Michelle Dockery, Topher Grace, and Mark Wahlberg in Flight Risk.Lionsgate Films /Courtesy Everett Collection
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Sam Barsanti
Published 10 minutes ago
Sam Barsanti has written about pop-culture for 10 years, and his work has appeared at The A.V. Club, Primetimer, IGN, and Collider. He has also contributed to the popular daily Hustle newsletter, which covers tech and startup news.
He'll happily talk to anyone about comic book movies (he thinks the MCU peaked with Captain America: The Winter Soldier) and giant robots (he thinks some of the Transformers movies are good), and he canonically exists in The CW's "Arrowverse" series of superhero shows.
Sam is also a published poet and horror writer, and his fiction work has appeared on The No Sleep Podcast.
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Mel Gibson was once one of Hollywood’s biggest and most beloved superstars, but a series of very public outbursts and accusations of making racist comments led to him being effectively blacklisted for several years. After a decade away from directing (his last movie being Apocalypto), Gibson seemingly returned to Hollywood’s good side with the Andrew Garfield-starring war movie Hacksaw Ridge, which received six Oscar nominations (and won two). More recently, Gibson directed the trashier action movie Flight Risk, which is now the number one movie on HBO Max.
Flight Risk was a reasonable hit at the box office but a big flop among critics, coming in with only 29% on Rotten Tomatoes, and it is kind of an odd entry in Gibson’s directing career. He tends to make ostensibly Important Movies, like The Passion of the Christ or Braveheart, but Flight Risk (his first movie in nearly a decade, again) is Gibson’s first straight-up action-thriller and one that’s clearly designed not to be taken too seriously — case in point: “Y’all need a pilot?” was the tagline on the poster. And yet people seem to like it for reasons that probably have less to do with Gibson than the fact that Mark Wahlberg is in it (and he’s playing a bad guy, which he doesn’t do often enough).
Why Is Mel Gibson So Controversial?
Daryl (Mark Wahlberg) wearing an ironic expression while piloting the plane in Flight RiskImage via Liongate
The controversies that stuck with Gibson the longest more or less started in 2006 when he was arrested for driving under the influence and made antisemitic comments to the arresting officer. He later released a statement in which he apologized for the incident and noted that he had struggled with alcoholism for years. In 2010, his then-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva accused Gibson of domestic violence and a recording was leaked online that allegedly featured him making violent and racist threats against her. Gibson eventually took what’s called a “no contest” plea deal, accepting a misdemeanor battery charge without formally admitting whether or not he was at fault.
Since then, as he has gradually been welcomed back into show business, Gibson has openly supported Donald Trump and was named a “special ambassador” to Hollywood. He joined fellow right-wing (or at least right-leaning) celebrities Jon Voight and Sylvester Stallone in the position, with Trump explaining that they were meant to strengthen the domestic movie industry, but it’s not clear what that was specifically meant to entail. Since then, Voight was in Megalopolis, Stallone’s Tulsa King is popular on Paramount+, and now Gibson’s Flight Risk is a smash-hit on HBO Max.
What Is 'Flight Risk' About?
Mark Wahlberg with a bald head, handcuffed in a plane, in Flight Risk.Image via Lionsgate
Flight Risk is the kind of movie that would've starred Mel Gibson 20 or 30 years ago, when he was still starring in movies like this. It stars Michelle Dockery as a U.S. Marshall tasked with bringing a mob informant (Topher Grace) from his hideout in Alaska to New York City so he can testify against a major criminal. The pilot taking them to the city, Wahlberg, suspiciously seems to know more about what's going on than he should, and everyone eventually figures out that it's because he's a hitman sent to kill Grace's character. From there, it becomes a tense thriller where the good guys can't let the bad guy know that they know who he is, all while they're stuck in a little plane flying over the Alaskan wilderness.
That's a good setup for a movie, and you can see why people are interested in seeing it — regardless of who directed it. Also, detached from Gibson's baggage, Flight Risk could be an argument for not being too precious about the kinds of movies a director makes. Quentin Tarantino wouldn't need to be so concerned about his 10th film being enough of a big deal if he just tossed out a disposable Mark Wahlberg thriller that anyone could've directed.
Flight Risk is, once again, available on HBO Max.
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Like Follow Followed R Action Thriller Release Date January 24, 2025 Runtime 91 minutes Director Mel Gibson Writers Jared Rosenberg Producers Bruce Davey, John Davis, Mel GibsonCast
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Mark Wahlberg
Daryl
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