You are now free to fight around the cabin.
It’s probably never again when we see the hero fight assassins on an airplane with a chainsaw to the tune of Elvis Costello’s “Pump It Up.” And it’s all played for laughs in the B-Movie genre with bad bloody effects, crazy antics, and manic energy. Although in real life, since this motorized tool has fuel in it, it would be considered a great flight hazard.
“Fight for Flight” is probably the movie audiences were expecting to see when they went to see “Flight Risk,” the Mel Gibson-directed action movie with Mark Wahlberg hijacking a plan to take out a mob accountant willing to testify against his former boss. That movie mostly had Wahlberg chained up for the remainder of the flight and killed off in the end like a swatted fly. “Fight or Flight” acts like if “Nonstop” and “Bullet Train” had a one night stand, and this little accident was only raised by “Bullet Train.” I think this accident turned out to be a good thing.
Josh Hartnett, who tried and failed to make a comeback last year with his leading role in “Trap,” is Lucas Reyes, the hero or disgraced mercenary in this case, who seems like a character Brad Pitt’s “Bullet Train” character would want to have drinks with. His former boss (Katee Sackhoff) gives him a chance to regain his freedom if he finds and extracts the international terrorist known as “The Ghost” to America.
Three things:
1.) Nobody knows what he or she looks like.
2.) He must find him/her on an airplane, and he’ll get a fake identity to get on board.
3.). There are many assassins on this flight, who all want to collect their bounty on the Ghost.
That’s when we get fights, violence, fake blood, and weapons, all of them a lot more entertaining and less mean-spirited than what was displayed in “Jackpot.” The movie was produced by Basil Iawnyk, who also produced the “John Wick” movies (including the upcoming spin-off movie “From the World of John Wick: Ballerina”) and co-written by DJ Cotrona (the actor from the “Shazam” movies), who makes his screenwriting debut here, and Brooks McLearn, who also wrote the Netflix movie “How It Ends.” And none of these three oversell their talents nor do they overexploit Hartnet’s talents. I’m speaking to the people who did with Ke Huy Quan’s Oscar-winning talents in “Love Hurts,” of course.
Hartnett was trying to make a career comeback with other movies like “Wrath of Man” and “Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre,” and he should be proud to be part of “Oppenheimer.” I liked him in “Trap” because of how he was trying to channel Jack Nicholson, but the story didn’t do him any favors. “Fight or Flight” does a lot of favors for him, and he’s very funny and lively here.
And I like his chemistry with Charithra Chandran (“Bridgerton”), who plays a flight attendant and Lucas’ new alley. They go for the conflicts once the action begins, but they don’t last long and they aren’t mean-spirited. In fact, I think the actress and her character should have been the female co-star in “Love Hurts,” and not Ariana DeBose whose character was childish and crass. There must be an important distinction about what kind of female co-stars would be best suited for the story.
I think we can agree that “Fight or Flight” is not a perfect movie, but we can also agree that it knows what to do with a Hartnet leading character and it knows how to have fun with the cartoonish violence. And we can all agree this is a campy fun movie.
