Flight wallows in holding pattern
FLIGHT
★★★
Denzel Washington does everything humanly possible to keep this movie in the air. Yet, for all his talents, Flight crashes all too soon because the script just doesn’t have the right design. Washington plays Whip Whitaker, a talented pilot with a substance abuse problem. When Whip’s plane malfunctions, he saves the day by turning it upside down. Despite the heroics, his character flaw is revealed — setting in motion a dull courtroom drama that fills the back half of the movie. We’re always rooting for Whip because the Oscar-winning actor embodies the very essence of the heroic stereotype. We want Whip to be celebrated, but Zemeckis wants us to question heroism.
A LATE QUARTET
★★★
Yaron Zilberman creates a tight little piece of cinematic chamber music in A Late Quartet. Neither flamboyant nor sedate, this moody winter’s tale goes for a very tempered, authentic mood as it scratches at the guts of a seasoned string quartet. Christopher Walken is Peter Mitchell, a veteran cellist who is diagnosed with Parkinson’s at the top of the picture. Peter is obviously distraught by the news, but his bigger concern is the fate of the string quartet he helped birth many moons ago. An ensemble piece featuring Mark Ivanir as the first violin, along with Catherine Keener and Philip Seymour Hoffman as a married couple struggling to keep their egos in check.
ALEX CROSS
★★ 1/2
Ditching the oversized drag for a great big gun, the man who made Madea a household name, merely through repetition, explores his manly side in this new Rob Cohen (The Fast and the Furious) movie based on a novel by James Patterson. Taking the screen as titular character Alex Cross, a classic detective comics hero who can tell what you ate for breakfast just by looking at your socks, Perry recreates himself in the twin spirits of James Bond and Shaft — with a little Sherlock Holmes in there for good measure. .
DEADFALL:
★★ 1/2
Some mutant cross be- tween a Coen brothers thriller and a CBC original drama, Deadfall is a story of two highly dysfunctional siblings and their marginally creepy dynamic as a Bonnie and Clyde duo. Eric Bana is Addison and Olivia Wilde plays his baby sister Liza. They’re an attractive pair, but they do some very ugly things — such as shooting a police trooper in the head. .