Winston (Topher Grace) is a meek fugitive accountant of a crime boss who is hiding out in Alaska. He subsequently becomes a “Flight Risk” (meaning he has to be handcuffed at all times) when he gets caught by Madolyn (Michelle Dockery), a no-nonsense US Marshal who returns to field duty after a terrible incident in her past. Taking the two of them back to Seattle is Daryl Booth (Mark Whalberg) — a twisted hitman disguised as a pilot with a Texan accent.

While Daryl and Madolyn both take the flight stick from time to time, this breezy mystery-less thriller is steered by Mel Gibson.

Written by Jared Rosenberg, Flight Risk has been a ‘blacklist’ title (an annual list of popular unproduced screenplays circulating in Hollywood), and one can see why: it is designed to be a contained thriller — a film set in a single location (in this case, the small airplane) — that focuses on just three characters and some voices on the radio that pop in from time to time (the voices are from Leah Remini as Madolyn’s fellow superior agent, her boss Paul Ben-Victor, and Maaz Ali, the charismatic pilot who helps our heroine fly the plane).

Whatever action sequences or twists of plot that are revealed (not that there are many twists here), need to happen within that one location in a nimble 85-minute runtime. By the sound of it, it should be a pretty quick movie. Yet, for some reason, it isn’t.

The light, Mel Gibson-directed Flight Risk is quite enjoyable as a movie that doesn’t become a headache or insult your intelligence

Gibson’s touch as a director seems to be very relaxed this time round. The film is less kinetic, less hectic than one assumes, and one notes that the editing by Steven Rosenblum (Braveheart, X-Men, Pearl Harbour, The Last Samurai), needs some tightening. One could easily cut out a lot of unflattering cut-aways — ie insert shots — and there are some obvious continuity jumps between actors’ motions/physicalities that many, save editors with keen eyes, would miss.

Irrespective of its drawbacks, Flight Risk is quite enjoyable as a little movie that doesn’t become a headache or insult your intelligence. The credit for this largely goes to Mark Whalberg (just don’t be fooled by the posters that use his face as the lead actor in the film), Topher Grace (always a likeable actor, who seems to be type-cast in meek-guy roles), Michelle Dockery, who carries the unsettled-but-resolved nature of her character quite well, and Maaz Ali, the pilot on the radio who is calming the tense atmosphere by constantly romantically hitting on Madolyn.

The film is skin-deep, but better than 90 percent of the drivel that’s factory-churned by streaming services and studios these days. In fact, cinema needs good space-fillers such as Flight Risk all year long.

Released by Lionsgate in cinemas and available to rent online, Flight Risk is rated ‘R’, but doesn’t feature much blood, gore or death (those that die, deserve it)

Published in Dawn, ICON, March 9th, 2025