“High-risk flight”: Mel Gibson pilots a little aerial thriller full of turbulence

Winston, an accountant for a major criminal, fled with the cash register. Madelyn Harris, an FBI agent who is tracking him, finds him hiding in a motel in Alaska, and arrests him. The policewoman charters a small plane to transport her prisoner to the nearest big city and question him about his boss. But the flight is not easy…

“High Risk Flight” recalls those little thrillers from the 70s and 80s which started from a good idea and did not deviate from it, refusing the trappings and fuss, compensating for their limited budget with a dry and nervous production. Here, 95% of the film takes place in a little cuckoo’s cabin, almost in real time, and with three actors behind closed doors.

The feature film (not so long, since packed in 1h40) is therefore a thriller, an action, a thriller, but also a disaster film, with a few touches of humor, and multiplying the eventful scenes , twists and turns and reversals of situations, preventing the viewer from any boredom.

“An entertainment that allows him to get back in the saddle”

Surprisingly, it is Mel Gibson, named “ambassador to Hollywood” last week by Donald Trump, who is directing here, for a work that is significantly less ambitious than his past offerings, such as “Braveheart” (1995) or “Apocalypto” (2006). “It is not a return to grace,” believes his French biographer, Matthieu Rostac, author of “Mel Gibson: Sur la breche” (Ed. Capricci). “He continues to star in a lot of B-movies, a lot of direct-to-VOD films, and many of them are films that he produces and distributes. He is a bit isolated, he has managed to create his own little niche. But no one expected High risk flightwhich is like a rabbit suddenly pulled out of the hat.”

The ex-Mad Max, however, has no shortage of projects, including a sequel to his “Passion of the Christ” (2004), which he has been talking about for fifteen years. “There was also talk of a remake of The Wild Horde, notes Matthieu Rostac. But every time his name is attached to a project as director, it falls through, or it gets stuck in the development hell (Hollywood term for storylines that have been talked about for years but never come to fruition on screen) ».

The expert, however, puts forward a hypothesis. “Perhaps with High risk flight Is Mel Gibson taking the opportunity to get back up to speed before shooting this famous sequel to the Passion of Christ ? It’s a small budget, a small film, which he himself describes as entertainment which allows him to get back in the saddle, because it’s been a long time since he last directed a film, since You will not kill (2016) »…