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)