Wow. Just wow. This one falls firmly in the category “movies I go
to so you don’t have to.”

Mel Gibson, since trashing his own acting career with his rabid
antisemitism, has now hit a new low in his work behind the
camera. He directed himself in Braveheart, yes, and made the
effective Apocalypto, but also inflicted upon us the execrable The
Passion of the Christ. Thing is, he should know better.
The goofy plot places three people in a small Alaskan bush plane:
a U.S. Marshal, the fugitive she’s escorting to justice, and their
pilot. You know things will go wrong because, well, it’s a movie,
innit?

Let’s start with Mark Wahlberg, a middling actor who has used his
boyish charm to carve out a fairly respectable career for himself
in action comedies and the like. But anything outside that comfort
zone, like, say, a crazed, murderous pilot, instantly goes into the
bin for a film school class on how NOT to make a movie.

I searched long and hard for an adjective for Topher Grace’s awful
mugging as the fugitive and finally hit on “annoying.” But what
makes this comically terrible flick a tragedy is the casting of
Michelle Dockery, so effective in Downton Abbey, in the role of
tough-as-nails American marshal. Miss it twice.
You’re welcome. (91 min)