Mel Gibson's thriller is your typical January movie

“Flight risk” is a modest thing. It has a very lean budget of $25 million and is set almost entirely on a small prop plane. For most of the film's mercifully brisk 91 minutes, there are only three actors on screen, and the idea is easy to grasp. In execution, it feels like a confident first turn from a rookie director. Shabby perhaps, but well-intentioned and only occasionally straining against the obviously limited means.

Only this is not the director's first film. This is the film of Mel Gibson, once a revered Oscar darling and hit maker, now sidelined by a series of offensive public outbursts and unhealthy personal views. As a director, Gibson has overseen a number of gritty, violent historical pictures, many of them impressively staged and visually striking. This was the man who upped the Hollywood epic game with “Braveheart” and turned the last days of Jesus into a brutal “Terrifier”-like horror reel. with “The Passion of Christ.” His films might seem overwhelmingly masculine, somewhat overwhelmingly Christian, or perhaps flatly melodramatic, but they never lacked ambition. Two of his films were staged in ancient languages.

With Risk of Flying, Gibson's high-profile career has pushed him back to a practical and modest life. In 2016, Academy voters seemed half-hearted to welcome him back into the room, nominating his wartime film Hacksaw Ridge for six Oscars (it won two), but whatever goodwill he garnered, Gibson promptly left to find comfort. dunderhead right wing shock arms. Most recently, Gibson was announced as something of a Hollywood ambassador for the Trump administration, though the specifics of his mission remain unclear.

“Flight Risk,” however, may be the director's last call for sensible diplomacy. It's a simple thriller with light politics and no heavy morals. It is not epic or preachy. It's an easy, simple Saturday night.

The premise of “Risk of Flight” is so effective, and was so clearly designed to be made on the cheap, that would make Roger Corman or Jason Bloom. Michelle Dockery played hard-working US Marshal Harris, tasked with transporting mob accountant Walter (Topher Grace) from his off-the-grid Alaskan hideout to the big city. Her goal is to get him to testify against the mafia don. Harris's only means of transporting Walter is a small, unstable, privately chartered plane flown by a colorful local pilot named Daryl (Gibson's “Daddy's Home 2” and “Father Stu” co-star Mark Wahlberg). Most of the movie will take place on this plane. That will be the end of the movie… well I won't be disappointed if it lands, crashes or does some secret third thing.

However, it seems that Daryl is not what he seems. Early in the flight, Walter and Harris discover that Daryl is actually a brutal, ugly killer with a penchant for torture. He killed and replaced the original pilot, and this is how he creatively murdered his charges at God knows where to kill them both. Why not kill them both at once? Because Daryl likes to spend time with him; when Harris learns about Daryl's past crimes, there are references to slowly gouged eyeballs and such.

Wahlberg isn't quite right as the evil serial killer. He's meant to be menacing and menacing, but doesn't seem any worse than a particularly nasty sweater you'd encounter in a Boston pub. Because he lacks a Hannibal Lecter-like sense of terror, the film never comes across as entirely menacing. It feels more like a problem-solving exercise than a thriller.

Walter, the script (by Jared Rosenberg), assures us that he's a funny chatterbox full of nervous energy, but Grace, in the role, seems too laid-back and polite to convey his character's troubled traits. Like Wahlberg, he doesn't bring the right upbeat energy to the role, happy to stay in the “genius” realm. Both characters seem to have stepped out of an adult thriller because they weren't comfortable going to extremes.

Faring much better than Wahlberg or Grace—indeed, carrying the film—Dockery, who affects the action hero's steely determination, seems clear-eyed and willing to solve extreme problems. She reads like a Starfleet officer, a capable problem solver never short of ideas. When she loses her cool, it's not a moment of fleeting madness, but perhaps a thoughtful moment of steadfastness. Seems like a good idea at this point, she thinks, to punch Daryl in the face.

After the original first act plot twist (revealed in the film's trailers), “Flying Risk” will have no more surprises for the audience. The voltage doesn't build up that much and spins smoothly. Gibson brings no sense of bravado or style to “Flight Risk” that any half-competent director couldn't bring. It's business, plain and simple. Easy on the plane. It appears to have been intended for casual cable TV consumption, recommended after one has finished watching three or four episodes of “Law and Order”. Or, rather, it seems like in the January movie. Even if it had come out in July, Flight Risk would be a January movie.

“Flight Risk” perfectly serviceable, completely harmless entertainment. That's good. That's meh.

Still, this is an unfathomable activity for a hotly contested and usually ambitious filmmaker like Gibson. Of course, no film exists without politics — all art is political — but the filmmaker seems determined to be as neutral as possible with this low-budget thriller. He does not make any announcements, fleeing any thought that he might be proselytizing. “Risk of Flight” is as essential as an airport novel, as nutritious as a marshmallow.

Which, a more cynical viewer might suspect, is Gibson's calculation. He can sense that his politics and his … controversies … will drive the audience away, so he has to be on his best behavior. Can he make a movie for only $25 million? Yes. Can he tell the story effectively? Yes. Are the actors good? They benefit. Is it edgy, stylish and unique? Not at all. Seemingly by design, “Flight Risk” has nothing to be offended by. There's also nothing to get excited about in “Risk of Flying,” which floats easily to the middle of the road.

But no film is released in a vacuum. Some may stay away from “Flying Risk” because of Gibson's twisted off-screen shenanigans, and that's their right. Some can only break so hard. It must be Gibson's bad timing just became a Trump ambassador right when his movie hit theaters. It will be hard to watch “Flying Risk” without thinking about what the director plans to do in Hollywood in 2025.

Other than that, the movie is just okay.

/Film rating: 5 out of 10

“Flight Risk” is now in theaters.