Audiences buckle up for one kind of movie but end up strapped in for another in "Flight," director Robert Zemeckis' welcome return to live-action after a dozen years away. Serious-minded drama steers a horrifying nightmare at 20,000 feet into one man's turbulent personal struggle with his drinking problem -- and not in the jokey "Airplane!" sense, either. Denzel Washington is aces as a commercial airline pilot who pulls off a miraculous mid-air stunt while flying with a 0.24 blood alcohol concentration, only to face his demons on the ground. Pic should soar on all platforms -- except in-flight, of course.

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Whitaker is flying high, sleeping with a comely stewardess (Nadine Velazquez) and chasing away his morning hangovers with a line of cocaine before stepping into the cockpit, until a mechanical malfunction sends his plane into a nosedive. Judging by the cool and collected way Whitaker handles the situation, he could be the poster boy for high-functioning alcoholism. Attempting to re-create the same scenario on a simulator after the fact, no other pilot could pull off the same maneuver. And yet, had Whitaker not literally been asleep at the wheel when the plane pitched forward, maybe the entire situation could have been avoided, sparing the six lives lost in his stunning recovery move.

Few events are more visceral to experience onscreen than an airplane crash, and "Flight" ranks alongside "Fearless" and "Alive" in the sheer intensity of its opening act. But John Gatins' perceptively original script takes the rest of the story in a far different direction. For the first week or so, Whitaker vows to get sober, raiding every hiding place in his grandfather's Georgia cabin for stashed liquor bottles and pouring them down the drain. It's a symbolic gesture, but one that ultimately represents little more than wasted money for a man so hooked on hooch that within a few scenes, he's sucking down Stoli vodka straight from its half-gallon jug (while driving, no less).