NOW IN THEATERS! A clandestine intelligence organization is about to be exposed, and the only person who can help them is a former burned agent in James Madigan’s thriller Fight or Flight.
Intelligence director Katherine Brunt (Katee Sackhoff) and her deputy, Aaron (Julian Kostov), are about to be exposed by a rogue cyberterrorist, Ghost, who has attacked sensitive installations. Yet, no one can identify Ghost’s true identity. Word has it that Ghost is in Asia, where he killed a squad of Brunt’s men, destroyed their factory, and is now headed to San Francisco on a commercial airliner.
The mission is to get on the flight and locate Ghost, but the only agent in the area is Lucas Reyes (Josh Hartnett). He’s a burned agent, now in exile and running a rickshaw side hustle. Lucas also had an affair with Director Brunt. If Lucas can get on the flight, locate Ghost, and deliver it to Brunt in San Francisco, he can get his life back.
Lucas agrees, and just as he’s boarding the plane, a bounty is put on Ghost’s head. Unbeknownst to Lucas, the plane is now loaded with dozens of bounty hunters. Oh, and Lucas also has a bounty on himself. With the help of two flight attendants, Isha (Charithra Chandran) and Royce (Danny Ashok), Lucas must accomplish his mission and get off the plane.
“…the plane is now loaded with dozens of bounty hunters.”
This is not a criticism, but I typically like thrillers that take place in small places, whether in a house, a train, or a plane. Fight or Flight has a lot of action, but the kills are gross and exponentially gory. Think of it this way. Take your typical slasher movie with one gory kill after another. Now take those visually graphic deaths, multiply them, and shoot them in broad daylight. That’s the action in Fight or Flight. Nothing is left to the imagination, and there’s nothing you can’t unsee. Ironically, we see several creative ways to remove someone’s eyeballs throughout the film.
The charm of Madigan’s film is the simple escalation of action. The fight scenes are creative and deadly, and everything that can—and will—go wrong on a plane. Probably one of the best moments is when Lucas gets his hands on some psychedelics that he mistakes for adrenaline…or when he gets roofied.
Josh Hartnett is the legitimate star of this film, and in Lucas, he creates a well-defined character as a man who desperately wants his identity back and has killer hands at some point. As Isha, Charithra Chandran is easy on the eyes, and she, too, is a great character who backs up Lucas when she can.
Fight or Flight is the kind of blood-splattered airplane movie that knows exactly what it is and fully commits — like Die Hard 2 hijacked by the John Wick stunt team. It’s dumb in the best ways, fast in all the right places, and somehow still lets Josh Hartnett show us he can kick a*s and break hearts… even while microdosing by mistake. Madigan delivers a pressure-cooker of midair mayhem that proves sometimes the only way out of exile is 30,000 feet straight up with a target on your back.
"…the kind of blood-splattered airplane movie that knows exactly what it is and fully commits..."
