There are plenty of reasons why Mel Gibson’s directing career has rather tailed off of late, not all of which have much to do with his skills as a film-maker. Whatever you think of his noxious antics elsewhere, there’s no denying that the man can pull together a rousing popcorn spectacle. He won Oscars in 1996 for best picture and best director for Braveheart, and later delivered the bruising, blood-drenched double whammy of The Passion of the Christ (2004) and Apocalypto (2006).

Flight Risk, his first directorial outing in nearly 10 years, finds Gibson diminished in terms of scope and ambition. This pulpy thriller, which stars Downton Abbey’s Michelle Dockery as a tough cookie air marshal and Mark Wahlberg as the gurning hayseed pilot flying her and a prisoner (Topher Grace) across the Alaskan wilderness, represents Gibson in B-movie mode. Think Con (budget) Air, the no-frills version of the plane-peril genre, with everything from the in-flight catering to the star power stripped back to essentials. Everything, that is, except for Wahlberg’s performance, which is so enormous and overblown that it practically needs its own air freight carrier. Very silly, but pulpy fun.

• In UK and Irish cinemas