embargo for Flight Risk was lifted almost as the first theatrical screening commenced. The 20 reviews shared have not exactly painted a positive picture of the film, but that hasn’t always stopped audiences wanting to check out the lay of the land for themselves. They will get to do just that as the movie opens tonight for previews before its full opening on Friday, January 24. Just as one final reminder of the general feeling about Gibson’s latest efforts as director, Mark Kennedy of Associated Press sums things up with:
No one emerges unscathed from this funny-when-it-shouldn’t-be mess. The movie’s slogan is the weird “Y’all Need a Pilot?” but it should be “Y’all Need a Filmmaker?”
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Directed by Mel Gibson from a script by Jared Rosenberg, Flight Risk is scheduled to be released in the United States by Lionsgate on January 24, 2025. The action thriller stars an against-type Mark Wahlberg (the Transformers franchise) as hitman and pilot “Daryl Booth” alongside Michelle Dockery (Downton Abbey) s Deputy U.S. Marshal, Madelyn Harris, and Topher Grace (That ’70s Show) as her informant, Winston. You can check out the official synopsis for Flight Risk below.
In this high-stakes suspense thriller, Academy Award® nominee Mark Wahlberg (2006, Actor in a Supporting Role, The Departed) plays a pilot transporting an Air Marshal (Michelle Dockery) accompanying a fugitive (Topher Grace) to trial. As they cross the Alaskan wilderness, tensions soar and trust is tested, as not everyone on board is who they seem.
Flight Risk
Release Date
January 23, 2025
Runtime
91 minutes
Producers
Bruce Davey
, John Davis
, Russell Hollander
, Christopher Woodrow
, Petr Jákl
, K. Blaine Johnston
You can view the original article HERE.
