Denzel!

It's one heck of a performance. As Whip Whitaker a commercial airline pilot who hasn't lost the swagger or the the recklessness of his days as a Navy fighter pilot and who just to keep himself sharp flies his jetliner as if he was still in the cockpit of an F-14, when he's not so hungover or drunk or high he has to leave all the work to his co-pilot and take a nap in the cockpit, Washington is very good. He's very good a lot.   John Gatins’ screenplay makes sure that he doesn’t lack for opportunities to be very good.  The script will give him a chance to be very good in a scene and one scene later he'll be called on to be very good again.  Sometimes he gets to be very good twice in the same scene.

You're getting the picture, right?

Flight is a showcase for Denzel Washington to the point that his being very good becomes the point of the movie.

---from my review of Flight, Don’t Drink and Fly.