The movie Flight provides a great example of how impactful short titles can be. Just six letters describe the protagonist’s job (flying), what he spends much of the film doing (running away), and if you added one more letter, it would characterize him as a person. While the film itself could have been trimmed down, it's still true that no good movie is ever too long. In addition to demonstrating this principle, director Robert Zemeckis turns a familiar saying on its head; here, alcohol initially solves problems but ultimately creates them. You can tell someone smokes compulsively when they light a cigarette with the remains of the last one; similarly, you know an alcoholic when they ease their hangover with leftover beer from the previous day—and that’s just the beginning of commercial pilot William 'Whip' Whitaker's (Denzel Washington) morning routine. Whip is still drinking on Flight 227 to Atlanta, mixing himself a screwdriver, or several, before he dozes off. He jolts awake when the plane begins to plummet. Unable to regain control, Whip performs an emergency landing in a field, saving most of the "102 souls" aboard. This includes a moment where Whip flies the plane upside down, and it’s not just him but also Zemeckis who takes a significant risk that pays off. The scene doesn't become unintentionally humorous because part of its purpose is to provide some much-needed levity to relieve the intense tension; at the same time, it stretches the audience’s suspension of disbelief without breaking it for two reasons: 1) there are real instances of this happening, and 2) it’s exactly what someone flying under the influence might do. There's no question that Whip has the skill to successfully execute this maneuver; the uncertainty lies in whether he would have attempted it while sober. Furthermore, the accident is caused by a mechanical failure completely separate from Whip’s condition. However, Flight isn't like Druk, an explanation or justification of alcoholism. In a weaker film, the vehicle—whether a plane or a car—would crash directly because of the driver/pilot’s intoxication, and that person would be the only survivor, intensifying their guilt. Instead, Flight challenges the notion of invincibility that alcoholics often cling to by leading viewers to believe, almost until the very end, that Whip might actually be invincible. "Maybe I'm a fool," Whip reflects, "because if I’d just told one more lie, I could have gotten away with it all." But he also understands that after that “one more lie” there would be another, and another, and eventually his lies would catch up to him, because ultimately you can’t escape the consequences of addiction. Like the similar Clean and Sober, Flight loses some steam due to a romantic subplot that a film nearly two-and-a-half hours long doesn't really need; on the other hand, I appreciated Washington’s and Zemeckis's attention to detail—for instance, when Whip has the presence of mind during the crash landing to have a flight attendant tell her son she loves him so that the black box can record it (in case they don’t survive), or the way his facial expressions clearly show the difference between despair and relief, that exists before —and after—his first line of cocaine, provided by John Goodman in a couple of amusing appearances, each announced by “Sympathy for the Devil” on the soundtrack.

Source on TMDB