'Fight or Flight' Relishes the Goofiness of Cheap Thrills
The new Josh Hartnett B-actioner gets a lot of mileage by leaning into its outlandish premise.
There is no international network of colorful, highly trained assassins. It’s a wild, silly premise on par with space aliens and zombie invasions, and it works well for movies because sometimes you need the conceit that there are loads of people adept at fighting and killing. Crowding these mythical murderers into a confined space is nothing new, but James Madigan’s Fight or Flight really runs with the ridiculousness of the concept to create a bloody, bonkers actioner that only runs into trouble when it attempts to add any pathos to its silly plot.
The film kicks off already poking fun at various action conceits. Instead of the nerve center of highly trained, emotionless professionals, we have shadowy guy Hunter (Julian Kostov) publicly freaking out over an intelligence snafu before snarkily attacking his subordinates. The issue turns out to be the latest attack from “The Ghost,” a notorious hacker who’s so powerful that no one knows what they even look like. Presented with a rare opportunity to apprehend The Ghost, Hunter’s boss Brunt (Katee Sackhoff) reluctantly calls in her ex Lucas Reyes (Josh Hartnett), an alcoholic former Secret Service agent living out his days in Bangkok, to hop on a flight, discover The Ghost’s true identity, and bring her in alive. In exchange, Brunt will take Reyes off the CIA’s hit list and give him his life back. Unfortunately, every freelance assassin in the world apparently knows The Ghost is on the flight and wants the $10 million bounty on her head. Lucas and The Ghost must work together to stay alive as the plane makes the 18-hour flight from Bangkok to San Francisco.
Watching Fight or Flight, I was frequently reminded of David Leitch’s 2022 blockbuster Bullet Train, which has a similar premise of a reluctant agent sent into a confined conveyance only to discover he’s surrounded by assassins. But despite only having a fraction of Leitch’s budget, Madigan delivers a stronger movie because he’s not worried too much about the plot logistics or even being particularly stylish. It’s a movie that takes the opportunity to be as silly as possible at every turn. When Lucas needs a change of clothes because his current outfit is covered in blood, he’s outfitted with airline pajamas. When the movie wants to introduce ridiculous weapons that would never get past airline security, well, that’s what the cargo hold is for. When it turns out The Ghost has monastic assassins who follow her everywhere because they owe her a debt of gratitude, the lack of setup only adds to the movie’s zaniness. The less-is-more approach works wonders here as Madigan has two primary goals: keep the action exhilarating and maintain a light tone.
Thanks to advances in technology over the past decade, when it comes to smaller, digital cameras that can still deliver high-end results, we’ve seen more action scenes set in confined spaces. Coupled with better fight choreography as we emerge from the dark ages of everyone trying to replicate the shaky-cam Bourne-style fights with none of the geography or pacing, we now have terrific set pieces like the ones we get in Fight or Flight where the camera can move between airplane seats and other tight confines to feel like it’s part of the fray without ever losing the clarity or kineticism of the battle. Madigan’s background in both second-unit (typically the crew that handles action scenes in blockbusters) and VFX allows him to craft some blistering, bloody set pieces that never look cheap or sloppy.
Cranking up the silliness is what allows Fight or Flight to achieve escape velocity on its premise, but the film hits turbulence every time it aims for pathos. The film wants to position Lucas’ motivation as one of redemption, where he’s taking all of this risk to reclaim his old life. But when the movie finally reveals what Lucas did to be forced into exile, we can see he didn’t do a bad thing. If anything, he did the morally righteous thing that ticked off immoral people. That’s fine for making him a hero, but you don’t have a redemption story if your character never did anything wrong.
Thankfully, these plot beats are minor blips in a script where everyone seems well aware of how goofy the movie is supposed to be. When there’s a chainsaw mowing down thugs on an aircraft, you’re not competing for an Oscar (although if Best Stunts were on tap, I’d say this movie would have a shot). Hartnett has a blast as a frustrated lout, and acquits himself well in the fight scenes. Sackhoff is a savvy piece of casting that feels like she’s kind of doing a Cate Blanchett riff, but making it her own. The film isn’t a star-studded affair, but it doesn’t need to be. It wants to be silly fights on an airplane. That’s why you buy your ticket.
It’s all well and good that we have the John Wick franchise and its rich mythology of a world of assassins who stay at unique hotels and use special currency. But sometimes you should just throw caution to the wind, say “This plane is filled with murderers,” and see what happens. Fight or Flight understood the assignment and that’s what makes it soar.