Flight Risk (2025)

Somewhere in rural Alaska, Winston (Topher Grace) was cooking a cup of noodles in his motel microwave when the door burst in.  Two local cops and US Marshal Madolyn Harris arrest him.  A couple of days later, Madolyn loaded Winston into a barebones charter plane.  The pilot, Daryl Booth (Mark Wahlberg) was a chatty fellow, who offered a history of how he found his way from Texas to Alaska.  Shortly after takeoff, Madolyn learned that both the radio and the GPS were offline.  Then Daryl talked about them going to Seattle; he's only taking them to Anchorage.  It turned out that Daryl was an assassin dispatched to kill Winston before he could testify against a mob boss.  Neither Mandolyn nor Winston can fly a plane.

There is a lot of inadequate securing of Daryl when he is subdued.  Repeatedly!  By the same token, Daryl had subdued Madolyn and then failed to secure her.  Everyone is needlessly reckless and it costs them again and again.  To add to the tension, it becomes clear that Daryl got information from within the Marshals, making her question her allies on the other end of the actually working radio.  Is she just flying into a trap?

A Mel Gibson film, it is just okay.  I'm sure that Wahlberg enjoyed the opportunity to play a bad guy and Michelle Dockery is a long way from Downton Abbey's Lady Mary here.  Far off type, which is cool and they are good in their roles.  No, it is the script that fails.  In order for the flight to have several fights, the characters must leave the opponent in a position to escape or fight back.  The characters must be dumb or the story would end after the first fight.  Meh.

The Gentleman (2019)

Guy Ritchie's latest movie is a return to form, fitting with such great films as Snatch and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels.  Mickey (Matthew McConaughey) is an American who came to England as a Rhodes Scholar.  While attending university, he found he had a talent for selling marijuana and turned it into a business.  Thanks to his high-end education, he has connections among the gentry.  However, at this late date, he is ready to leave the business, sellout and retire with his lovely wife, Rosalind (Michelle Dockery).  However, his plans to sell, interpreted as weakness, draw competitors to challenge him.

Much of the story is shown as a narration from Fletcher (Hugh Grant) as he spends the evening with Ray (Charlie Hunnam).  Fletcher is a reporter while Ray is Mickey's top fixer.  Fletcher has been following Mickey and discovering all sorts of secrets, which he reveals to Ray.  He wants to be bought off.  Failure to pay will mean he publishes a disastrous expose.  It looks very bad for Mickey.

The casting is terrific.  McConaughey is much more hard edged than his usual.  There is very little of his usual easy-going charm.  Michelle Dockery is very different from her most famous role as Lady Mary of Downton Abbey.  She curses like a sailor and speaks with a more working class accent.  Charlie Hunnam, who has had a rocky career in movies, is a perfect sidekick.  He's a straight man to Hugh Grant.  Hugh is very cheeky and full of himself.  Though he knows the doings of everyone, he only interacts with Hunnam and the banter is great fun.  Henry Golding, who I've only seen as a romantic lead (e.g. Crazy Rich Asians, A Simple Favor), offers a very different character.  He's an up and comer with delusions of grandeur.  A supremely confident naif.  Although I don't generally like Colin Farrell, he proves to be a great side character.  Having abandoned his pretty-boy looks, he is a good man who finds himself indebted to criminals but never corrupted by them.  He is the most admirable character in the movie though that is a low bar among this crowd.

As Fletcher is not always a reliable narrator, the story is sometime not quite true to the events.  Also, the story is often told out of order.  This is standard Ritchie and done well.  Great movie.  Go see it.