I'm a bit confused as to what the overall message was supposed to be. Basically Denzel is this amazing pilot who is also an alcoholic and shorts coke when he has a hangover, yet still succeeds in getting the plane out of a dive by inverting the plane and gliding it to safety.
The film is essentially showing the subsequent investigation and the impact it has on his life, his family hate him but when you look at the facts his life actually isn't that bad.
Cons
- Is an alcoholic
- Ex wife and son hate him
Pros
- Is an amazing pilot
- Makes a pretty good wage
- Has casual sex with attractive young stewardesses
- Gets away with it
The interesting thing is that despite the investigation they botch up his substance test by using outdated equipment, he admits to being drunk off his ass at the time and doing coke. To add fuel to the fire in the final hearing he gets hammered the night before, and the investigators get his friend to bring coke, which they pay for, they both do a few lines then it's off to the hearing, drunk and tweaking with a bloody nose and a bandage on his head.
What I find interesting is that the protagonist basically gets away with everything consequence free if not for his sudden admission of guilt when they basically imply that one of the dead stewardesses was responsible for drinking the vodka that he had before the crash.
Cue the protagonist's regret over drinking, etc etc. Gets to see his son, is sorry for what he did, will never fly again.
I guess my issue with the movie was it does a pretty poor job of showing the negative effects of the main character's drinking/drug taking. The overall message was confusing, to me it seemed to say "being an alcoholic and doing coke is bad and you should stop, but there are no dire consequences and you can still land a malfunctioning plane like a boss".
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