Whip Whittaker an airline pilot who manages to save many lives when the plane goes down and stops it from crashing but doesn’t receive much praise when the investigation brings out some worry results.
The audience see straight away that it would not appear that Whip is in the right state to fly a plane, after plenty of alcohol and then taking some coke before heading to the airport for the flight that morning. But he does seem to pull it off, his copilot doesn’t seem very impressed. The actions Whip takes to ensure the plane doesn’t crash are remarkable and as it’s later stated that no one else could have landed the plane that day.
We quickly find out that Whip has problems with his drinking and as a result of this he lost his wife and son, who hardly have any contact with him. It really is an emotionally journey throughout this film and you really aren’t sure how things are going to work out or what is actually going to happen. Now I find that as always being a good thing in a film, you don’t want them all to be predictable.
The performance from Denzel is as usual brilliant, this film seeing him pick up another Oscar nomination for his lead. He manages to really keep the audience engaged, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him as well. Something we probably shouldn’t but that is the power of the performance. A deserved nomination as the performance really is that good.
Whip doesn’t seem to be able to hold many relationships for very long, always managing to push people away who care about him and that sees his downfall go even further. I think sometimes we forget that alcohol can really become a dangerous addiction and some people lose control over it. I think this film does well to show how bad it can become for people and raising awareness and understanding for being an alcoholic.
I have to admit that this turned out to be a very different film from what I expected. Not in a bad way, I just wasn’t expecting something so heavy . . . If that is the right word to try and describe it! I can’t really say I liked or disliked this film but it certainly was thought provoking.