Sean Parker
If you take a dash of John McClane, sprinkle in a bit of John Wick, and mix in a little Archer, you’d get someone like Lucas Reyes, the down-and-out excommunicated Secret Service agent Josh Hartnett plays in his latest film, Fight or Flight. Hartnett has long been a genre film icon, getting his start starring in Halloween: H20 before taking on aliens in the Body Snatchers inspired The Faculty. But over time, he’s also become a staple of the action movie genre, most recently appearing in Guy Ritchie films Operation Fortune and Wrath of Man, and having appeared in past titles like Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor, Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down, and Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City. But with Fight or Flight, Hartnett cements himself as an action movie hero, in a role that’s action-packed and fun as hell.
If you’ve seen movies like Bullet Train, Kill, Train to Busan, or Snowpiercer, then you’ve seen the type of film Fight or Flight is. Each of those films is an overpopulated containment thriller where a one-versus-all battle royale breaks out for various reasons. Director James Madigan (Marvel’s Runaways) moves the fight away from the rail system and into the skies, where disgraced and left-for-dead ex-Secret Service agent Reyes (Hartnett) has been offered the opportunity to come in from the cold. With a new passport and a direct flight back to the United States, Reyes boards the plane with an assignment: find a global hacker known as The Ghost and bring them in. There’s just one problem: no one knows who they are or what they look like.
An action superstar since her breakout role on the 2004 series remake of Battlestar Galactica, and a fellow Halloween alumnus, Mandalorian star Katee Sackhoff jumps into the mix as Reyes’ handler, Katherine Brunt. She’s also his ex… and the one who left him burned in Bangkok for two years. So, when she begs him from her underground command center to do the assignment, you can probably suspect his first answer. But, as Katherine attempts to prove she’s on the level and that Reyes can trust her again, a bounty on The Ghost’s head subsequently fills the plane with vicious killers after one hefty ten-million-dollar payday.
What really makes this movie work is the endless charisma supplied by Hartnett, who walks a really excellent line of being ethically virtuous and psychotically unhinged, creating an antihero worth rooting for in one of the most over-the-top plane situations since Sam Jackson found a bunch of Snakes on a Plane. But what you’re probably asking yourself is, wouldn’t a guy playing Among Us poorly on a plane certainly raise an eyebrow? No, it’s not a video game situation like that, nor is it similar to the Hitman method of luring victims into a room filled with bodies. However, the bodies do eventually start piling up, and by all manner of weaponry. One jaw-dropping encounter occurring while under the influence leads to an epic chainsaw fight in the fuselage, and it is guaranteed to satiate any gorehound’s propensity for bloodlust and body parts. It is, bar none, the most incredibly f*cked up action movie sequence I’ve seen in a long time, and I will probably never stop talking about it.
But I digress.
As Reyes begins to figure out the situation, he’s forced to tell the plane’s quirky staff. Isha (Charithra Chandran) and Royce (Danny Ashok) quickly latch on to Reyes, while the others slowly come around as the stains on the carpet become more blood than carpet fiber. Hughie O’Donnell gives a vivacious performance as the overly accommodating first-class attendant, supplying the comedic relief by being so overly committed to his guest that he should be a contender for a concierge position on next season’s White Lotus. The high energy supplied by the cast in this film will tell you how much fun this movie must’ve been to make, and it translates superbly into the presentation.
Behind the scenes, there are many things to like, too. From Hartnett’s fantastic wardrobe in the film to the bland, almost ’80s look of the economy cabin compared to the regal decadence of the solid wood finishes and luxurious bathroom compartments in the more premium classes. That set design aesthetic seems like a nod to the class disparagement themes of some of the earlier films I listed, though Fight or Flight’s angle is similarly attuned. Though Hartnett isn’t battling hierarchical classes on his way to the front of the plane, or anything like that, it is discovered that The Ghost employs a Robin Hood methodology, linking it to those films and providing a resonant quality for Reyes’ madcap values.
Fight or Flight is an exhilarating film with a non-stop action mentality, where each scene surpasses the previous one. Writers Brooks McLaren and D.J. Cotrona have crafted a brilliant script, skillfully incorporating character details, like the aftermath of an early bar fight, establishing Reyes as a formidable force just before finding himself outnumbered and ready to rage. The film maintains a relentless pace and impressively delivers a satisfying conclusion without losing momentum. In fact, it goes a step further by leaving audiences eager for more. The final moments hint at a sequel, which action fans are likely to froth at the mouth over. Not since Die Hard has there been such a reluctant, hard-boiled character, like Hartnett’s antihero, for viewers to rally behind, making it exciting to think that Fight or Flight could launch a new action franchise for those of us long searching for a character like John McClane. See it in theaters and drag all your friends to it. It’s a total blast from takeoff to landing.
Fight or Flight arrives in theaters on May 9.
