It’s a great time to be a Josh Hartnett fan. The actor has enjoyed a considerable career resurgence as of late, delivering a memorable supporting turn in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer before emerging with career-best work as a suburban dad-cum-serial killer in M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap, released last summer. For his next trick, Hartnett has been granted the opportunity to further flex his muscles — quite often literally — as he slips into actioner mode for Fight or Flight, the feature debut of visual effects artist James Madigan. Largely confined to an Airbus traveling 30,000 feet above the ground, Fight or Flight is most immediately reminiscent of 2022’s Bullet Train, which likewise pit a cascading ensemble of violent personalities against each other within enclosed passenger spaces. Unlike Bullet Train, however, Fight or Flight benefits from not being, well, mostly insufferable, abandoning conceptual pretense and making good on its promise of a purely enjoyable romp. A few hiccups remain, but once Fight or Flight takes off, it’s a total gas.
Hartnett — enthusiastically making the most of his Neeson-esque role — plays Lucas Reyes, a former U.S. Secret Service Agent now hiding out in Bangkok. Once an esteemed member of his field, Lucas now frequently finds himself at the bottom of a liquor bottle during breakfast time, haunted by an unfortunate career move. Meanwhile, a government blacksite is ransacked by an elusive figure known as “The Ghost,” a blackhat terrorist wanted by the CIA. On the case is Agent Hunter (Julian Kostov), a hotshot operative determined to bring in the criminal once and for all, lest he draw the ire of his supervisor, the no-nonsense Katherine Brunt (Katee Sackhoff). When The Ghost’s presence is traced to Thailand, Brunt calls in Lucas, offering the disgraced agent a chance to clear his name if he can apprehend and bring the international fugitive to justice. Boarding a flight from Bangkok to San Francisco, Lucas quickly realizes he has his work cut out for him, as nearly every other passenger on the plane is also some sort of bounty hunter, out to catch The Ghost and reap the reward for themselves. Confiding in a pair of flight attendants, the efficient Isha (Charithra Chandran) and timid Royce (Danny Ashok), Lucas must now locate his target and survive the sixteen-hour flight, punching, kicking, and stabbing scores of enemies in order to stay alive.
Admittedly, Fight or Flight does not put its best foot forward. Despite a brief flashforward of the mayhem to come — sold in a chaotic sequence that’s presented in slow motion and set to the dulcet tones of Strauss’ “The Blue Danube,” natch — the first act spends much of its time with Agent Hunter, a caustic individual with a propensity for punctuating every sentence with the F-word. For an action-comedy, Fight or Flight unwisely leans more on profanity than anything else in the early going, determined to play to the back row as characters throw out swear words with abandon. The result is a weak introductory sequence that makes one concerned for the film’s priorities, but matters perk up significantly when the focus shifts to Lucas, who we meet sleeping in a tuk-tuk before heading into a bar for his first drink of the day. For Lucas, the opportunity to capture The Ghost is his ticket out of hell, and so he soon finds himself onboard the commercial airline, familiarizing himself with the staff and fellow passengers, including Chayenne (Marko Zaror), a flamboyant singer. Madigan, working from a script by Brooks McLaren and D.J. Cotrona, carefully sets up all the pieces, knowing everything will be knocked down once violence erupts.
And erupt it does! After a vicious encounter in a cramped first-class lavatory — which involves the use of a carefully placed ceiling pipe and the ingestion of shampoo in order to regurgitate some poison — Fight or Flight kicks into high gear, sending foe after foe in Lucas’ direction, forcing the bruiser into many bouts of brute force and resourceful combat. Madigan utilizes the close quarters of the single location incredibly well, delivering plenty of well-choreographed hand-to-hand combat. Madigan even makes the plane itself a valuable asset during these encounters, with seat belts, armrests, beverage carts, and overhead bins repeatedly becoming essential to the fray. Plenty of intentional oddness also finds its way into the proceedings, including extensive use of a knife disguised as a clarinet and one character being dosed with toad venom, the latter development adding some psychedelia to the prevailing melee. It all amounts to a good deal of fun at a technical level, and that’s even before the boon of situating Hartnett at the center of it all, having a total blast amidst the carnage. He’s a delight to watch in this context, and is matched nicely by Chandran, whose Isha may or may not know more than she’s letting on. If this still all sounds familiar, that’s because Fight or Flight doesn’t set out to reinvent the wheel, but instead intends only to leverage its commonplace parts in the service of highly entertaining diversion. Mission accomplished.
DIRECTOR: James Madigan; CAST: Josh Hartnett, Marko Zaror, Charithra Chandran, Katee Sackhoff; DISTRIBUTOR: Vertical; IN THEATERS: May 9; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 42 min.
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