Denzel Washington just may have the movie that will catapult him into the top driver’s seat for the Best Actor Oscar at the 2013 Academy Awards. Part of the reason for that sentence is the wave of positive reviews from critics who’ve seen his new Robert Zemeckis-produced and directed film Flight.
The other part of the reason for the first sentence is how the movie trailer hit me, and how much I enjoy Mr. Zemeckis very modern American take on American culture. From Back To The Future to Forest Gump, and now it seems with Flight, Robert has the unique ability to make pictures that capture the soul of America. And he does this while sneaking in the best special effects in such a way that you don’t realize what you’re seeing is a special effect, when it’s used.
That’s evident in the trailer, which immediately places us into a scene any one of us could be in in real life. It’s obvious that this is a contemporary movie, and like America itself, the character formation has someone who could be any color as a pilot, lawyer, news reporter, and so on. Then, to mark that this is a film that reflects the values of a baby-boomer generation that this blogger is either in the last year of, or just outside of, Robert throws in Gimme Shelter, the classic by The Rolling Stones.
Lastly, I’m excited to dying to see how Denzel performs in a Robert Zemeckis film for myself. From all accounts, Flight is a must see movie about a pilot who has the demons of alcoholism, drug abuse, and infidelity which he uses to deal with the stress of being a commercial airline pilot. All of this comes to a head when Washington is assigned to a mechanically-faulty plane that fails on him. His unique way of landing it saved lives, but then the investigation brings Washington’s character face-to-face with his issues.
Stay tuned for Flight.