Mark Wahlberg Loses His Mind, His Hair, & His Typical Boston Accent In ‘Flight Risk’ Trailer From Director Mel Gibson

Is this movie about to be awesomely bad, or badly awesome? Seems like there's no in-between. Mel Gibson has actually worked quite a lot as an actor of late, albeit in under-the-radar thrillers, but his two most widely-seen turns of late came in Daddy's Home 2 and Father Stu . Both of those were collaborations with Mark Wahlberg, who's going against type as a vicious-looking villain in Flight Risk , which marks Gibson's first directorial effort since 2016's Oscar-nominated Hacksaw Ridge. Whether this interesting-looking flick is a hit or not, Gibson also has the long-awaited sequel, The Passion of the Christ: Resurrection coming in 2025, so either way, he's poised to make a big splash here soon. For Wahlberg's part, he's really leaned into starring and producing action movies for the most part, yet now he's filming the first film from celebrated writer/director Shane Black since The Nice Guys , titled Play Dirty . So why am I talking about all these other projects that me and probably most of the world is more intrigued by, and not the movie that is the main subject of this article? Because with those exciting futures on the horizon for Gibson and Wahlberg, this could be a sort of "night is darkest before the dawn" movie that gets crump-dumped before something better. On the flip side, the fact that Flight Risk made The Black List as one of the most beloved unproduced screenplays in Hollywood gives me some hope that this could somehow be... good? https://twitter.com/DiscussingFilm/status/1806331589078450232 The premise is simple enough. Transporting a key criminal witness on a small airplane, piloted by a seemingly good dude in Wahlberg who turns out to be an unhinged hit man. Then you have Gibson's considerable experience behind the camera, along with some in-over-their-head supporting characters portrayed by Michelle Dockery and Topher Grace, and you've got some decent elements to cook here. But most striking above all else are Wahlberg's appearance and line deliveries. He's 53 years old and looks closer to 33 in real life. In Flight Risk , he's got this big forehead and menacing demeanor that is refreshingly against-type from his typical everyman protagonist and/or shredded, perfectly-groomed alpha male prototype. https://twitter.com/DiscussingFilm/status/1806316053913350328 As for whatever spin on a Southern accent Wahlberg is doing here, I don't think it's going to be viewed as Oscar-worthy. I sense there might be a meta quality to this movie. Hopefully at least. Otherwise, we're entering a potential self-parody situation more than anything else. https://twitter.com/davidehrlich/status/1806351565134942358 The tagline "y'all need a pilot" is a line in the trailer, though, and it's absolutely sending me. In any event, I admire the artist formerly known as Marky Mark for taking a big swing here. Again, it could either go really well or wind up unintentionally funny and overly austere. Very high risk factor. Feels kinda spicy.