A pilot (Wahlberg) is transporting a US Marshal (Dockery) accompanying an informant (Grace) to trial. As they cross the Alaskan wilderness, tensions soar and trust is tested, as not everyone on board is who they seem.
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Well, the previews for Flight Risk made it look interesting enough. Three people trapped together in a little plane, with one trying to kill the other two? Sounds like it could be thrilling. But would it be? If so, why didn’t it seem to take off at the box office?
Mark Wahlberg plays the bad guy in Flight Risk, and surprisingly, he isn’t half bad. He usually plays the hero with varying degrees of success, and sometimes hasn’t found the right script (The Happening). Here, he goes for less hair, and more evil, and he isn’t half bad. He’s probably the best part of the film, since it’s all about waiting to see what he’s going to do next. While he’s not an iconic villain, it’s nice to see him finally starting to branch out from his normal roles.
The rest of the main cast consists of only two people: Michelle Dockery and Topher Grace. Dockery is the hero of Flight Risk, and can’t quite handle it. She’s decent enough, but Wahlberg’s villainy makes the viewer care about her more than her performance does. Topher Grace, recognizable from That 70’s Show (TV) and his awful performance as Venom in Spider-Man 3, plays more true-to-form here. He’s an ex-accountant for a mob boss, so doesn’t have to play very tough at all. He’s mostly panicked and meekly sarcastic, and the viewer will buy it completely.
The story is decent enough. There has to be a reason these three are on the plane in the middle of nowhere, and the film does a decent job of setting that up. Once they are on the plane, the close quarters, isolation and danger from Wahlberg help keep the tension high throughout. Unfortunately, the script has some problems. Most of the dialogue is throwaway, and Dockery’s performance just can’t get the viewer to care about her at all, making viewers kind of disinterested in the characters.
Of course, since they are in a tighter area, there are no hide-and-seek games going on (which is usually a given in plane films). Everyone always knows where everyone else is, and this leads to a few moments where the hero has to be stupid, at not see what’s going on with the bad guy. This is accentuated by shouts and noise from the bad guy, making it pretty obvious that he’s up to something, but the other two just ignore him. With two of them, one could have easily been watching the bad guy while the other flies the plane, but that doesn’t happen – and it makes the other two look really dumb.
While the script does go overboard in trying to turn Wahlberg into the most sadistic bad guy ever seen, it’s nice to see Wahlberg trying something new. He isn’t great, but with Dockery unable to get viewers to care about her character and Topher playing a simpering wimp, he’s the best Flight Risk has to offer. The setting helps a lot, but the thruway dialogue definitely needs work. Hopefully the poor reviews won’t get to Wahlberg, and he’ll keep trying to branch out. After all, his villain has potential, even if the script kinda kills that.
