Flight

It was a perfectly ordinary day.

For Captain Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington) it truly was a perfectly ordinary day. At least it was that morning before the flight took off. For him an ordinary day was usually preceded by a night of partying, drinking to excess, drugs like marijuana and cocaine, and sex.

All night long. In the morning, Whitaker would drink whatever was left on the nightstand next to the bed, smoke, and he’d get himself right, as in ready for work, by snorting a few lines of nose candy.

He arrived at the airport on this particular day in a heavy rainstorm. He performed the usual pilot’s ground check of the plane’s exterior before boarding.

He greeted his flight crew as usual. He looked, sounded, and acted as chipper as any guy reporting for work.

However Whitaker wasn’t just an ordinary guy reporting for work. As we all know, Captains on airplanes usually make an introductory speech to the passengers. Whitaker did this (Good morning ladies and gentlemen, I invite you to sit back, stretch out, and relax. I’ll have you on the ground in 40 minutes) while standing in the forward galley of the plane. He was mostly in full view of the passengers and cabin attendants. Only while with one hand he was holding a microphone and greeting the passengers, with his other hand, which was hidden behind the galley wall, he mixed three airline bottles of vodka into a bottle of orange juice, which he then took with him into the pilot’s cabin.

On this perfectly ordinary day, Captain Whitaker’s personal habits collided with a severe rainstorm, a plane that fell apart at 30,000 feet (a mechanical failure of a key element of the airplane’s equipment) and an act of God. The malfunctioning plane fell from the sky, and somehow, the people and the plane met the ground in far less than the expected flight time of 40 minutes. Whitaker managed to land the damaged plane in a field, thereby avoiding the catastrophe or disaster of killing everyone on board. Of the 102 people on the flight, 96 survived. There were just six fatalities.

The FAA placed 10 pilots in simulators and re-created every event. Every pilot killed everyone on board. You were the only one who could do it.

On its face, Whitaker became a national hero. But below the surface there was the matter of the blood test performed on Whitaker after he was pulled unconscious from the wreckage.

Man on Fire

From a web-based source – Kidnapping is defined as:

The crime of unlawfully seizing and carrying away a person by force or fraud, or seizing and detaining a person against his or her will with an intent to carry that person away at a later time.

Yes, it is different in every jurisdiction or locality as well as from state to state. The court in the jurisdiction makes the ultimate decision or definition. But we don’t need either a court based description, or definition from a law-book, or from a dictionary to know that this is indeed a serious crime.

In this discussion, over the next few days, I am going to have a look at three separate films, set in three separate countries, that involve a kidnapping. Please do not assume that because I’m watching films about kidnappings, that I am in any way positive about the crime or its perpetrators. These are film reviews, not social commentaries.

Man on Fire (2004) – Directed by Tony Scott with a screen play by Brian Helgeland from the A.J. Quinnell novel. Set in Mexico City – Denzel Washington stars as John Creasy, a former assassin once employed by a certain government agency. He’s done enough in his life that he’s not particularly proud of. These days he’s down to two friends. One is a former colleague, Rayburn (played by Christopher Walken). Creasy decides to give his friend an unannounced drop in for a open-ended visit.

Creasy’s other friend is a bottle of whatever – whisky, scotch, bourbon or as he calls it: Jack – in short anything that pours. Rayburn hooks Creasy up with a job opportunity. He’ll be working for a rich family as a body-guard. The couple, Samuel and Lisa Ramos are a family of wealthy industrialists.

Samuel Ramos (Marc Anthony) and Lisa Ramos (Radha Mitchell)

They have a nine-year old daughter Pita that he will be in charge of. In his interview with Samuel Ramos (Marc Anthony) Creasy is asked if there’s anything that the Ramos family should be aware of. Creasy answers – I drink.

At this particular time in Mexico City – there have been a wave of kidnappings. In the recent six days before Creasy accepts the assignment – there were twenty-four kidnappings. This crime has become a cottage industry.

Creasy’s not interested in the job, or the young girl he must protect, Pita, played by Dakota Fanning. But he’s a burned out operative now without a portfolio or anything else coming his way. So he accepts the position. As expected, he and the precocious young girl don’t hit it off. She’s likeable enough, and smart, but Creasy’s not interested in becoming friends. But Pita will wear him down and a friendship will blossom.

Safe House

Did you know that Denzel Washington has appeared in more than 50 roles as an actor? Did you know that he is 57 years old? Or that he has directed two films? Maybe you had some idea about the depth and length and range of his career, but when you see it laid out before you in the form of a list – you are struck by the fact that it is very likely that you’ve seen a great many of these films. So it’s no surprise that Roger Ebert had dubbed Washington as the Spencer Tracy of this era.

Safe House opened today starring Denzel along with Ryan Reynolds, Set mostly in Cape Town, South Africa – this is going to be a CIA agent type of action thriller. The bare bones outline is that the Ryan Reynolds character Matt Weston is ‘housekeeping’ a CIA safe house in Cape Town. One day, Tobin Frost (Washington), at one time a CIA case agent all-star and legend, now considered as an agent that went rogue before dropping off the grid nine years ago, suddenly shows up at the USA consulate in Cape Town. We know why he’s there – because some unknown assassins are doing their best to kill him – so he needs some immediate protection. But the honchos at CIA headquarters at Langley doesn’t know this. He is then immediately transferred into Weston’s care at the safe house.

Only it is no longer safe. The facility’s security has been breached. Which means that Frost and Weston will have to fight their way out, and head for the hills. With mucho bad guys after them. Eventually, Frost will have to point out the obvious to Weston:

Tobin Frost: I think you need to consider how your safe house was attacked in the first place. That house was a secure location. Whoever crashed it, they were invited. Someone told them, someone you know…

Matt Weston: You’re not gonna get in my head.

Tobin Frost: I am already in your head!

So off they go. Meanwhile back at Langley, Sam Shepard, Vera Farmiga, and Brendan Gleeson, press buttons, pull strings, and attempt to ‘manage’ things from afar. This is done by decisions made on the fly, which leads to sharp commands and the staff then snap into action.

The Book of Eli

After some days on the road, Eli /Denzel Washington and Solara /Mila Kunis drop in (and I mean that literally) at the front door of an elderly couple called George and Martha.

“Whoa“,  I said to myself, “Now that’s interesting!“  You see, the most famous of all the George and Marthas we’ve seen in films are the ones we recall from Who’s Afraid of Virgina Woolf, the 1966 film of Edward Albee‘s play of the same name. Back then we watched Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton as the leads in a film that garnered 5 Oscars.

This time around, the onscreen George and Martha shown won’t be picking up any awards for their performances, and we’ll have to settle for film vets Michael Gambon and Frances de la Tour instead of Liz and Dickie. We thank the directing twins, the Hughes Bros (Albert and Allen) for yet another of the many cinematic references in their brand new film called The Book Of Eli.

What Do the Papers Say?

I wrote this last spring…a short discussion on some of the best movies about newspapers…

So today being Friday, a day when many if not most motion pictures open in the movies houses, I went to the movies. I saw The Soloist…

…and only a few days ago, I had gone to see State of Play, which I’ll discuss later.

Africa: A Grand Setting for the Movies

For the longest time, we’ve been visiting various Pacific and Asian beach resorts with the hopes of running into one of those Japanese bikini idols. Actually since it never happened, meeting Ms Bikini-san, I’m usually just content to get away from it all for a few weeks in the tropics.

Bangtao Beach, Phuket, Thailand

We’ve been to locations from Phuket in Thailand to Palau, from The Philippines (Cebu) to Pattaya, and with assorted stops in Saipan, Guam, Bali, Hawaii, Okinawa, Cairns, and even Vietnam. We’ve discussed Art in Asia and Europe. We’ve talked about our favorite films, and some of our own travel destinations.

But you know which place hasn’t gotten any coverage in my columns? Africa is the answer. I’ve not set foot in the place. I mean none of it.  But lots of the world’s best film makers have. So….