I’m adding my voice to those predicting Denzel Washington will win Best Actor in this year’s Oscar competition for his role as an alcoholic pilot in the new film Flight.  I’ll even the score with my ex-husband who, after leaving Training Day, days after the terror attacks in September 2001, correctly declared that the famous black actor would get that top honor for his role as a corrupt L.A. Detective.  Coinciding with the release of Flight, if there was a greater disaster than Hurricane Sandy since 9/11 in the New York area, I can’t name it. By chance, I was taken to see both films soon after these devastating events. As a bookish, white woman in her forties, action movies are never my thing. I’m more likely to be tucked in at home, re-watching a DVD of Howard’s End with my cat, Monk. Unforeseeably, Denzel’s characters in these two films mirror the zeitgeist of America with alacrity. They also seem to offer cogent evidence of synchronicity.

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, Denzel now appears onscreen as a would-be hero who miraculously saves a plane full of people in a daring move that no other pilot could maneuver, but which  still claims the lives of six people. He performs this feat high on cocaine and booze. Despite the terrible storm and the mechanics of the plane failing, because of litigation he is scrutinized for pilot error and his alcoholism comes to light.  We can’t help but root for Denzel, who starts out badass and sinks lower as the film progresses. I see him as a symbol of our own nation, weary from a decade of war and a failed economy. Yet we were once so drunk on international power and bravado that we still wonder; how did we get here? Our hero, Atlanta-based pilot Whip Whitaker, seems to be equally confused. He did everything right- so why is this happening? Assisted by his attorney, played by the excellent Don Cheadle, he manages to both squash the post-crash toxicology report and enter “Act of God” as a factor in the plane coming down. Whitaker’s co-pilot, whose legs are crushed, echoes this will of God argument, and the film’s story is touched throughout by a southern Christian sentiment applied in brush strokes too subtle to ever really take hold, let alone exonerate our hero. As I watched the film, the “Act of God” rationale echoed strongly for a New Yorker like me, as my home city struggles with the disaster and loss of life currently surrounding us.

But in Flight, it is Whip’s weakness, his moral failure that brings his problems to a head. In the comeuppance scene, played before the NTSB investigation panel, Whip finally comes clean and, as he bravely admits, stops lying about his drinking. “Act of God” takes a distant place behind his admission of free will and personal responsibility. This film soberly straightens out the apparent chaos of life to reveal the connection between our moral failures and hubris that begets the lot that God, or karma, sends our way.

Eleven years earlier, the ultra talented Washington boldly strutted through the film Training Day. As Detective Alonzo he embodied the paternalistic, American foreign policy that has historically been in evidence since Theodore Roosevelt’s Big Stick ideology of 1901 and carried into modern times via Kennedy’s Bay of Pigs fiasco, Ronald Reagan’s Iran/Contra venture and up through the Bush Administration’s invasion of Iraq. With that “right justifies might” mentality on his side, Alonzo treats drug dealers the way our military took out Saddam Hussein – live outside the law and you will be taken out, due process be damned.

The only problem with that “by any means necessary” policy is it eventually catches up with the perpetrators. Alonzo, having made too many enemies of the same ilk, is gunned down at the end of the film.  I find this a sad corollary to our military men and women sent to do another clean up job in Iraq and Afghanistan, only to lose their lives in a lawless land. But Alonzo is fighting on a smaller playing field than that of the leaders in the White House and Pentagon who have innocent minions to fight their battles.

Is it a coincidence that Denzel shares his surname with our nation’s capital and helm of power? I know I’ll be keeping a close eye on Washington’s next move. After seeing Flight and living through Sandy, I can’t help but hope he will stop putting in these Oscar-caliber performances.  I don’t think New York can handle another of his cinematic hits.

Meet Michael McGlone

By Andrea Barbuti

If you hear a distinctive voice in Central Park reciting, “Could switching to Geico really save you 15 percent or more on car insurance?” it’s probably the real thing. “The Geico guy,” as many people around the country know him, makes his home on the Upper West Side.
Besides appearing in 20 of those commercials, Michael McGlone has shared the screen with Jennifer Aniston in She’s the One, Denzel Washington in The Bone Collector and Keanu Reeves in Hardball. He also had a reoccurring character in the television show Person of Interest.  Doggy Bags, his newest short film, premieres April 25 at the Tribeca Film Festival.

How did you become an actor?
When I was young, I always had a penchant for being the center of attention. As an adult, I realized that I wanted to pursue acting as a career, so I attended NYU Tisch School of the Arts. After one year, I was self-graduated, as I put it. I moved on to make my first film within the next year, The Brothers McMullen, which was taped here on the Upper West Side.

Did you choose to act because of your distinct voice?
It wasn’t a primary motivation, though it has helped me a great deal. I’ve made a living through my voice from the time I entered the entertainment industry, through voice overs, commercials and documentaries.

Where do you live on the Upper West Side?
I finally bought a home on 72nd Street, between Central Park West and Columbus. I love the Upper West Side. It’s my favorite neighborhood in New York. You get the flavor of the city with a residential feel.

You work in film, theater and commercials. You are also a novelist and a musician. Which medium are you happiest in?
I am equally happy in them all for different reasons. All of these ways of expressing myself provide me with unique rewards. I discovered an ability in all of them relatively early on and it gave me a release and a source of peace that I dearly needed.

How would you describe your music to someone who’s never heard it?
It’s acoustic-centric rock ‘n’ roll. I was given a guitar when I was young and taught myself how to play it. I started a recording career in 1997 and have been recording albums ever since.

Which musicians or actors inspire you?
Essentially everything that I ever found that was good—Elvis Presley was one of my first favorites; Dylan; Sinatra; Leonard Cohen.

Tell me about Person of Interest.
It stars James Caviezel and Michael Emerson from Lost and is executive produced by J.J. Abrams. I’ve recurred in the role of Detective Szymanski. They’ve had a wonderful first season. It looks very likely that they’ll make a second.

Do people stop you and ask to hear the commercial’s rhetorical question?
Sometimes they’ll have a request to hear the voice and I’ll deliver it at that moment. [He pauses.] Could switching to Geico really save you 15 percent or more on car insurance?

You credit Edward Burns as not only a colleague but a friend. How did you two meet?
I auditioned for him for The Brothers McMullen. By sheer chance, we sat next to each other on the subway the next day. He said, “Looks like we’re going to call you.” The film went on to win the Grand Jury prize at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival.

For more information on McGlone’s work, visit www.michaelmcglone.com.

Denzel Washington is a movie star in the sense that you can’t imagine him as anything else because he never effaces himself enough to become a character. Denzel always lets you know he’s Denzel—the first black matinee idol without the yoke of being a standard-bearer. But at least he keeps his bluster to a minimum as seasoned train conductor Frank Barnes in Unstoppable. In this 90th partnership with hyperactive Tony Scott—his ideal collaborator—Denzel keeps a relative cool. Money, Denzel and Tony have made their least offensive, easiest-on-the-mind, most enjoyable movie.

Eight cars of an unmanned freight train loaded with the hazardous material Molten Phenol hurtles through Pennsylvania (“It’s a missile the size of the Chrysler building!” worries dispatcher Rosario Dawson) unless Barnes and his rookie co-worker Will Conlon (Chris Pine) can figure out how to stop it. This comically simple premise suits Tony Scott’s agitated temperament. It’s all about momentum and becomes an exercise in traffic cop logistics—moving several trains, TV news choppers, cars and trucks at various speeds. If Scott’s coordination was slightly better it would match the mechanical choreography of Spielberg’s The Sugarland Express.

Given the kinetic emphasis, Denzel and Tony don’t amp up the machismo as usual. The minimalist characterizations even allow Denzel to grant climactic heroics to Chris Pine, whose undulating abs, scruffy beard and blue eyes perfectly fit the beer-commercial bonhomie of Scott’s advert aesthetic. Brief talk about Barnes’ forced early retirement with half benefits and Will’s family connections lends a proletarian valor to their daring professionalism. It’s almost a tribute to the working man’s muscle and ingenuity and courage; in post-9/11 terms, a new appreciation of civilian bravery. This is why the terrorists envy us.

Unstoppable’s only negative is Barnes’ sketchy family backstory: We see his twin daughters working their way through college as waitresses at Hooters. This grade-B idea fits with Denzel’s refusal to be a standard-bearer while completing Tony Scott’s essentially fatuous, TV-commercial style.
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Unstoppable
Directed by Tony Scott
Runtime: 98 min.