Joey Magidson
I’d like to begin this review by saying, if you can’t abide by Mel Gibson in any regard and are morally opposed to supporting his work, regardless of the project, I’m totally on board with that. I’d never advocate for someone to pay to see a film of his these days, given his comments and positions on a handful of issues. At the same time, I’m only reviewing the movie he made, Flight Risk, independent of who Gibson is as a person. This is just about Gibson the filmmaker and his flick. Now that that’s out of the way, let me get into the review like so: Flight Risk is the worst release of 2025 so far and I think we’ll be hard-pressed to see ten worse efforts come out this year. It’s utterly awful and has next to no redeeming qualities.
Flight Risk is an incredibly poor film, devoid of nearly anything required to make for entertaining cinema. It wants to be a suspense thriller, but it fails so clearly across the board that you’re not just rolling your eyes, you’re also annoyed by all of the missed opportunities. There’s a world where this could have been a lean little genre picture, fun and nasty in equal measure. Instead, it’s laughably bad, and worse…it’s not even fun.
Air Marshal Madolyn (Michelle Dockery) has tracked down fugitive Winston (Topher Grace) to Alaska. She arrests him and he immediately wants to make a deal to turn state’s witness. All that’s needed is to fly him back to civilization and begin the proceedings of having him testify against his criminal boss. Should be easy, right?
No sooner do they begin their flight with pilot Daryl (Mark Wahlberg) does something feel off. Madolyn is suspicious, while Winston notices that his identification doesn’t match. Soon, he reveals his cards. He’s actually a psychopath sent to make sure Winston doesn’t testify. He plans on having some fun first, of the rape and murder variety. Madolyn overpowers him, but that just begins an aerial game of cat and mouse. Who betrayed them? Can anyone be trusted? What happens if the killer gets his hands on them? The answers could be compelling, but not in Flight Risk, which does nothing with the premise.
The trio of Michelle Dockery, Topher Grace, and Mark Wahlberg were not set up for success here, but even so, they don’t do much to help their respective causes. Dockery is incredibly bland, playing the character like a cut-rate version of a Law & Order cast member. She’s better than this. Grace is wildly annoying, with joke after joke that doesn’t land. It’s not his fault, to be fair, but the script just gives him nothing to work with. Then, there’s Wahlberg. I’ll concede that he’s playing a wilder character than usual, but he’s so misguided in how he approaches the role that it’s an epic fail. He’s never disturbing, just off-putting. How many times can the bad guy be excited to rape the heroes before it becomes numbing? You’ll find out in Flight Risk. It’s cringe-worthy, without question. This is almost exclusively a three-hander, but Maaz Ali, Paul Ben-Victor, and Leah Remini contribute voice work in supporting roles.
Director Mel Gibson is asleep at the switch with this one, alongside writer Jared Rosenberg contributing a piss poor screenplay. They both team up to achieve a crash landing, if you can even call Flight Risk a landing. For Gibson, this is just incredibly lazy filmmaking. The visuals are unfocused and muddled. The story is nonsensical. The forward momentum is nonexistent. Then, there’s a crazy ending that feels out of a completely different movie. None of it works and just about everything is awful.
Flight Risk sucks, plain and simple. The worst film of the year so far is destined to be a 2025 lowlight. Here’s the thing, Mel Gibson, for his many, many faults, has previously been a talented director. None of that is in evidence here. Somehow, it’s just utter crap all around. I take no pride in writing such a forceful pan, but the flick left me no choice. Flight Risk needs to be grounded and scrapped for spare parts.
SCORE: ★1/2
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