James Madigan’s Fight or Flight is a ridiculous farrago of stale tropes, clichéd characters and plot holes. There are raffish heroes, feisty leading ladies, and the guy who you can tell from the first scene is going to betray everyone does exactly what you think he will. The film has nothing new to say and says it in completely expected ways.
It’s a standard Hollywood action movie. If you hate standard Hollywood action movies, you should avoid this. If you have a place in your heart for the usual drivel, though, there are only two questions to worry about: Are the fight scenes fun? And is the leading dude charismatic?
Fight or Flight answers the first of those with an enthusiastic affirmative. Superhero films in general, and the MCU in particular, have lowered the bar for action scenes, substituting CGI special effects for inventive set pieces. Choreographer Brahim Chab (also responsible for the fight work in the marvelous Monkey Man) has no such problem, and the film takes advantage of the settings and his skills.
Almost the whole movie is set on a plane, which means that every fight takes place in ridiculously constrained spaces—bathrooms, cockpits, seats, aisles. Madigan then ups the ante with a spiral of preposterous gimmicks. The first big set piece starts with the hero being drugged, so he’s stumbling around loose limbed and barely functional; it’s brilliant as both physical comedy fight ballet. The last fight is centered, magnificently, on a chainsaw. In the middle, there are brutal uses of overhead compartments, even more brutal use of seatbelts, and a disregard for the sanctity of the first-class cabin.
As to the second question—Josh Hartnett is not generally considered an A-lister, but he makes it clear in this film that his second-banana status isn’t his fault. He’s a wonderful performer, with a deep, gravelly voice, a gift for self-deprecating humor, and an ability to shift from grim and broody to flamboyant. His character—former Secret Service agent Lucas Reyes—is a pretty standard raffish bad boy with an alcohol problem and a heart of gold, deliberately made up to look like a Brad Pitt double. But Hartnett’s slouchy exasperation is all his own, and he seems to be having the time of his life going into battle while high on psychedelic toad venom, mugging joyfully while snapping people’s arms in two and bathing in blood.
I thoroughly recommend the film as a brainless romp on the basis of cool fight stuff and Hartnett lovability.
The downsides are… the plot. Lucas is trapped in Bangkok because of previous indiscretions when he’s contacted by a mysterious agency which offers to restore his passport and his life if he’ll apprehend a cyber terrorist known as the Ghost. There’s a price on the Ghost’s head, so the plane’s filled with assassins trying to kill them. That’s a functional scaffolding for people hitting each other, but not much more than that.
The writing is intermittently entertaining—there’s a fun bit where Lucas helps his seatmate prepare choreography for his musical act, for example. But then there are a lot of gags that don’t work. Lucas and flight attendant Isha (Charithra Chandran) have some moments that are supposed to function as screwball comedy, but while the actors are up for it, the dialogue doesn’t snap. Not least because it’s often trying to explain or dance around the fact that chunks of the plot don’t make any sense.
All of which means that Fight or Flight isn’t the cult classic it could’ve been. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it enough that I’m hopeful they’ll manage to get the sequel they’re clearly hoping for. I’ll take chainsaws on a plane over yet another Captain America film any day.