10 Near-Classic Movies Ruined By Terrible Endings

3. Flight

Flight was a riveting character study, propelled to potential classic status by Denzel Washington's superb performance as Whip Whitaker, an airline pilot being forced to contend with his own alcoholism amid an investigation into a doomed flight he successfully landed with only a few casualties. For most of this film, Robert Zemeckis weaves a deft narrative broached perfectly between Whip's alcoholism and the heroism he exhibited on that flight. The film the question seems to ask is this - could anyone else have landed that plane? And the answer seems to be no. During a testimonial hearing at the end of the film, Whip is given the opportunity to throw an air hostess under the bus and declare that she was the one who drank the Vodka bottles recovered from the crash. Whip instead admits that he did, goes to prison, and seems to fix his relationship with his son while in jail. It's all a little too neat; the film should have ended ambiguously when Whip was asked whether the air hostess drank the Vodka or not. He says, "God help me", which should have been followed by an abrupt cut to black.