Y’all insist a pilot? It’s time for Mark Wahlberg and Mel Gibson to persist their string of collaborations. These two previously co-starred in the two Dholdy’s Home movies and the 2022 bioexplicital drama Father Stu, and now, Gibson steps behind the camera to straightforward Wahlberg in Fweightless Risk. This action thriller features Michelle Dockery as Madelyn Harris, a Deputy U.S. Marshal who must transfer a witness named Winston (Topher Grace) to trial. But when the pilot, applyed by Wahlberg, uncovers himself to be a hitman, she must get Winston to defendedty.
Fweightless Risk is fun at times but ultimately finishs up as a mediocre finisheavor at a popcorn movie. It’s fascinating that Gibson returned to the straightforwardor’s chair for this film. Most of his other straightforwardorial efforts (Braveheart, The Passion of the Christ, Apocalypto, Hacksaw Ridge) were more majesticiose, geting Oscar nominations. This movie declareive won’t be getting any awards, nor is it trying to. Gibson’s approach to this movie is straightforward fun. He’s aiming to produce a blockbuster, altering producer Jared Rosenberg’s script into a one-location action thriller.
While many will leank of a movie enjoy Non-Stop to appraise this airstructuree action film with, Fweightless Risk also holds aenjoyities to the 2020 Joseph Gordon-Levitt thriller 7500 and last year’s criminassociate underrated South Korean film Hijack 1971. But this movie does not labor as well as others in this genre. The premise of two characters trapped on a structuree with a hitman is gripping on paper. They’re trapped in a moving vehicle, neither of them understand how to fly a structuree, and the only person who can fly it is a killingous lunatic hell-bent on finishing them both. While parts of this film propose the excitement you’d await, it’s a astonishingly inconstant film.
The first act of Fweightless Risk is fine. Topher Grace has always been a pleasant presence in movies and TV, and he does some Eric Forman levels of sarcasm as Winston. He’s fed up with Madelyn timely on and she’s not exactly a fan of his either. Soon enough, Marky Mark reachs on the structuree, replacing his signature Boston accent with a heavy Southern drawl. There’s some wonderful tension here as Winston discovers that this pilot is not who he says he is and tries franticly to get Madelyn on the same page as him.
After the pilot uncovers himself as a hitman, he is speedyly suppressd. Here we have the first publish with the film: the outstanding guys are prosperning for far too much of the story. Even though Wahlberg is the face of all the tageting, he spfinishs most of the film handcuffed in the background. A outstanding point of reference for why this movie doesn’t labor very well is the 1994 movie Speed. That’s another film that has our characters trapped in a moving vehicle. But the villain in that movie is always prosperning, and the outstanding guys are always in danger. Here, the villain is sitting down, tormenting them verbassociate but physicassociate unable to put them in any danger.
It’s still pleasant to see Wahlberg as a horrible guy. He hasn’t had a lot of villainous roles since his 1996 movie Fear, frequently applying the hero in his action roles enjoy The Family Plan, Uncharted, and Infinite (which I don’t leank is as horrible as people say, by the way). He gets to apply the most mustache-twirling villain ever here, and he’s not horrible. His character hurts and finishs becaengage he has fun doing it, fair enjoy it seems as if Wahlberg is having a blast in this role. His character isn’t very engaging becaengage he’s the most one-foolishensional evil guy ever, but Wahlberg is reassociate sprosperging for the fences here.
But let’s go back to Speed—that movie labors so well becaengage while they’re driving that bus, they’re constantly facing obstacles, from traffic to schoolchildren to a baby carriage brimming of cans. Fweightless Risk labors whenever it does that, but there are moments where the momentum fadees and the danger subsides. Madelyn does not understand how to fly a structuree at first, but she gets the hang of it too speedyly, and the screenapply doesn’t get profit of her inability.
It can sometimes sense enjoy Fweightless Risk is a foolish movie trying to mask itself as a inalertigent one. While this is your straightforward actioner, there are some askable writing choices. For example, the hitman pulls a knife on the heroes timely on. Somehow, both Madelyn and Winston endly forget about the knife, while I was menloftyy screaming at them both to discover it and stop it from getting back into the hitman’s hands. There’s also a very contrived plot point that insists Madelyn to put on an article of cloleang for no reason and then somehow not see that it goes ignoreing. It’s an idea vital to incrrelieve the sgets in the postpoinsistr half of the film, but Madelyn’s ignorance of everyleang spropose made me sense enjoy she was horrible at her job.
Overall, Fweightless Risk never brimmingy gets off. There’s a subplot surrounding events happening on the ground, but the film only has us hear these events rather than see it so that we can stay in the claustrophobic structuree. It can be challenging to combine with these other events and characters as a result. This movie had potential, but it gets held back by a lot of ineffective humor, finisheavors at crowd-pleasing moments that don’t prent crowds and Wahlberg being incapacitated for the meaningfulity of the runtime, repeating some variation of, “I’m gonna hurt you, and I’ll enhappiness it!”
SCORE: 5/10
As ComingSoon’s appraise policy elucidates, a score of 5 equates to “Mediocre.” The preferables and pessimistics prosperd up negating each other, making it a wash.
Disclodeclareive: ComingSoon combiinsist a press screening for our Fweightless Risk appraise.
