Nationwide, USA - Denzel Washington has perfected playing imperfect men.

In movie after movie - think "Philadelphia," "Man on Fire" and "American Gangster" - he burrows inside men who are often at war with themselves, their consciences out of sync, at least initially, with their words or actions.

In his latest film, "Flight," he puts those contradictions front and center and gives one of the great performances of an already impressive career.

In the drama's opening scene, Whip Whitaker (Washington) wakes up with a hangover when the clock radio in his hotel room goes off at 7 a.m. He's in a rumpled bed alongside a luscious naked woman after what clearly has been a night of debauchery. He drains the final drops from last night's beer, takes a toke from a joint the woman has lit, answers a phone call from his ex-wife and tells her he's on a 9 a.m. flight back from Orlando to Atlanta that morning, and then snorts a line of coke.

Cut to Whitaker, now looking sharp and full of swagger, leaving the hotel room dressed as a pilot. Whoa, this guy has no business handling the controls of a plane this morning.

But Whitaker does climb into the cockpit and, in a bravura sequence for both his character and the movie, successfully makes a tricky emergency landing after the plane suffers a debilitating mechanical failure. He is hailed as a hero.

So, is he a hero or a drunk or both?

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