Flight Risk (2025) review

Dir. Mel Gibson

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★½

Mark Wahlberg is bald. At one point, he gives Topher Grace a “titty twister,” and a few beats later, Grace pisses his pants. Before any of this happens, strange AI vomit shows us an Alaskan motel getting blasted with snow coupled with a poorly CGI-ed moose that must’ve wandered off the set of a SyFy movie. If all of that wasn’t crazy enough, the very poster for Mel Gibson’s Flight Risk confesses its lack of seriousness with a four-word tagline: “Y’all Need a Pilot?”

Indeed, the same controversial filmmaker who brought you The Passion of the Christ and the Oscar-nominated Hacksaw Ridge brings you one of the shoddiest plane thrillers in recent memory. While the ramshackle plane in which Flight Risk is largely set is itself an accurate personification of the random, unremarkable fare that usually gets spat into theaters in January, this forgettable mile-high pot-boiler is at least brief enough at 90 minutes to hold your attention.

One of its benefits is the majority of the film plays out in real-time. In the opening minutes, an accountant-turned-informant named Winston (Topher Grace) is arrested at a motel in Alaska. The arresting officer is U.S. Marshal Madelyn Harris (Michelle Dockery), who takes Winston aboard a rinky-poo Cessna piloted by “Daryl Booth” (Mark Wahlberg sans hair). In short order, we discover that the pilot is actually trying to whack Winston. Harris and Winston successfully restrain him, but very quickly realize they themselves are ill-equipped to fly the aircraft through the towering mountains of Alaska.

Jared Rosenberg’s script is smart to confine the action to the plane itself. Again, the film mostly takes place in real-time. Harris communicates with a variety of personnel via headset, but outside of hearing the familiar voices of Leah Remini and The Wire‘s Paul Ben-Victor, we are confined to the skies. However, such a move required slightly better writing than what we’re afforded. It takes someone as intelligent as Harris far too long to realize that Winston is aware of something untoward, so much of the film’s first half involves the two parties going back-and-forth about how neither can trust one another.

The trifecta of talent could be worse. Mark Wahlberg doesn’t often play the villain role, much less a bald one, so that one-two punch is not only shocking but entertaining in his second collaboration with Gibson after Father Stu. Topher Grace has always excelled as a smart-ass. Even when he’s an embezzling informant, he still comes across as Eric Forman, or the guy who rode the ball in Take Me Home Tonight, which adds to his charm. Michelle Dockery is the straight one of the group, capable of keeping her cool in the presence of two halfwits under stress.

Flight Risk maintains some engagement thanks to its pacing, which entraps us in a scenario we can’t escape. It doesn’t force us back down to ground level to watch mission control scramble to land the plane, nor does it waste time in showing all the individuals with whom Harris communicates trying to save face. Cinematographer Johnny Derango (a Peru, IL native!) does his best to make things not look like a direct-to-video actioneer, making good use of the small cargo plane as a basis for the action. And yet, when it comes to one-setting thrillers helmed by Mel Gibson, I’d be quicker to recommend On the Line, which is set in a radio studio.

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Michelle Dockery, Topher Grace, and Monib Abhat. Voiced by: Leah Remini, Paul Ben-Victor, and Maaz Ali. Directed by: Mel Gibson.