Rising Phoenix Fails to Soar

Some days, you just shouldn’t get out of bed. That’s more or less how a group of oil explorers working in the far reaches of the Mongolian desert must feel. First, they start their day with the realization they’ve been shut down by their corporate bosses and are out of a job. Second, they have to scramble to, not only scrap their drilling site, but to get all their belongings in order and on a raggedy plane before their pilot flies off and leaves them stranded. A day couldn’t possibly get worse.

Unless, of course, the plane crashes.

But that’s just what’s happened, pilot Frank Towns (Dennis Quaid) barely able to set him and his passengers on the desert floor in one peace, more or less. Now, 2,000-miles from anywhere, this ragtag group of ruffians and pencil pushers must find a way to survive. However, with very little water and even less food, their chances of rescue are microscopic at best, and the likelihood of a sand-drenched gravesite becomes more and more a possibility with every passing moment.

Not if it is up to a scrawny, white-haired rodent of a mystery-man named Elliott (Giovanni Ribisi). Not part of the oil team and not a member of the flight crew, he’s a drifter only tagging along for the ride. Claiming to be an aeronautics genius, he’s got an idea and he’s sure with his technical and engineering know-how, along with the groups physical attributes, they can make it work. What’s the plan? How about building a new plane out of the wrecked parts of the old, salvation rising from the ashes from the very beast that covered them in sand in the first place.

Based on the screenplay of the 1965 original starring Jimmy Stewart, Flight of the Phoenix is an old-school B-movie adventure made with the crackerjack style of an MTV video by Behind Enemy Lines director John Moore, and that’s not a compliment. It is an overwrought, over-produced epic drowning in too-much style and too-little imagination. Yet, Scott Frank (Dead Again) and Edward Burns (The Brothers McMullen) have done such a thoroughly decent job of scripting this update, and Moore has cast his canaille group of characters so amazingly well, darned if it isn’t immanently watchable. Sure, it’s a bit of a mess, but it’s an entertaining mess, and even if it does fly off a cliff towards the end I still can’t exactly complain about being burned.

For one thing, Quaid was born to take on the central role of Towns. Sure, comparisons to Stewart are inevitable, but in this case that’s a good thing. Quaid has aged amazingly well and, much like Stewart, has found a way to bring so much more depth and tragic baggage to his portrayals only the weathered visage of time allows. Frank and Burns paint their characters in brief, subtle strokes, leaving it to the actor to bring out the nuance and detail themselves and Quaid has an uncanny ability to sell emotional heartbreak and withered dreams with only the scraggily creak of a crooked smile.

The rest of the usual suspects are filled just as well. Hugh Laurie is fun and wearily sarcastic as anoil company stooge, Tyrese Gibson more than holds his own as Quaid’s trusting copilot, while The Lord of the Rings star Miranda Otto takes on the stock tough-guy female role with surprising grace and charm. Best of the bunch is Kevork Malikyan as the group’s sole native Rady. He understands the mysteries of the desert better than anyone, and it shows in every long-lasting gaze into the horizon. But what’s most mesmerizing about his performance is what goes unsaid, what’s going on behind the eyes. Something has changed Rady, an event forever shattering his beliefs and lust for living life. In building the plane, in crafting this Phoenix, salvation may not just be in going home, but saving in his soul.

Still, this isn’t the greatest adventure in the world by any stretch of the imagination. Moore refuses to let his camera be still, continually cutting and changing film stocks like they were going out of style. Sure, he stages a scene or two of emotional impact; the sight of a skinned victim of the desert’s harsh sandy winds is devastatingly incredible; but that’s not enough to warrant the headache caused by his incessant over-directing. For the movie to really work, really take flight, the director needed to show a little restraint and let the action come organically, not force-feed it into our faces every few minutes under the wrongheaded impression we might be getting bored. The original knew this and, while no classic, that’s why it is still fondly remembered to this day.

Ribisi doesn’t help matters, and I usually like this little dynamo of an actor. In fact, he’s been one of my favorites for quite some time, but that doesn’t change how thoroughly unlikable and annoying he is here. Elliott isn’t a weasel; he’s a rodent, skittering and jittering through the dunes like he’s auditioning for Raiders of the Lost Cheesy Ark. By the end of the picture, I was hoping the out-of-nowhere arms smugglers (where did that plot twist come from?) would just up and cap his butt, that way I could just forget him and move on to the many simple charms the movie kept trying to intoxicate me with.

It could have been worse. Moore’s Behind Enemy Lines is one of the most unctuous piles of garbage to hit screens in the past five years, and this one is nowhere near as off-putting. Like I said, there’s much to enjoy, the final third even bordering on the thrilling. Expertly edited by Don Zimmerman and with aerial photography to die for, my pulse raced just like everyone else’s in the theater. Not much, true, but it’s almost enough make Flight of the Phoenix rise out of the fire of mediocrity.

Film Rating: êê1/2  (out of 4)