While director Robert Zemeckis is generally famous for his upbeat, heart-warming, good time films like Forrest Gump, Polar Express and the Back to the Future trilogy, you will most likely not find a similar experience in Flight. It’s 100 percent a nail-biting drama.The film stars Denzel Washington as Whip Whitaker, a troubled airline pilot, who one day, flies a faulty plane that malfunctions mid-flight and falls into a full-on nose dive. This sequence in the film is exceptionally intense and creates the conditions of a serious emergency like a plane crash very well.

Whitaker is able to save almost everyone on the plane by trying a crazy maneuver that involves rolling the plane upside down and leveling the plane so that it can glide down to the ground. However, after being proclaimed a hero by the media and pilot union, his lawyer informs him that his toxicology report showed that he had been drinking on the flight and the night before, only after snorting cocaine that morning, a federal crime that he could be sent to life in prison for.

Now, that was all I really knew going into the film, and I expected a relatively adventurous movie going through his process fighting for his case, and avoiding going to prison. While that was a strong point in the movie, it really focused on something else: addiction.

Very much in the style of Aronofsky’s Requiem for A Dream, the film shows the incredibly disturbing life of drug and alcohol addicts. While maybe not as gruesome as Requiem, it’s still very shocking to watch. Like I said, it’s not Forrest Gump. It’ll be painful to sit through, and it’ll be hard to think about. However, every movie can’t be a happy story with a happy ending.

I heavily enjoyed the writing, mostly because like Zemeckis’ other films, it focused on a very deep, emotional character, who the audience connects with entirely. He’s charming, he’s funny, he has problems just like we do. So, when he’s finally gotten clean and starts reaching for that bottle of vodka, you’re screaming for him to stop. That’s something that I love about movies like this. You get so attached to the characters and so lost in the story, you start rooting for them, trying to help them, and begging them to just make the right decision.That’s exactly what I felt in Flight.

The cast was also phenomenal. Washington’s acting was brilliant as usual, perhaps even award-worthy. John Goodman was a hoot, and Don Cheadle was also very suited for his role.

On the production side, I really loved the cinematography. It was only subtly different, but there were a few shots that just popped right out. The original music was used very sparingly, so it’s hard to really say that was a huge factor. The other music, however, was awesome. It was mostly classic Rolling Stones tracks, and Joe Cocker’s “Feelin’ Alright” was used several times.

So, great production, great story, great cast, and a very meaningful film overall. I think it’s definitely one of my favorite dramas I’ve seen this year, and perhaps we’ll see it be nominated a few times at the academy awards. For Flight, it’s a soaring 8 out of 10.