Irritating though it is to be conceding anything to the objectionable Mel Gibson (whose 2006 film Apocalypto is very good), his new film does serve up a fair bit of entertainment value. It is an action suspense thriller set almost entirely on board a rickety small-prop plane, flying in a desperately dangerous situation through the Alaska wilderness. First-time feature screenwriter Jared Rosenberg had his script on the Black List of unproduced screenplays for four years before Gibson picked it up.
Michelle Dockery plays Madelyn, a deputy US air marshal who arrests a bespectacled mob accountant called Winston, played by Topher Grace; this white-collar malefactor had been hiding out in a squalid, remote Alaska hotel room. The cringing Winston is persuaded to turn state’s evidence against his capo paymaster and so Madelyn has to transport him to the nearest city for the trial, fully chained up as a flight risk. The only way of getting him there through this snowy wasteland is in an alarmingly tiny plane piloted by the cheerful Daryl Booth, a Texan good ol’ boy played by Mark Wahlberg.
But their flight runs into hair-raising danger and Winston is a man with some very important secrets. In this enclosed space, guns are fired, hunting knives are plunged into arms, and gutsy, feisty Madelyn has to take control of the plane when the pilot loses consciousness – although fans of Jerry Zucker’s Airplane! will expect something more dramatic when she presses the automatic pilot button. Nonetheless, flying a plane is a step up for Dockery, whose fans will remember her playing a humble flight attendant in the airplane thriller Non-Stop.
The film is, of course, very silly, but diverting and ingenious, and contains game performances from Wahlberg, Dockery and Grace. Wahlberg is goofy and puppyish in his flirting with the tough law-enforcement officer, yet he springs an unexpected surprise; Grace is nerdy, nervy and delivers the film’s wisecrack quotient; Dockery manages to style out the obvious absurdity of the situation. There is a bizarre twist involving a wig, and some white-knuckle enjoyment to be had.
• Flight Risk is out now in Australia, and will be released in the US and UK on 24 January.
