Enjoyable in that Hollywood-popcorn way for which Robert Zemeckis is famous— see “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” skip “Forest Gump” — “Flight” is a drama that would have been better without the director's love of schmaltz. Featuring one of the most terrifying plane crash sequences ever filmed, the movie sets up Denzel Washington’s character Captain Whip Whitaker as the narrative’s protagonist-antagonist rolled into one. Getting two-for-the-price-of-one, the audience is taunted as whether or not to root for this unapologetic alcoholic commercial pilot who saves most of the plane’s 102 passengers during a crisis that would have killed them had the plane been helmed by anyone else. Whip was toasted--on booze, pot, and cocaine--when he pulled off an unconventional “inverted” flying maneuver that allowed him to (mostly) successfully crash-land the huge plane in an empty field.
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