Mark Wahlberg is calling his character in Flight Risk the first bad guy he’s played since Fear, that memorable 1996 cult classic in which he fingerbanged a babyfaced Reese Witherspoon on a rollercoaster before stalking and menacing her family. While I have no reason to doubt this claim, it feels spiritually untrue. Wahlberg’s foremost quality as an actor, aside from his underutilized talent for playing sweet-natured fools, is a villainous edge that he can barely suppress in his other roles. There’s a calculative core to the man that makes it seem like whoever he’s playing was once bad, and quite possibly will go on to be bad in the future, even if in the moment he’s the hero. Wahlberg is a natural antagonist who has somehow instead convinced Hollywood to brand him as a wholesome leading man, and the unnamed assassin he plays in Flight Risk is the best part of the whole misbegotten production, though that’s not saying much.
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