Director James Madigan’s bone-crunching debut features a full-throttle performance from the underrated Josh Hartnett and irresistibly embraces its B-movie-ness, encouraging audiences to hoot, holler, groan and laugh. Not once during its 1-hour, 41-minute running time does Madigan let things run on autopilot. It satisfies any action fan’s itch with gory kills, crazy stunts and funny one-liners and facial expressions.
Yes, it does travel along on similar plot tracks as, say, “Bullet Train” with Brad Pitt. But where that 2022 confined-space bit of mayhem got snarled up in its own contortions and aesthetics, Brooks McLaren and D.J. Cotrona are content to keep their film planted firmly in a B-movie landscape. There are no high-falutin’ notions about what this movie wants to accomplish, other than giving us a bloody good time … emphasis on the bloody.
Hartnett shows his natural gift for action and comedy as oft-inebriated American agent-in-hiding Lucas Reyes. He receives an offer too good to refuse: A chance to get bounced off the no-fly list, earn back an American passport and receive a one-way ticket from Bangkok to SFO. The demand is that he bring with him an elusive, most-wanted “terrorist” named The Ghost who is on that plane. The person offering the deal is the severe and cold Katherine Brunt (“Battlestar Galactica’s” Katee Sackhoff), a figure from his past. But there’s a big problem with the assignment; the SFO-bound flight is packed with assassins similarly ready to bag “Ghost” for a lucrative payday.
It’s a surefire, if not exactly original, setup that doesn’t overstrain your brain cells but affords the room for its actors and a team of stunt performers to brawl, jump, slug, wield chainsaws, and throw deadly darts and cutlery items at each other. And of course someone gets sucked out of said plane. Hartnett deserves a medal for doing some of his acrobatic stunts (your back will ache watching him and stunt performers athletically bouncing about) as do the sound designers who make each smack, punch and crunch sound so real. In addition to the icy presence of Sackhoff to add an edge, Charithra Chandran peps it up as a resourceful flight attendant. She’s a good match to play off Hartnett and is more than game for the fisticuffs and punchlines.
But the reason this one flies high — in the nonstop “John Wick” vein — is because of Hartnett. Often sneered at and dismissed early in his career due to his good looks, Hartnett takes over this action flight manual and, well, soars to new heights. Buckle up, kids, you’re in for one a helluva fun flight.
‘FIGHT OR FLIGHT’
3 stars out of 4
Rating: R (violence, language, some drug use)
Starring: John Hartnett, Katee Sackhoff, Charithra Chandran
Director: James Madigan
Running time: 1 hour, 37 minutes
When & where: Opens Friday in theaters.