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“Flight Risk” Blu-ray Takes Off and Is Now Availablle to Own!

After tracking down and arresting a criminal kingpin’s accountant in an Alaskan hotel, U.S. Marshall Madolyn agrees to a plea deal with the accountant in exchange for his incriminating testimony that would lock away the mob boss for years, but before prosecution can get underway, the U.S. Marshall must get her witness to New York City. Charactering a Cessna 208 light aircraft to escort them out of Alaska, the more-than-eccentric rustic pilot is more tirelessly inquisitive than charismatically charming toward the Marshall about having a suspect chained to the seat in the rear of his plane while also gabbing about casual, byway pleasantries and his rural, for-hire lifestyle as a pilot. Little do Madolyn and the accountant know is that their pilot is a sadist assassin hired by mob boss and by the time they reach cruising altitude, Madolyn finds herself confined with a relentless killer and without the knowhow to fly a plane herself.

Not since 2016 has “Lethal Weapon” and “Mad Max” actor Mel Gibson directed a film, that film being the World War II action-drama, “Hacksaw Ridge.” Gibson returns to being behind-the-camera in 2025 with his latest venture, an aerial, hitman thriller “Flight Risk” from a contained debut big picture script by Jared Rosenberg. “Flight Risk” strays from the normal course of being an epic feature that usually draws the cinematic eye of Gibson with being a smaller production, an intimate cast, and isolated mostly on a deconstructed light aircraft in front of what is essentially a floor-to-ceiling, 180-degree IMAX screen simulator to depict coursing through the snow-topped mountains of the Alaska Range. Gibson produces the story along with Bruce Davey, John Fox, and John Davis in a Lionsgate presented combined company production from Davis Entertainment, Icon Productions, Media Capital Technologies, Hammerstone Pictures, and Blue Rider Pictures.

Three onscreen principals and a handful of voiceover work is all there is to “Flight Risk’s” casting with many of the scenes “high” above ground inside the tight confines of a personal aircraft to intensify the close-quartered combat with the unspoken caveat of nowhere to run, nowhere to hide thousands of feet up in the clouds. Actress Michelle Dockery, known for her role as Lady Mary Crawley in the dynamic upstairs, downstairs period drama series “Downton Abbey,” exchanges her glittering ballroom gowns and British accent for a sidearm Glock and a flat American-beurocratic accent as U.S. Marshall Madolyn with a complicated backstory that places her back into the field after being assigned desk duty when a witness dies in her custody. Dockery is all business and no pleasure with a retaining wall that holds all her emotions in so she can focus on the important opportunity to be back into the field. Audiences will be thrusted right the middle of the opportunity and experience her unpleasant history being unraveled exposition as she begins to empathize and sympathize with her current witness, Winston, a skilled accountant with a harmless, passive proclivity played by with the sarcastic reflex of a frightened squirrel in Topher Grace (“Predators,” “Spider-Man 3”). Madolyn and Winston slowly, simmering bond, merging into a fight or flight friendship out of from being an authoritative escort and detainee, is forged by fire when Mark Wahlberg’s receding hairline, eccentrically crazy, sadistic rapist of a hitman pilot attempts to restrain Madolyn and divert Winstown for his own personal pleasure on the behalf of the Mob Boss instruction. Likely Wahlberg’s most depraved role since 1996’s “Fear,” the “Transformers” and “Daddy’s Home” actor puts forth less of his muscular tone and good looks by stepping into a balding, gum-chewing wild eye maniac, relentlessly bloodthirsty with the gift of grotesque gab, in a cat-and-mouse tit-for-tat game for the plane yoke and control. A voice cast rounds out the rest that push the story in deception and direction with Leah Remini (“Old School”) and Paul Ben-Victor (“Body Parts”) as Madolyn’s colleagues who may or may not be corrupt and Maaz Ali (“Anxious”) as your friendly and flirtatious pilot instructor.

An absolute different kind of project for director Mel Gibson that’s not historical, period, or epic as he takes off into unknown territory and elevating as a director who can remove himself from the bigger picture for a smaller one. “Flight Risk” is a prime example of what Hollywood should be putting into production rather than squandering millions on grand flops but limited the budget that, in turns, limits the star power and conceding the story to saturate with substance rather than with ostentatious effects. “Flight Risk” proved to be a modest profiting film on what is now considered a meager budget of $25 million, but a profit is a profit, and the thriller is highly entertaining and engrossing with solid performance supporting a step-by-step, linear story arc. Granted, the film isn’t completely without flaws. While Johnny Derango (“Fatman”) can capture the correct angles in the plane’s small, confined space and gratifying the depth with the visual screen through the plane windows, these aspects are negatively counterbalanced by visual effects that stunt the aesthetics with cheap-looking knockoffs of exteriors at the beginning and end of the film. Fortunately, these scenes are scarce and does continue the yard forward without looking back as girth of Mark Wahlberg, Michelle Dockery, and Topher Grace vie for their moment in the spotlight with their character’s idiosyncrasies.

The Lionsgate presented “Flight Risk” takes cue from the locomotive folktale being the little film that could, replacing the small train for a small plane and chugging, climbing up the Alaska mountain of nonstop thrills. The new combo format Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital set from the company evokes many ways to enjoy the latest, and humblest, Mel Gibson picture. The Blu-ray is AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD50 while the DVD is MPEG2 encoded, upscaled to 1080p, on a DVD9. In covering the Blu-ray, the picture is near perfect without compression issues faulter a landscape of whites, blues, and the spotted greeneries in between that make up the Alaska geography on the big 180’ volume screen for pseudo flight. The matte visual mixed with the angle of the cameras work to the location’s authenticity and the camera angles solidify that the illusion while the pixel range sharpens any loose ends that might occur in presentation. Coloring and breadth of saturation diffuse fine with an organic look except for the VFX that stands out like a sore thumb. English Dolby Atmos creates an immersive audible impression, splicing through the channels that reflect more in the back channels of Mark Wahlberg’s frantic, and sordid, diatribes from the plane’s cargo tail. Exteriors are not as explosive around the plane as expected with the Dolby’s loss of fidelity but, to the advantage of the story, the engine him and the turbulence has an agreeable depth muffle to it in the surrounding channels and into the frontloaded dialogue, which is intelligible and without unintended equipment interference. Also included are French and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks and an English descriptive audio. English, Spanish and French subtitles are optional. Risk Management: Making flight Risk is the standard fare behind-the-scenes cast-and-crew interviews with some raw behind-the-camera shots surrounding the genesis of “Flight Risk” and the how certain aspects of the film, such as cinematography and Mark Wahlberg’s devilish persona, are achieved. The theatrical trailer rounds out the encoded special features. Personally, I was not impressed with the cover art that’s on the Amaray and the cardboard O-slip with a sheen coating that puts Wahlberg front-and-center of a misleading campaign of the ruthless killer looking oddly unflappable while zipping fighter jet theatrics are composited over his midsection; the whole illustration just doesn’t speak the “Flight Risk’s” disposition. Nothing else to note tangibly other than the 4K digital code insert in its usual slot. Rated R for violence and language, Lionsgate Blu-ray is region A encoded and has a textbook runtime of 91-minutes.

Last Rites: “Flight Risk” cruises at a palatable attitude of flight dynamics, aerial assassinations, and the rehabilitation of broken character in Mel Gibson’s smaller, but mighty, latest feature.

“Flight Risk” Blu-ray Takes Off and Is Now Availablle to Own!

A plague has decimated the world, turning citizens into crazed, flesh eating zombies. In Germany, only two cities have survived the devastating apocalypse the last two years – Weimar and Jena. In Weimar, the infected are immediately eradicated on site without exceptions. In Jena, compassionate individuals strive for a cure for the diseased. Weimar residents, Vivi and Eva, sneak out of the authoritative camp for their own personal reasons and flee toward Jena’s safe-haven policy in hopes for a better way of life, but a perilous journey through the horde occupied Black Forest stands in between them and salvation. Without weapons, food, and one liter of water between them, chances of coming out unscathed are slim-to-none as long as nothing separates them from assisting their survival.

Based off the illustrated graphic novel of the same name written by Olivia Viewig, “Endzeit,” also known as “Ever After” in the English translation, hits the big screen in the 2018 film adaptation under the orchestration of a female, Sweden-born director Carolina Hellsgård as her sophomore feature with Viewig herself providing the script treatment. With pop culture entrenched and seemingly an extension of herself, Olivia Viewig is by trade a German cartoonist best known for her quirky “Why Cats…” series, a children’s book author, and regularly contributions to the world of Manga to which she was influenced. Viewig then turned to horror with “Endzeit” that served as a graduating studies project that earned her a University degree in 2012. The initially 72-page full-length comic became extended six years later in 2018 by a major German publisher named Carlsen and served as the basis of the script for the film about to be covered below that’s a coming-of-age film that also symbolizes passing of the torch for two young and dissimilar women scrambling between two opposing worlds with a common calamity.

Initially, “Ever After” focuses around the immense struggles of a shut-in named Vivi, a character instilled with paralyzing fear and guilt that has more or less clinically diagnoses her as an extreme agoraphobic whose been hasn’t stepped outside the last two years ever since the plague occurred. “Nothing Bad Can Happen” actress Gro Swantje Kohlhof envelopes herself as the “weakling” her character is ascribed by hardened and callous Weimar survivors, but as Kohlhof evolves Vivi’s fragile resolve into something more concrete, Kohlhof also opens a little more trait range for Vivi when she is finally pushed across the threshold of letting go her fear and guilt. Eva can be said as Vivi’s hard-bitten muse whose looking for a softer slice of life and as Eva becomes engulfed in Vivi’s massively sheltered circle by chance, the former Weimar grunt is able to crack through the hardened exterior and let someone like Vivi into be a calming force in her own anxiety riddled interior. Maja Lehrer compliments as the aggressor in an encouraging pair of diverse female characters driven by their regrettable past to never look back on it and keep moving forward to a better prospect that’ll wash their souls clean. Haired tied back tight, form-fitting mercenary-esque clothing, and a self-preserving attitude to match, Lehrer rounds Eva out well to arch her role hard when Vivi is ready to take the reins as an apocalyptic ranger of the Black Forest. In the forest, Vivi and Eva encounter a mystical being, a half-breed of sorts between living and dead, who doesn’t have a name but goes by The Gardener is played by Denmark actress Trine Dyrholm. Since “Ever After” references quite a bit about nature taking the world from man, I’d like Dyrholm represents Mother Nature as the character invites Vivi to her abundant tomato green house, a serene scenery of low-hanging fruit trees, and the character herself has vines and leaves growing out of the side of a human face and can temporary restore or extend life to a person. Vivi and Eva’s brief encounter prompt’s a change in them both that defines their destiny going forward toward Jena. The cast rounds out with minor roles from Barbara Philipp, Yuho Yamashita, Amy Schuk, Axel Warner, Muriel Wimmer, and Ute Wieckhorst.

If you’re looking for blood, “Ever After” is not that kind of zombie film that glorifies the flesh chomping violence but rather utilizes the violence as a motivator for Vivi and Eva to embark from safety, but that isn’t to say the sheer zombie terror is omitted or even diluted. The mass of running undead continues to be a force of concentrated fear with heart pounding side effects, much carried over from Danny Boyle’s “28 Days Late” and Zack Synder’s remake of “Dawn of the Dead,” and director Hellsgård seldomly relies on a crazed horde to be the mindless exploit of “Ever After’s” core message. Instead, the story clearly defines the growth and understanding Vivi and Eva as individuals and as part of something more, taught in part by their short time with The Gardener, and a highly reflective poignant past that ripples through their memory banks over and over again. Their ambitions nearly shot from existence at the beginning of the apocalypse to the start of their Black Forest voyage have found harmony in letting the past be the past by the end of the story. Once could call it a coming-of-age to see the two women elevate themselves from a place of inner turmoil and, in my opinion, the two women part of that is greatly important because “Ever After” is almost, about 95%, completely female cast driven. So, not only is the story a coming of age one, but also speaks upon self-reliance and empowerment for women.

The swotted comic of Olivia Viewig gains a visual odyssey amongst the undead catalogue with a Blu-ray release of the Das Kleine Fernsehspiel and Grown Up Films production, “Ever After,” distributed by MVDVisual and Juno Films. Stored on a BD-25 and presented in an anamorphic widescreen of it’s original aspect ratio of 2.35:1, “Ever After’s” 1080p full high definition image is sleek to every sensory receptor in the eye and captures the topographic thickets of Germany landscapes in grand wide angles. There is not a lot of tint work here, if any, and relies much on the luminescent and glowing beauty of natural light. The German language DTS-HD 5.1 master audio sufficiently taps into all five channels without overbearing results from zombie hordes. Instead, the focal points here discern more on the tiny tunes and tones of nature. Also included in the setup is an option for a 2.0 LCPM Stereo Audio track and English subtitles, which appear accurate but are hastily paced. Other than a static menu, the region free, 90 minute runtime release bares no special features other than the trailer. “Ever After” is an ascension from within the very weary genre oeuvre, encouraging the strength to stomach guilt and fear as important, but presently irrelevant if one wishes to change with a world that has redesigned around them.