Flight (2012)

Catch the trailer for “Flight”? Denzel Washington plays a pilot who miraculously guides a crippled plane to a crash landing -– upside down –- and becomes a hero? “Flight” is no more about flights gone bad than was “Dark Knight Rises.” Planes crash within the first few minutes. The rest of this unsparing drama -- a welcome return to live-action by director Robert Zemeckis -– follows Washington’s “Whip” Whitaker as decades of alcohol and drug abuse finally come to light. “Flight” dares pose a question that only the viewer can answer: If Whitaker’s debauchery led him to be able to bring that plane in safely and calmly, what does that say about heroism? Or so-called miracles? Whitaker is pitiful, shockingly careless, and self-centered, and yet impossible to hate. The way he stands in a room, near others … I know about alcoholism, and Washington nails every twitch. The climax feels wrong as we’re whisked away from Whip just as he is forced to go nine days sober, but it’s a tiny complaint. Zemeckis, lost too long with CGI Santas, has made a towering film, where a miniature bottle of vodka can own a man and his soul. A-