Mel Gibson's New Crime Thriller Is The First Truly Awful Movie Of 2025

January movies tend to have a certain air to them. This time of year is not typically when Hollywood studios bring their A-game, unless we're talking about the expansion of an Oscar movie or something along those lines. For the most part, this stretch of the release calendar is full of a lot of schlock, with the occasional surprise. (The found footage monster flick "Cloverfield" is a great example of an exception to the rule.) I say this all to set the table before we talk about Mel Gibson's new crime thriller "Flight Risk," which has all of the markings of a typical January movie. In some ways, it is. In other ways, it's worse than typical. But no matter how one wants to slice it, this is the first out-and-out terrible movie of 2025.

The film centers on a pilot (Mark Wahlberg) who's commissioned to transport an Air Marshal (Michelle Dockery) and a fugitive  (Topher Grace) who is going to testify as a key witness in a high-profile trial. As they fly over the remote Alaskan wilderness, it's revealed that not everyone aboard this tiny plane is who they seem. Twist! The pilot is actually there to kill the witness on behalf of the crime boss standing trial. Mid-flight chaos ensues.

There is so much to be said about the movie. /Film's Witney Seibold called "Flight Risk" a "typical January movie" in his 5 out of 10 review, and that's tough to argue against. What I would add to that, however, is the layers of absurdity here that both elevate it above that typical January movie while simultaneously making it a far more frustrating, unforgivable mess.

For one thing, we have Wahlberg on board, one of the world's biggest stars who has two Oscar nominations to his name, but the man we know from films like "The Departed" and "All the Money in the World" is nowhere to be found. Where it gets more complicated is the Gibson of it all.

Gibson is a complicated figure, with a history of making anti-Semitic comments in addition to pleading guilty to battery of his ex-wife, Oksana Grigorieva. I'm not here to litigate his past, nor am I here to discuss whether Gibson should or should not be allowed to make movies. This movie exists, and there's nothing that can be done about that. What everyone can likely agree on is that Gibson, at one point, knew how to make good movies — or at least movies that were generally very well-liked. That version of him is nowhere to be found in the contents of this frustrating, logic-free thriller.

I won't venture too heavily into spoiler territory here because I imagine some folks might be morbidly curious about this one. I must admit, when I first saw the trailer at CinemaCon last year, it seemed like the kind of "so bad it's good movie" I live for. It brings me no joy to tell you that it isn't. What is it? A movie that feels like it should have gone directly to Redbox back when that was still a thing. Yet, somehow, because of the people involved, it got a theatrical release, which is something many very good movies aren't even afforded these days. In that way, it's borderline offensive.

In a movie about a guy (that guy being a bald, unhinged Mark Wahlberg) trying to kill people on a very small plane over Alaska, I don't ask for much. I feel like I know what I'm getting into. I just ask for some semblance of logic, but sadly, there is none to be found here. It's a small plane and yet, at multiple points, both the Air Marshal and the witness refuse to simply look back to make sure the guy who tried to kill them isn't trying to get loose. Simply look over your shoulder once or twice and most of the movie's issues could be avoided. Decisions like that are how a film goes from "bad, but fun" to "terrible, and I'm actively irritated about it."

Circling back to the Mel Gibson factor, we're talking about a filmmaker who has made some truly beloved, massive hits in his day. "Braveheart," though wildly inaccurate, was a smash hit and Oscar darling in its day. It's pretty fair to label that as a "good" movie, broadly speaking. It's probably fair to say the same of "Apocalypto" and, though another complicated issue altogether, it's tough to call "Passion of the Christ" an altogether bad movie.

But hey, that version of Gibson was a long time ago. What baffles me walking out of "Flight Risk" is imagining that this is somehow the same guy that made a pretty damn good war movie in "Hacksaw Ridge" just nine years ago. Again, I'm by no means defending Gibson. The man has done and said some truly terrible things. I'm not even really here trying to separate the art from the artist. I'm merely pointing out that this was, relatively recently, a guy who knew what he was doing behind the camera.

I struggle to understand how that guy was responsible for this mess. If this were a first-time director making a movie that went directly to DVD or something like that, maybe it would be more forgivable. But Lionsgate got into bed with a guy like Gibson ... for this? It's tough to reconcile.

This isn't a formal review, per se, so I'm not going to break down this movie in a deep, analytical way. What I can do, however, is point out that a low bar has been set for movies in 2025. Sure, there are people who didn't like Leigh Whannell's "Wolf Man." But a good director taking a big swing that doesn't quite connect isn't something we should fairly label as terrible. A once arguably great director making glorified direct-to-video trash that is difficult to defend from any perspective? That's terrible.

"Flight Risk" is in theaters now.