It is kind of amazing that a movie called Fight or Flight with this obvious premise has never come out before -it’s a perfect cheesy pairing of concept and phrase that had to be executed as a movie eventually. Of course it should be acknowledged that Money Plane exists, a dumb VOD movie with a comparable premise but no style or charisma (and could boast only the star talents of Thomas Jane and Kelsey Grammer). Director James Madigan ensures that his film has both of these, as well as the flare to accentuate its silliness and make it the better version of that plot.
Also a better version of Bullet Train, with its network of assassins duking it out violently on an enclosed fast-moving vehicle -not trying so obnoxiously hard to mimic a Guy Ritchie movie in this case, even as it boasts a recent Guy Ritchie star. Josh Hartnett is far from an obvious choice to headline such an absurd and excessive action-comedy. But Hartnett, being in the middle of his career resurgence, proves an inspired option nonetheless that really pays dividends as the anchor for a movie that frequently goes off the rails …even though it’s in the sky.
He plays Lucas Reyes, a disgraced alcoholic former secret service agent living in Bangkok when his government agent of an ex-girlfriend Katherine Brunt (Katee Sackhoff) recruits him with the promise of vindication and his former life back into a mission to apprehend and protect an elite cyber-terrorist dubbed ‘Ghost’ on a flight from Bangkok to San Francisco. As Reyes tries to identify the secretive Ghost on the jumbo jet he learns that a considerable bounty has been placed on them and that the plane is full of hunters looking to collect, aware that Ghost is somewhere in their midst.
Hartnett’s look in the movie is very eye-popping, with his striking bleach blonde dye-job and array of strange costumes (due to blood he often winds up changing clothes to avert suspicion) from a Hawaiian shirt to a pink tourist tee to airline pajamas -all of it going a ways to encapsulating a character who at least presents as a chaotic personality at best, unhinged at worst. He is easy to keep track of in any fight scene as a result and when the gore comes into play -which is fairly often- it makes for some really intense visual contrast. Hartnett matches the look with his performance too, which usually has some amount of frustration or displeasure festering when he’s not in an actual rage mode. This is tempered as the movie goes along and a softer side of the character emerges to compliment the eccentricity -and we see that secret service control and discipline manifest as well; but it is the furiosity and the violence that most catches our attention. Hartnett has often played more mellow characters, yet he takes to the bigness and bombast of this role very naturally, as well as of course the practical stunt-work, which he admits is a key reason he took this movie.
He is honestly just a lot of fun to watch through it, reflecting the right amount of energy for the manic directions the plot goes in, the shapes that the action takes. And it goes in some very bizarre directions from a fight in a bathroom with an egomaniacal dancer to a trio of martial arts masters taking on what appear to be Yakuza foot-soldiers. A lot of it plays out with extravagance but coherence -and a healthy degree of creative violence, especially in the climax, which makes for a good counterpoint to Kill in terms of the tone of its excess. Madigan maintains focus through the chaos and sticks fairly close to the limitations of the airplane setting -even as the setting perhaps doesn't feel as claustrophobic as it should. That is made up for by, among other things, ample personality to the tone and humour, fun minor characters like the OCD-affected steward Royce (Danny Ashok) and the two pilots -unaware of the extent of what's going on but musing about the potential fame for themselves.
The film's marketing boasts a connection to John Wick (specifically, producers Basil Iwanyck and Erica Lee), but there is no creative link, as is obvious by the drama that ties all of the action together being nowhere as compelling. The noble motivations and backstory of Ghost, who we learn fairly early is the young flight attendant Isha (Charithra Chandran), and the related corruption of the agency that hired Reyes, are very mundane for dramatic hooks; and the technological weapon Isha is in possession of is not only dim as a macguffin, but downright silly (and not in so intentional a way) in how powerful it is. If all other efforts to endear sympathy towards her fail, there is a twist reveal to the nature of the agency trying to bring her to justice that looks to recontextualize the entire dynamic while making a very cynical political comment about the ethics, power, and overreach of private corporations. It could be effective, but the script draws it in so cartoonish a fashion that at best it comes off as quaint, at worst brazen (and not very original) conspiracy-mongering. Maybe you could argue it fits the political climate of the moment more than the one it was made in, but still it’s rather tedious.
An inebriating factor is introduced to Reyes ahead of the climax, perhaps to keep him from reading as too psychotic to the audience in light of the extremity of his actions here (he too is given a meagre tragic origin). Like a similar beat in Drive-Away Dolls, the abrupt hallucinogenic device feels inorganic, but it is presented better overall, and presages a gratuitously wild and violent final sequence that is colourfully outrageous and goofy -it involves first a cabin breach, then a chainsaw, so you know there's some gory fun to be had.
It is a suitably high note for the culmination of such insanity -but the movie, though closing up its principal beat of catharsis, chooses to actually go out by nakedly setting up a sequel, ending in the middle of an action set-piece that there is no guarantee will be followed to fruition. It's the kind of narrative gall even most movies guaranteed a sequel ought not to attempt, as it distracts from any real resolution if not robbing the movie of a definite conclusion altogether. It says a lot though that even in consideration of this, Fight or Flight is for the most part a pretty fun time. For as much as it may get bogged down by lacklustre elements of its script and thematic architecture, the energetic thrill of its action and frenetic silliness, and the charmingly nutty commitment of Hartnett's performance carry it well enough. Not bad for a movie almost certainly reverse-engineered from its title.
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