Flight Risk (Mel Gibson, 2025) & Inheritance (Neil Burger, 2025)

Flight Risk is a fun and lighthearted thriller, that at just over 90 minutes doesn’t outstay its welcome.

The movie contains both action and comedy elements, but it must be stressed - and I cannot stress this enough - that it’s a small scale affair, with most of the real-time real-world action taking place inside the confines of a small airplane. If this were a Hitchcock movie - and there are definitely some influences that point in that direction - it wouldn’t be North by Northwest but Lifeboat.

Here’s the thing: Topher Grace plays Winston, who works as an accountant for a mobster. He has laundered both for his boss and his clients, but also for himself, an act punishable by, of course, death murder kill.

However, in the first scene of the movie he is caught in his Alaskan hideaway by an Air Marshal named Madolyn, who is played by the one and only Michelle Dockery (who to my wife and me will forever be known as The Lady Mary from Downton Abbey) who plans to keep him alive and bring him back in one piece to first Anchorage, and then New York, where he will testify in court before entering some witness protection plan.

All that is needed is a reliable pilot who will fly these two to Anchorage, and who could be more reliable than Daryl, played by Mark Wahlberg, who has never flown with an Air Marshal and/or a criminal witness before, and doesn’t seem quite sure if he is up to the task.

As this is one of the first reviews to appear online, I’m not gonna give you any more spoilers, other that neither everything or everyone is what they appear to be.

What I will say is that I thought it was a fun ride, with a lot of twist and turns, some more predictable than others, but hey, no one is trying to reinvent the wheel here, and three talented actors that look like they actually had a lot of fun making this movie. And why not?

For both Dockery and Grace it’s a chance for a meaty leading role, while for Wahlberg it’s a chance to show a different side of himself and to, well, baldly go where he hasn’t gone before. (Unless I have missed all those movies where he did just that :-)

Working from a script by Jared Rosenberg, director Mel Gibson does a totally solid job with what is probably the most lighthearted movie he has done since… like ever. This is not The Man Without A Face (1994), Braveheart (1995), The Passion of the Christ (2004), Apocalypto (2006) or Hacksaw Ridge (2016), in fact it’s the total opposite. It’s also the opposite of an awards prestige movie, so for people who at this point are more than ready ‘to see a movie just to see a movie’ this could be an ideal consensus choice.

Flight Risk offers entertainment, escapism and just plain fun. It’s what I like to call ‘a perfect three star movie’.

INHERITANCE (Neil Burger, 2025)

Inheritance is a stylish young adult thriller, that doubles as a father-daughter drama, directed by Neil Burger, and starring Phoebe Dynefor and Rhys Ifans.

The movie, written by Burger and Olen Steinhauer, basically focuses on twenty-something Maya, who has spent the nine months before the movie begins caring for her dying mother.

At the wake Maya and her sister are greeted by their father, Sam (Ifans), who they don’t know very well, because he spends most of his time abroad.

Sam wants to make up, and invites Maya to come along on a business trip, for which he will pay her a thousand dollars a day. (hot tip: if someone offers you that kind of money just ‘to be charming’, it’s usually too good to be true).

But Maya, understandably, needs a break. So she decides to come along anyway. It’s pretty clear from the outset that she has a mission of her own: to find out who he really is. I’m not saying what he is - it’s also pretty clear that he is not your usual kind of business man - but who he is.

The question that adds genuine depth to a movie that on the surface feels a little superficial is this: hey, dad, are you the father that I really need right now to help me with my grief? And are you actually worthy of my heartfelt love for you? (Rest assured fellow writers: at the end of the movie this ‘gross-net equation’ is properly answered.)

I’m actually a sucker for this kind of movie, so that’s your passing grade right there. I also like the fact that Inheritance is very much a ‘real world’ thriller and the leading lady never has to turn into a superhero to be a heroine. The downside is that for a thriller Inheritance is kinda low on real twists and turns and that Maya - especially after Sam disappears from view leaving his daughter to go on a quest to save him - never seems to be in any real sort of danger. (In terms of Save the Cat: she gets chased up a tree in the first act, but there is not a lot of rock throwing in the second, before she is allowed to come down in the third.)

Instead, Mira elegantly slips in and out of Delhi and Seoul, making the movie at time feel like a travelogue, that gives her plenty of time for soul searching. But again, that may be the point of the movie. (Note to Neil Burger: if you ever want to do a Perfect Days movie, then don’t wait til your 75, just do it).

Cause you know, another thing that struck me is that Burger and cinematographer Jackson Hunt (who apparently shot the whole movie on an IPhone) really home in on Maya’s character. I don’t think its an exaggeration to say that most of the emotional heavy lifting has to be done by Phoebe Dynevor’s facial expressions. Which is fine, when you’ve got the sad, soulful eyes that she has, but it’s not like this role is so demanding that it stretches her acting talent to the extreme. (If she would like more demanding roles like Florence Pugh in Midsommar, my advice would be: tell your agent!).

Still, even though the answer to the question that Maya is looking for leads to the kind of ending where the main character gets what she wants instead of what she needs, I thought there was a lot to like about Inheritance.

I give it 3 1/2 stars!