Denzel Washington Movie: “The Flight” opens in theaters on Friday

Denzel Washington portrays Captain Whip Whitaker an alcoholic, coked out, womanizing pilot, yet one of the est pilots in the world. He handles a horrific plane crash with minimal casualties using his outside the box thinking and skill. Yet faces life in prison due to his demons.

We’ve seen Washington play bad guys before. But we’ve never seen one of the most relatable, everyman actors play someone as weak as Whip Whitaker, who endangers his passengers by flying while intoxicated.

Whip miraculously pulls off an emergency landing but spends the rest of the film struggling — and often failing — to stay sober. In a lesser actor’s hands, the character could come across as unsympathetic, and that makes “Flight” a risky maneuver.

But with great risks come great rewards. “Denzel’s performance is magnificent and devoid of any vanity,” raves director Robert Zemeckis, who guided Tom Hanks to an Oscar in “Forrest Gump.” “He reached down really deep. Denzel draws you in, even when he’s doing very dark stuff.”

Washington’s “Flight” co-stars are equally in awe of his ability to find the humanity in such a depraved character.

“Even with all his bad behavior, you love and root for him the whole time,” says Academy Award winner Melissa Leo (“The Fighter”), who appears as a federal investigator probing Whip’s landing. “That’s a movie star.”

The star himself had a bit of a challenge getting through the final cut of “Flight,” Washington recently told the TV newsmag “The Insider.”

“It was a tough movie for me to watch. It hurt. It took me a few times to get used to it.”

Born in Mount Vernon, N.Y., Washington, 57, started acting at Fordham University and soon found himself playing heroic figures like Pvt. First Class Peterson in “A Soldier’s Story” and doomed South African activist Steven Biko in “Cry Freedom,” which earned him his first Oscar nomination.

Yet Washington has never been afraid to explore morally complicated characters like Trip in “Glory” (winning his first Academy Award, for Best Supporting Actor), the title role in “Malcolm X,” a boxer accused of murder in “The Hurricane” and a deeply corrupt cop in “Training Day.”

That 2001 crime drama snagged Washington a Best Actor Oscar, and he’s likely to be in the running again this year for “Flight.”

“He’s one of those actors who’s never given a bad performance,” says the film’s screenwriter, John Gatins. “When I found out he was interested in ‘Flight,’ it blew my mind. Denzel doesn’t back down from a challenge.”

And there were plenty of challenges on “Flight,” a relatively low-budget affair for a studio picture featuring a spectacular plane crash.

“It’s not a genre movie, it’s dark and it’s R-rated,” says Gatins, who is the son of a retired NYPD officer. “For a studio to take this kind of a risk is very rare.

“This could’ve been an $80 million movie, but it’s not,” Gatins adds. “It was really everyone rolling up their sleeves and saying, ‘We’re gonna do this.’”

Upfront money wasn’t the only thing Washington sacrificed to make “Flight.” He devoted hours to training to ensure he’d make a credible pilot. “You’ve gotta learn all that stuff — it’s part of the deal,” says Zemeckis, himself a veteran flier.

Washington also wanted to perform his own stunts during the film’s signature set piece, when Whip, in order to gain precious minutes in the air, turns the crippled jetliner upside down.

“We shot on a gimbal that turns the plane completely [around], and he had no problem doing any of that stuff,” says Zemeckis.

To hear his co-workers tell it, Washington has always kept his feet planted firmly on the ground. “He’s extremely well-prepared, and someone you can trust,” says John Goodman, who co-starred with him as a cop in 1998’s “Fallen” and now plays Whip’s drug-supplying enabler in “Flight.”

“Whip is such a strong character because of his unpredictably,” continues Goodman. “You could easily go wrong with it, but Denzel didn’t make a false move.”

Agrees Zemeckis, “Denzel has this huge screen presence and a gravitas that’s rare today.”