Fight or Flight (2025) Vertical/Action-Comedy RT: 97 minutes Rated R (strong bloody violence, language throughout, some drug material) Director: James Madigan Screenplay: Brooks McLaren and D.J. Cotrona Music: Paul Saunderson Cinematography: Matt Flannery Release date: May 9, 2025 (US) Cast: Josh Hartnett, Charithra Chandran, Katee Sackhoff, Julian Kostov, Marko Zaror, JuJu Chan Szeto, Danny Ashok, Hughie O’Donnell, Jyuddah Jaymes, Willem van der Vegt, Sanjeev Kohli, Declan Baxter, Sarah Lam, Iren Bordan, Attila Arpa, Nora Trokan, Balint Adorjani, Katrina Anne Ward, Heather Choo, Claudia Heinz.
Rating: *** ½
If you enjoyed last year’s Boy Kills World (which I most certainly did), get ready for Fight or Flight, another delightfully insane action-comedy with copious amounts of violence, blood and humor. This one has the added benefit of Josh Hartnett (Trap) who goes gleefully OTT as the hero of this twisted tale that plays like a mix of Bullet Train and Snakes on a Plane minus Samuel L. Jackson making profane observations regarding his present predicament.
Directed by first-timer James Madigan, Fight or Flight is all about its scenario. A former government agent (Hartnett) finds himself on a plane with 100 killers*. He must fight to stay alive. It’s a gem of an idea. Writers Brooks McLaren and D.J. Cotrona just have to find a way to put him there. Logic and common sense aren’t necessarily important. It just has to make sense in the abstract. Our hero will take care of the rest once he’s boarded the plane.
I knew I was in for a wild ride with Fight or Flight from the very start. The opening sequence depicts a huge melee in the cabin of a plane. Fists and feet fly courtesy of a lady ninja. Machine guns blast away. Then somebody produces a chainsaw before the film flashes back to twelve hours earlier. I said to myself “AW, YEAH!” as I smiled in anticipation. I guess you really don’t have to go to Texas or Boston for a chainsaw massacre.
Lucas Reyes used to work for the government until he didn’t. It was one of those job-gone-bad situations. He now spends his days hiding in Bangkok drinking himself into oblivion while dodging attempts on his life. His old boss Katherine Brunt (Sackhoff, Battlestar Galactica) reaches out and offers him a way back into his old life. All he has to do is track down a terrorist known only as “The Ghost”. Lucas is nobody’s first choice for the assignment, but he’s the only one close enough to get to the target before it’s too late. Nothing is known about this person. They don’t have a name or physical description. There’s literally nothing to go on other than a gunshot wound sustained during the latest act of terrorism. His orders are to bring Ghost in alive. If he does that, he’ll get his life back.
Somebody at the agency figures out Ghost will be on a flight to San Francisco. Lucas needs to get on that flight and identify his target. There is a major complication though. There is a $10M bounty on Ghost’s head. It seems that this individual has pissed off many, many governments and criminal organizations. Most of the people on the plane want to kill Ghost (there are a few legit passengers). It’s on Lucas to protect the asset. It’s not easy when everybody around him is a potential assassin.
Harnett came out of the gate strong with roles in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998), The Virgin Suicides (2000), Pearl Harbor (2001), O (2001), Black Hawk Down (2001), 40 Days and 40 Nights (2002), Hollywood Homicide (2003), Sin City (2005) and 30 Days of Night (2007). His career never really took off and he seemed destined to be another forgotten star on the Hollywood scrap pile. He’s had something of a comeback as of late starting with supporting roles in the Jason Statham actioner Wrath of Man (2021) and Best Picture winner Oppenheimer (2023) before showing audiences what he was really made of in last year’s M. Night Shyamalan thriller Trap. He brings that same mischievous devil-may-care quality to Fight or Flight. He’s clearly having fun as a less-serious version of John Wick, a trained killer who plies his trade with a wink and a devilish smile. He may not be the most heroic of heroes, but he gets the job done.
Hartnett receives ample support from Charithra Chandran (Bridgerton) as Isha, a flight attendant with skills of her own. Let’s just say she capable of more than serving coffee and greeting passengers with a smile. She becomes Lucas’ sidekick as he fights his way through the manifest. Sackhoff, sporting a severe facial expression and hairstyle, is good as the top spook at the agency. She stays in touch with Lucas throughout reminding him he must bring Ghost in alive in order to his deal to go through. She has an agenda, of course, the usual black-ops BS.
Fight or Flight is jam-packed with action, especially once the plane takes flight. Madigan takes things to the next level with all the wild and crazy fighting. It’s like a Looney Tunes cartoon with bountiful bloodshed and bone-crunching beatings. Some of the killings, like the guy who gets impaled through the top of his skull by a ceiling sprinkler, are imaginative. A lot of them are quite bloody. Yes, limbs do get chainsawed! At one point, we view the action through the eyes of Lucas when he’s high on toad venom. It’s surreal.
Fine, so the story doesn’t stand to scrutiny. SO F***ING WHAT?! Fight or Flight is a whole lot of bat-crap crazy fun. It’s one of those movies where you need to leave your brain at the door in order to fly at the same altitude. If you do, you’ll love it.
*= This number is an estimate.
