I notice that I’ve given a “C” rating to every movie I’ve reviewed in 2025. That’s four straight times I’ve basically said that the movie, while not worth writing off entirely, isn’t worth recommending. I even split the review last weekend and gave out two “C” ratings. Director Mel Gibson’s “Flight Risk” ends the “C” streak. It doesn’t end the streak by earning my recommendation, but by being a movie that I feel is indeed worth writing off.

The film follows U.S. Marshal Madolyn Harris (Michelle Dockery) as she captures mob accountant Winston (Topher Grace) in rural Alaska. Winston agrees to testify against a dangerous crime boss, which means that he and Madolyn will be targets for assassination until she can deliver him to ironclad protective custody in Anchorage. The handoff will be easy, as long as nothing goes wrong with the transfer flight. Things go wrong with the transfer flight.

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The pilot, ostensibly named Booth (Mark Wahlberg), seems like a nice guy, if a little bumpkin-y and eager to share his romantic history. But there’s nothing to indicate that he isn’t a competent pilot, so Madolyn and a bound Winston board his rickety plane. It’s only when the three are in the air and miles away from anywhere safe to land that things start to go awry. The plane goes through more turbulence than it should. The communication system goes on the fritz. Booth says things that don’t add up. And Winston finds an ID for the plane’s pilot, who looks nothing like Mark Wahlberg.

It turns out that Wahlberg’s never-properly-named character is an assassin that took out the real Booth and stole his plane in an effort to kill Madolyn and Winston. The reason he didn’t kill them as soon as they boarded was that he wants to fly them deep into the wilderness and have unspecified “fun” with them. It’s weak reasoning, but without it the film can’t set up its central conflict: that of Madolyn and Winston trying to stay alive despite the threat from both the assassin inside the plane and the elements outside. Because neither Madolyn nor Winston know how to fly the plane and the assassin doesn’t have much interest in getting them to safety.

The bulk of the film is the three characters playing off each other as they try to make it out in one piece. Occasionally a call is placed to someone on the ground, like Madolyn’s superior at the Marshal’s office (Leah Remini) or the office’s director (Paul Ben-Victor) or a flirty piloting expert (Maaz Ali), but if the plane is going to land safely, it’s going to have to be by somebody on the plane. Arguments and negotiations inevitably ensue, but it’s easy to tell that the whole thing is going to come down to violence.

“Flight Risk” is trying to be the kind of “bottle movie” where the isolation itself makes for an intense atmosphere and what the cast lacks in quantity, the actors make up for in quality and chemistry. The problem is that these actors can’t come close to saving this material. Grace brings a sitcom-level energy to a character with sub-sitcom-level jokes. Wahlberg’s assassin, once exposed, is so sadistic and crazy that it’s unbelievable that he was ever smart enough to keep up the ruse for so long. At least Dockery gets out relatively unscathed with her perfectly rootable heroine that keeps this movie above the “D” level. Everything else about this movie wishes it could pass for average. The dialogue is below average. The action (especially at the end) is below average. And once his character loses his cap, we see that Wahlberg’s hairline is way, way below average.

Grade: C-

“Flight Risk” is rated R for violence and language. Its running time is 91 minutes.

Contact Bob Garver at rrg251@nyu.edu.