The film stars Denzel Washington as William "Whip" Whitaker Sr., an alcoholic airline pilot who miraculously crash-lands his plane after a mechanical failure, saving nearly everyone on board.
It received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised Washington's performance and Zemeckis' return to live-action filmmaking, his first such film since Cast Away and What Lies Beneath in 2000.
Flight appeared on multiple critics' year-end top ten lists and received two nominations at the 85th Academy Awards for Best Actor (Washington) and Best Original Screenplay.
[1][2] Airline pilot Captain Whip Whitaker snorts cocaine to stay alert after a long night of drinking in his Orlando hotel room with Katerina Marquez, a flight attendant he will be flying with later that morning.
Whip awakens in an Atlanta hospital with moderate injuries and is greeted by his old friend, Charlie Anderson, who represents the airline's pilots union.
Having retired to his late father's farm, Whip meets Charlie and attorney Hugh Lang, who explain that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) performed a drug test while he was unconscious.
Nicole decides to separate from Whip after he fails to stay sober and he spontaneously drives to the home of his ex-wife and son, both of whom resent him.
At the hearing, lead NTSB investigator Ellen Block explains that a damaged elevator assembly jackscrew was the primary cause of the crash.
She then reveals that two empty vodka bottles were found in the plane's trash, despite beverages not being served to passengers, and that Whip's blood test was excluded for technical reasons.
Robert Zemeckis entered negotiations to direct Flight in April 2011,[3] and by early June had accepted, with Denzel Washington about to finalize his own deal.
In that incident, an ungreased jackscrew came loose and caused a catastrophic failure from which recovery was impossible, though pilot Ted Thompson and first officer Bill Tansky were able to fly the plane inverted in the last moments of the flight.
Flight received mostly positive reviews, and has an approval rating of 78% based on a sample of 236 critics on Rotten Tomatoes, with a weighted average of 6.90/10.
The site's consensus states "Robert Zemeckis makes a triumphant return to live-action cinema with Flight, a thoughtful and provocative character study propelled by a compelling performance from Denzel Washington".
The Hollywood Reporter's Todd McCarthy wrote that the film "provides Denzel Washington with one of his meatiest, most complex roles, and he flies with it".
[14] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four out of four, writing "Flight segues into a brave and tortured performance by Denzel Washington—one of his very best.
Entertainment Weekly wrote, "Denzel Washington didn't get an Oscar nod for nothing: His performance as an alcoholic airline pilot ensnared by his own heroics is crash-and-burn epic".