The Denzel Washington movie Roger Ebert loved: “It is nearly flawless”
Roger Ebert was always a fan of Denzel Washington, even going back to the start of the magnetic star’s movie career in the late 1980s.
You see, in 1989, Ebert marked Washington out as a movie star of the highest order after only a handful of films. At that point, he had finished a six-year stint on the TV medical drama St Elsewhere, and even though he received a ‘Best Supporting Actor’ nomination for 1987’s Cry Freedom, his credentials as a true star who could anchor Hollywood’s biggest movies were up for debate. Well, for everyone except Ebert, who watched him in the mystery comedy The Mighty Quinn, and more than likely did the Leonardo DiCaprio pointing meme at the press screening.
To Ebert, The Mighty Quinn was the type of film that “creates a movie star overnight”, and he marvelled at Washington’s “reserves of charm, sexiness and offbeat humour”. Comparisons with dyed-in-the-wool matinee idols like Sean Connery and Michael Caine followed, and suddenly Washington had a dedicated supporter in the iconic Chicago Sun-Times critic.
Over the next two decades, Ebert kept watching Washington’s movies, some of which he loved, some of which he didn’t. Fittingly, though, the last of his oeuvre Ebert reviewed before his death in 2013 saw him deliver his most effusive praise for the star since ‘89. When the critic sat down for Flight, it returned him to the excited cinephile who saw such incredible potential in the actor all those years ago. This time, Ebert reckoned he’d fulfilled that promise by delivering one of his greatest performances yet.
“After opening with one of the most terrifying flying scenes I’ve witnessed, in which an airplane is saved by being flown upside down,” Ebert wrote in his glowing four-star review, “Robert Zemeckis‘ Flight segues into a brave and tortured performance by Denzel Washington—one of his very best.”
The actor’s performance was a masterclass in maintaining audience sympathy for a troubled man, while never overplaying his hand or resorting to grandstanding. “There are many scenes inviting emotional displays,” Ebert noted of the plentiful acting landmines Washington could have stood on, adding, “A lesser actor might have wanted to act them out”. Instead, ‘D’ kept things as real as possible, depending “on his eyes, his manner and a gift for projecting inner emotion”.
As any movie fan worth their salt will tell you, Ebert was 100% correct about the skill involved in Washington’s performance as the alcoholic commercial pilot William ‘Whip’ Whitaker. The character walks a tightrope for the entire film, between being an adept pilot inverting a failing passenger plane to save hundreds of lives, and his crutch of drugs and alcohol fueling him.
Whitaker’s heroic antics could have him painted as the kind of cool renegade who plays by his own rules, even if it’s not the way most pilots would do things. It could also have had Whitaker embrace his hero status or pursue relationships with the people whose lives he saved. Instead, the movie presents an unhappy, self-loathing man who can’t function without his vices.
Horrifyingly, the primary reason behind his feeling comfortable enough to perform such a daring feat when the plane malfunctioned was his drunken state. He then spends much of the movie refusing to seek help for his substance abuse issues, which doesn’t exactly scream ‘audience empathy’.
However, Washington is a cut above most other actors, even the great ones, and he brings soul, nuance, and believability to ‘Whip’ Whitaker at all times. “In the way it meets every requirement of a tricky plot, this is an ideal performance,” Ebert wrote, before declaring Flight the sixth best movie of 2012 in his annual Top 20 countdown.
