76
Metascore
40 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 90The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyThe Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyThis absorbing drama provides Denzel Washington with one of his meatiest, most complex roles, and he flies with it.
- 90TimeRichard CorlissTimeRichard CorlissA canny director and a top star decided to dig deep to find the core of a compromised hero. And when they reach that center of gravity, Flight soars.
- 90New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinNew York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinNo actor is as brilliant, or as cunning, as Denzel Washington at portraying superhuman coolness and the scary prospect of its loss.
- 88Slant MagazineSlant MagazineA unique, audacious studio movie, kicking off as a star-driven spectacle before whittling itself down to a raw and riveting character study.
- 75The PlaylistRodrigo PerezThe PlaylistRodrigo PerezAn engaging and initially very promising drama about alcoholism, redemption and forgiveness that grows uneven and long-winded as it progresses.
- 75ObserverRex ReedObserverRex ReedMy biggest problem with Flight is not the unanswered questions it raises, but the eleventh-hour epiphany just in time for a happy ending. Maybe I'm naturally cynical, but I simply don't believe that people are basically good at heart - and I don't buy into sudden salvation. Otherwise, Flight is one hell of an entertainment.
- Next to Gump, the film has the moral force of a George Steiner essay, but what lends it that force are not the carefully calibrated moral ambiguities of the script, but the bruised, defiant soul that appears to us in the form of Denzel Washington.
- Zemeckis intends to give us a slightly more depraved version of Washington's usual charismatic hero, then pull the rug out from him. But Flight's true downward spiral is its own loss of momentum.