Not A Review Of “Flight”

So a few weeks ago we were between Netflix discs (“The Heat” had gone back, “Pacific Rim” had not yet arrived), and while looking through the list of streaming movies one evening, I noticed that “Flight” was there.  I’d been interested in seeing that for a while, and my wife is a fan of Denzel Washington, so I decided to start watching it, which led to a conversation that went something like the one described below:

Wife:  “What’s this?”
Me: “This is ‘Flight’. Denzel Washington is in it.”
Wife: “What’s it about?”
Me: “Denzel is a pilot whose plane crashes and he gets blamed for it even though it’s not his fault.”
(WIFE GIVES TELEVISION DUBIOUS LOOK)
Me: “It’s supposed to be good. You liked the one where he was on the train that was going to crash.”

IMPORTANT NOTE: My wife hates to fly, but she does not hate trains. (Who does?) Anyway the movie proceeded from a rather squalid hotel room to the plane’s getting ready to take off in a very (very!) bad storm. Rain, wind, low visibility, wind, clouds, and did I mention the wind?

Wife: “I don’t think they should even be trying to fly in this weather.”

But of course they do proceed to fly. The plane gets buffeted this way and that. Luggage compartments pop open. People fall down.

Wife: “You need to turn this off.”
Me: “I’m pretty sure they don’t crash because of the weather.”
(LONG PAUSE)
Wife: “Do you ever want me to fly again?”
(JIM TURNS OFF “FLIGHT” AND LOOKS FOR SOMETHING ELSE)

Now, I haven’t done a movie review in a while, but those who remember when I used to do them regularly probably also remember that the rating scale is how long it takes them to put my wife to sleep. After getting “Flight” nixed, I started watching an episode of an anime series . Anime tends to be a “0 minutes” on the rating scale (“Spirited Away” excepted), so within five minutes she appeared to be asleep. Seeing an opportunity to get past the plane crash, I switched back to “Flight”.

Wife: “I’m NOT asleep and I can still hear the plane shaking apart.”

So, back to anime for a while longer! And when she was finally actually asleep, I turned down the volume, went back to “Flight”, and watched it up until the point, early in the film, where Denzel Washington wakes up post-crash in a hospital room. And that’s where we’ve left it so far, so I have no idea what happens next!  Still, it’s probably a good thing that she slept through the crash, which was one of the more realistic depictions lately. Even though nearly everyone aboard the plane lives, I’m sure seeing a commercial airliner flying upside down wouldn’t have done anything for her nerves the next time we need to fly somewhere.  Although I guess we could always take the train …