Sometimes, you’ve just gotta go with it…

While the odds of a movie like this ever being considered high art, is pretty darn low there’s something undeniably entertaining about something like Flight Risk as it completely owns it’s gonzo and compelling presence.

A pilot (Mark Wahlberg) transports an Air Marshall (Michelle Dockery) accompanying a fugitive (Topher Grace) to trial. As they cross the Alaskan wilderness, tensions soar and trust is tested, as not everyone on board is who they seem.

Comparable on the surface to locked in thrillers like Hitchcock’s Lifeboat or Danny Boyle’s Shallow Grave but coming in more with a B-Movie esthetic like Wes Craven’s Red Eye; it’s undeniable that Mel Gibson can still direct the hell out of a movie as he proves here easily on Flight Risk.

Sure, it’s inherently “dumb” cinema, but it just might be some of the best executed “dumb” cinema that we’ve seen in years as the often cornball dialogue and silly premise that we have to embrace from writer Jared Rosenberg fits like a glove.  These three characters strap themselves in to command our attention for the next 90 or so minutes because there’s a lean and mean efficiency to it all that just doesn’t let us go.  Gibson isn’t afraid to let the inside of a tiny plane feel like a psychological expanse that has these characters get bounced around in.

To say that Wahlberg as our killer (spoiler sorry) chews the scenery and spits it out doesn’t actually do this performance any justice as it is likely the understatement of this young calendar year.

With his half shaven head and over the top hillbilly accent Mark Wahlberg takes every frame of this film and drags into unhinged territory as his Darryl manages to be charming, ridiculous and a little terrifying all at the same time.  As an actor he’s not leaned into a performance like this since 1997 as Eddie Adams/Dirk Diggler in the iconic Boogie Nights.  Granted its two very different performances, but the unhinged abandon in his eyes is unmistakable.

Michelle Dockery is consistently underrated and does well here as the US Marshall out of her depth while Topher Grace leans into the role of criminal middle man with believable aplomb.

We’ll ultimately own up to the fact that it’s not hard for some sects of society want to culturally cancel and banish Mel Gibson (for reasons we’ll admit are more than understandable) it’s going to be harder and harder to deny Mel at place at the filmmaking table when he can make something that is both leaning into the absurdity of its premise and economically viable.  There’s an art to quality B-Movies and filmmakers like Mel can actually make the familiar absurdity of any given situation still feel pretty fresh.