A Painfully Close Reading of the Flight Risk Trailer
plus, some other Topher Tracking Tidbits
Greetings, Toes!1 How was your summer?
I took my show Man Up to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to stellar reviews. It was one of the greatest accomplishments of my life AND I got to rep the Topher fandom atop of Arthur’s Seat:
I come bearing news of Flight Risk, the upcoming Mel Gibson directed feature film starring Topher Grace AND the first movie Topher Grace will appear in since 2020. Lionsgate has pushed its release date from October 18 to January 24, meaning we won’t see Flight Risk until 2025, barring an invite to Mel Gibson’s personal filming room or something.
Now, those who understand the film industry2 know that a January release is typically a sign that a studio does not believe in a movie. January is a dumping ground for films that aren’t likely to do well at the box office nor as awards contenders, so it’s not looking great for Flight Risk.
Personally, this push back is good news, as I’m still weighing the moral dilemma of seeing Flight Risk in theaters.
But just because the release has been pushed back doesn’t mean there’s not Flight Risk fun to be had, because we’ve got a trailer baby! So behold my Topher-focused, near beat-by-beat,3 close reading of the Flight Risk trailer:
We first get a mini version of the trailer with an orange floating “Mark Wahlberg” right next to the actor’s face, which I’m guessing is for people with short term memory loss who may have forgotten which trailer they clicked on in YouTube? Or maybe for anyone who took a wrong turn trying to find the Flight trailer to hear Denzel say he’s gonna roll it?
ngl I did just pause this and open a new tab to watch the Flight trailer and I highly recommend it.
Okay we’re back to Flight Risk and now we’re into the real trailer.
We open on a snowy, desolate, mountainous setting and slowly zoom in on a tiny plane. Right away: NOPE.
We see Mark Wahlberg dressed like a truck driver and Michelle Dockery in the “front seat” of the plane
“Never flew US Marshall before,” Mark remarks, expositionally, “why’s he all chained up?”
The “he” in question is Topher Grace! Sitting in the “back seat,” and he’s indeed covered in chains. He gives Mark a little wave and a shit eating grin.
Turns out, Michelle has to “get [Topher] to New York so he can testify about the Moretti crime family,” she explains to Mark Wahlberg, expositionally.
At first I thought Topher was wearing the same glasses from Predators, but upon closer inspection I see they are different. But it raises the question…are glasses a sign that Topher is going to be playing a bad guy?
They take off and immediately there’s turbulence, and Mark says something folksy about people losing their lunches in his plane. ew.
A title card lets us know this is from the director of Braveheart, Apocalypto, and Hacksaw Ridge. Too bad the director isn’t a household name who people would immediately have connotations for OH WAIT…
Michelle notices Mark is bleeding but he waves it away. Then, Topher notices a pilot license belonging to someone who definitely isn’t Marky Mark. The music swells…
Wait a minute, surely this folksy pilot isn’t some sort of...psycho killer?
Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer” kicks in, but like a slow, moody acapella one
Wahlberg lunges at Michelle. He’s the bad guy! What a twist!
Cillian Murphy walked so Mark Wahlberg could walk slower.
Mark Wahlberg informs Topher (whose character is named Winston), that Mr. Moretti (probably of the Moretti crime family, from context clues) wants him dead.
But then Michelle comes in and tases Mark Wahlberg and we’re exposed to Mark’s bald cap! Maybe he just wants to kill Topher Grace because he’s jealous of Topher’s lush, mousy head of hair.
But seriously, I wonder if there will be a point to making Wahlberg bald?
Topher yells to Michelle Dockery not to shoot Mark, as they need him to fly the plane. Instead, she gets on the headset and says “the pilot’s a hit man,” in case we didn’t get it yet.
We get some quick shots of action scenes, including a moment where Topher gets stabbed that…well, I’ll just let this YouTube commenter sum it up:
There are some more shots of the plane flying over the snowy mountains and Michelle stressing about not being able to fly the plane.
They spot a military plane and Mark Wahlberg informs them it’s going to try to shoot them down. He has a point, that plane is probably being flown by 19 year olds who were duped into thinking joining the army would be just like playing video games.
Our heroes’ (?) tiny plane goes into a nosedive and Topher helpfully yells, “pull up!”
Boom title card, followed by an optimistic “October 18th” in bold lettering. Uh oh…
And that’s more information than you ever needed on the Flight Risk trailer!
I’ve seen people complaining about how the trailer shows the whole movie but… I can’t really blame the studio for that. These days it’s so hard to get people to go to a theater and not look at their phones for 2 hours. I’m sure there’s marketing research that shows the more of the movie an audience is shown, the more likely it is they’ll be convinced it’s worth their time
But the way things are going, who knows if this will even make it to theaters.
Anyway, we’ve now got some time to kill before Flight Risk premiers, and it’s Fall!
Unfortunately, I shot my Halloween wad with my Delirium and Predators reviews and it doesn’t seem like Topher has any other horror movies under his belt (unless the trailer for The Big Wedding is severely misleading). So I have a few options for my next review.
I could do an annual Delirium rewatch that only ends when I myself become delirious.
There’s also Under the Silver Lake, but does thriller count as horror? It always rubbed me the wrong way that people refer to Silence of the Lambs as the first/only horror movie to win an Oscar for best picture. It’s creepy, sure, but is it horror?
I can also take advantage of election season and watch Topher’s last film, the Jon Stewart-directed political dramedy Irresistible. Politics these days are scarier than horror movies, anyway (cue old-timey comedy club drum sound).
I would love to see Topher be in more horror, though. It could be a fun niche. Dan Stevens (Cousin Matthew from Downton Abbey), is having something of a career renaissance with Abigail and Cuckoo. I didn’t find either of those films very successful, but it’s nice to see Dan Stevens having fun. I want that for Topher.
Plus, pivoting into horror would give Topher more opportunities to work with up-and-coming directors who aren’t racist abusers. I would love that for him, and for all of Hollywood, come to think of it.
That’s a portmanteau of “Topher” and “hoes,” just a little something I’m trying on for size.
Letterboxd users
Until I started getting tired toward the end