“Junior Birdman”

“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

 

Flight stars Denzel Washington as a commercial airline pilot with more problems than just flying and landing the airliner on time.

Right away at the beginning of the movie we know that Captain Whip Whitaker is not who he pretends to be.  But, Man, does Denzel Washington look mighty fine in his captain’s uniform as he walks through the airport to take command of his airplane.

The flight is from Orlando, Florida, to Atlanta, Georgia, and right after he sits down in the pilot’s chair in the cockpit, Whip starts acting a bit unusual and different from how we would want our pilot to act.

He takes a couple of hits of oxygen before taking off and asks the copilot if he would like a hit.

Then when they encounter some turbulence, Whip personally goes back into the cabin to reassure the passengers, and he tells them that there won’t be any service of beverages for safety reasons, but as he is telling the passengers and crew this, he is fixing himself a glass of orange juice and vodka out of sight from everyone.

Back in his pilot’s seat, Whip suddenly experiences what appears to be a mechanical failure, and the airliner goes into an uncontrollable nose dive in what is one of the most harrowing scenes about an airplane you will ever see.

Miraculously, Whip manages to roll the airliner upside down in order to get control back, and he then glides the airplane to a soft landing in an open field, and only six people of the 102 aboard die.

Captain Whitaker is called a hero, but a required investigation into the accident turns up some evidence that could damage his reputation and career and even send him to prison.

The rest of the movie is about that investigation, and John Goodman and Don Cheadle show up in important roles in the story.

Also, Whip gets involved with a woman who distracts him from his problem at hand: staying sober and getting through the investigation with his reputation and career intact.

This is a very serious movie, but I couldn’t help being reminded of the lyrics to an old song called “Junior Birdman” and flying “upside down!”

Flight is an excellent film about difficult subjects, and we should hope we never experience any of them firsthand.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”