Flight Soars, Thanks to Denzel Washington

Whip Whitaker slides into the pilot's seat and takes a deep breath on the oxygen mask positioned to his left. He turns to his co-pilot, "Want a hit?" The co-pilot nervously shakes his head. It's going to be a bumpy ride.

But, it's not anything Whip can't handle. High on coke, oxygen, and carrying a .24 blood alcohol level, he takes control of a nose-diving aircraft by flying it upside-down, leveling off enough to crash it in a field, saving almost 100 lives.

Robert Zemeckis introduces us to Whitaker (Denzel Washington) in the morning. A lone camera watches him wake up with his very naked girlfriend in a hotel room. Whip argues with his ex-wife as the camera follows the girl around the room. She gets dressed slowly. Zemeckis is bringing us assuredly into Whip's world.

The man parties hard, he sleeps with beautiful women, and he blows cocaine for breakfast.

 
He and the girlfriend, a flight attendent named Katerina (Nadine Velazquez), head to the airport. That's where Whip hits the oxygen and runs into trouble.

Things happen fast, but Zemeckis doesn't just knock the plane out of the sky.

 The beginning of the flight prepares us for the crash as Whip flies through a storm to find clear skies. The camera frantically buzzes around the cockpit: dials bug out, Whip barks orders, the stick and throttle shake, back to Whip, more dials.

The suspense is in not knowing when the crash will come, and Zemeckis uses some old-school Back to the Future-type action to set it all up.

Following the crash, Flight becomes a character study of Whitaker. We come to learn he's not just some high-functioning drunk, he's a full-blown addict. But, he's not without his limits. Whip swears off drinking in the immediate days after, pouring out every liquor bottle and emptying his assorted stashes. Sadly, his sobriety doesn't last long, culminating in a binge that begins with him swigging a handle of vodka in a parking lot.