‘Flight Risk’ Review: Mark Wahlberg in a Mel Gibson-Directed Actioner That’s Almost Fast Enough to Make You Forgive Its Flaws

Mel Gibson’s first directorial effort since 2016’s Hacksaw Ridge finds the new ambassador to Hollywood working on a distinctly more intimate scale than usual. The inside of a small Cessna plane, to be precise, which is where most of the action of Flight Risk takes place. Depicting the harrowing aerial journey of a deputy U.S. Marshall, her mob-connected witness, and a pilot who turns out to be a hit man, Flight Risk manages to deliver some high-altitude thrills in its breathlessly paced 91 minutes. But its clunky dialogue, uneven performances and less-than-grade-A special effects ultimately make it the Spirit Airlines of airborne thrillers.

The screenplay by Jared Rosenberg is nothing if not efficient, quickly establishing its premise when Deputy Marshall Madolyn (Michelle Dockery) and other officers burst into the tacky Alaskan motel room where mob accountant Winston (Topher Grace) is hiding after making the mistake of skimming millions from his boss. Not long after, Madolyn escorts a shackled Winston onto a single-engine plane that’s seen better days for a quick flight to Anchorage, where he’s scheduled to testify in return for immunity.

The pilot turns out to be Daryl (Mark Wahlberg), a good ol’ boy with a Southern accent so egregiously over-the-top it should have been an immediate tip-off that he isn’t the person he says he is. Sure enough, Daryl soon reveals his true colors (and horrifically bald pate when his wig flies off), and nearly takes out Madolyn until she manages to tase and subdue him.

Unfortunately, he’s the only one who knows how to fly the plane. “Quite the pickle, isn’t it?” Daryl asks sarcastically as Madolyn struggles to keep the plane in the air while Winston looks on helplessly. Although radio communication proves impossible in the mountains, she eventually remembers she has a satellite phone and manages to call her superior (voice of Leah Remini). The latter hooks her up with a pilot, Hassan (Maaz Ali), who attempts to talk her through the process of flying the plane while simultaneously hitting on her.

The flirtatious banter ultimately gets to be a bit much. But then everything in Flight Risk gets to be a bit much — from the cheesy dialogue, resembling a bad radio drama, in which Madolyn attempts to figure out the identity of the mole in her organization, to the endless number of times Daryl manages to get free from his restraints, providing opportunities for extremely close battles involving handguns, knives, flare guns and even shoulder harnesses.

Nonetheless, Gibson moves the action along so swiftly and efficiently that you don’t really have time to groan. He’s helped in this regard by Wahlberg in his first truly villainous role since 1996’s Fear. The actor, who actually shaved his head for the role (it still somehow looks faker than a bald cap), leans into his character’s evil so extravagantly he makes Ralph Fiennes’ Voldemort look like a model of restraint. He spends much of the running time tied up in the back of the plane, hurling increasingly profane (and often strangely homoerotic) taunts that, according to Gibson, were largely improvised. Wahlberg usually plays stoic, heroic types, but his performances nearly always feel somehow removed. Here he lets his inner freak flag fly, and he’s never seemed more alive onscreen.

He’s well matched by Dockery, delivering an impressively hard-edged performance that would be surprising coming from Downton Abbey’s Lady Mary Crawley if she hadn’t already proven her range in such efforts as the TV series Good Behavior. Meanwhile, Grace provides plenty of comic relief as the jittery prisoner who manages to make snarky wisecracks even while on the verge of dying.

By the time Flight Risk reaches its rousing conclusion with a final flourish that even the makers of Die Hard would have found over the top, you’ll be shaking your head at the sheer ludicrousness of it all. But it’s a pretty good bet that you haven’t once felt the desire to look at your phone.