Flight 2012

Nick Pinkerton, Village Voice: Like Cast Away, Flight's narrative is set in motion by a wreck, a foundering, but this time there's a sort of genius behind the wheel. Read more

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: Washington's nuanced performance is a tightrope walk between the Denzel whom people expect and the character he's boldly burrowed into. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: Just a couple of hours with Washington reclining within the contours of a role until a piece of cardboard becomes a character. Read more

Glenn Kenny, MSN Movies: It is probably more than a little reductive to say that this movie is The Lost Weekend with highly superior special effects. But there's something to that, honestly. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: To watch Mr. Zemeckis working fluidly in consort with Mr. Washington's ferocious performance is to regret this director's last, technologically determined decade. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: No actor is as brilliant, or as cunning, as Denzel Washington at portraying superhuman coolness and the scary prospect of its loss. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: Mr. Zemeckis has forgotten nothing about how to stage the kind of breathtaking live-action fireworks display that keeps an audience paralyzed. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: Shameless, though effective, melodrama. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: The image of the heroic he-man, so entrenched in Hollywood mythology, takes an intriguing detour with Flight. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: In Robert Zemeckis' "Flight," we watch a master actor play a character who's always acting. Read more

Keith Phipps, AV Club: The film makes it clear that every choice matters. On Earth as in the air, one wrong move, and everything can slip away. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: There's something in almost all of Denzel Washington's performances, a calm in the midst of a storm, that separates him from the rank and file, that elevates him to a status among the truly gifted actors of any generation. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Denzel Washington has fought like hell against the Sidney Poitier syndrome; for every movie in which he's played Mr. Noble, there are more in which he's played a heel. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: "Flight" is Washington's show, and he's marvelous in it. But Zemeckis and his team put everything in place so that Washington could run with it, with unnervingly good results. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: A straightforward morality play crossed with a pretty good nail-biter. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: Washington sells the hollow confidence of a practiced dissembler, and he conjures enough vulnerability and pure charm to make us wince as he circles the drain. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: An old-fashioned drama and all the better for it. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: It's a well-made movie. But after its opening, harrowing action sequence, the film turns into one of the most familiar stories of our time - a downward addiction and denial spiral. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: AA, God, and prayer are invoked by various characters with various religious convictions in John Gatins' unflinching screenplay, each time with a seriousness, modesty, and ease rare in so many movies about drunks and their journeys. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: This absorbing drama provides Denzel Washington with one of his meatiest, most complex roles, and he flies with it. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: A solid, often engrossing film that doesn't engage us overall the way Denzel Washington's work does. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: But while a movie as grim as Flight could use a moment or two of levity, does it have to be in service to the antithetical idea that drug dealers are awesome? Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: "Flight" performs a daring wing-walk between politically incorrect comedy and gut-wrenching drama, and it succeeds partly thanks to Washington ... Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: At a certain point, great actors want to show us the truth of something that may be far from their lives but that somehow they understand, intimately, all too well. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: This is Washington's movie from beginning to end, and full of little layers. Read more

Scott Tobias, NPR: One of the big reasons Flight is so satisfying is that it moves with the no-frills, meat-and-potatoes conventions of a first-rate procedural while being awash in ambiguity. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: A film of individually fine scenes that at best add up to a good, but not a great, movie. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: "Flight" is neither a simple story of heroism, nor one of a fallen hero. Things are more complex than that -- and it is its complexities that make the film all the more rewarding an experience. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Flight is a well-made motion picture, but not a fun or entertaining one. Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: Denzel Washington gives one of his most nuanced and impressive performances. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Not often does a movie character make such a harrowing personal journey that keeps us in deep sympathy all of the way. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Flight reminds us of what Washington can do when a role hits him with a challenge that would floor a lesser actor. He's a ball of fire, and his detailed, depth-charged, bruisingly true performance will be talked about for years. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: Slowly but surely, "Flight" degenerates from a tale of moral paradox and wounded romance into a mid-1990s after-school special about addiction and recovery. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: It's 150 minutes long, goes by in a shot, and for at least 135 minutes, it's a thoroughly engrossing experience. Read more

Forrest Wickman, Slate: It succeeds as a carefully balanced cocktail of uppers and downers, of the type favored by its hero. You'll have a good night out, even if you don't remember it in the morning. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: For the most part, "Flight" manages to achieve the tricky balance of functioning as a serious, adult drama that's also crowd-pleasing. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: The film tackles serious issues of addiction, legal intrigue and personal responsibility, with Denzel Washington in top form as a heroic yet morally compromised protagonist. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: We can quibble about the punitive punchline of John Gatins' script, but keeping complexity aloft for so long makes "Flight" a miraculous feat. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: This movie is captivating until it gets uplifting - Flight soars when it crashes and crashes when it soars. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: There's a lot of talk of "miracles" and "acts of God" in Flight, but it's completely human deeds that make this movie soar. Read more

Tom Huddleston, Time Out: 'Flight' is predictable in its plotting and soft in its conclusions. But thanks to that dynamite opening and Washington's effortless performance, it's also an enjoyable, compelling slice of old-school melodrama. Read more

David Fear, Time Out: Flight doesn't quite soar past its narrative limitations. There's plenty of virtuosity to go around here-just precious little transcendence. Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: Audiences buckle up for one kind of movie but end up strapped in for another in Flight, director Robert Zemeckis' welcome return to live-action after a dozen years away. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Zemeckis reins in the story's potential for moralizing and melodrama, instead delivering a refreshingly sophisticated, mature human drama. Read more