Fight or Flight

Appealing to viewers with short attention spans and a high tolerance for onscreen violence, Fight or Flight is one of those action movies that pits a hero against a small army of hired assassins in a limited space—a setup that has been tried before, and it seldom works. Examples such as Smokin’ Aces (2006), Hotel Artemis (2018), and Bullet Train (2022) cram a lot of gimmicky characters into a compact environment so we can watch them shred each other to pieces. This one stars Josh Hartnett and takes place on a two-story passenger plane. The opening sequence previews the bloodshed to ensue, glimpsing, in slow motion, an entire plane’s worth of people attacking each other with punches, kicks, machine guns, and even a chainsaw. These hitmen and bounty hunters all want the same person, a dangerous hacker whose identity is a mystery, and they’re willing to kill anyone in their way. 

The screenplay by Brooks McLaren and D. J. Cotrona sets up a cursory plot to get things moving. Twelve hours before the chaos on the plane, in an elaborate sub-basement about a dozen floors underground, two high-powered suits—hothead Aaron Hunter (Julian Kostov), and his boss, Katherine Brunt (Katee Sackhoff)—attempt to locate a so-called boogeyman dubbed The Ghost. Brunt enlists the reluctant former Secret Service agent Lucas Reyes (Hartnett) to help when they learn their target will be on a plane from Bangkok to San Francisco. Washed up and sporting bleached hair, a black eye, and a hangover, Lucas has a rocky history with Brunt, which has forced him to live on the margins. She tells him she can restore his former life if he accomplishes this last-minute mission. 

Once on the plane for the 16-hour flight, Lucas clashes with a rogue’s gallery of killers, from the musically inclined Cayenne (Marko Zaror) to Cat Eyes (Nóra Trokán), whose only distinguishing feature seems to be her distracting color contacts. Lucas enlists the help of two flight attendants, Isha (Charithra Chandran) and Royce (Danny Ashok), to locate his target. Despite his lack of credentials, they’re surprisingly cool with his story; so are the pilots, who think the situation will make them the next Sully Sullenberger. After Lucas locates The Ghost, they agree to work together to survive the onslaught of ruthless hired guns. Lucas’ conscience also kicks in when he learns about an elaborate cover-up. The would-be emotional moments never quite land as intended, but Hartnett is engaging to watch. When the script faltered, he held my attention.  

The characters have little dimension. The writers give Lucas the thinnest of backstories, requiring Hartnett to fill out the role with his compelling screen presence. The actor once sought sturdy leading man roles in A-list productions, such as Pearl Harbor (2001) and The Black Dahlia (2006). But after spending the 2010s in relative obscurity, he has returned to the mainstream in a B-movie capacity, embracing the tongue-in-cheek quality of his roles. See Wrath of Man (2021), Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre (2023), and Trap (2024). Here, he makes the most of his sheer physicality and knack for delivering convincing hand-to-hand combat. Chandran is also quite good in her character’s limited capacity. 

Fight or Flight is directed by James Madigan, who has worked on special effects and second units for many years. Here, he graduates to feature directing for the first time, delivering a movie that looks more appropriate for a straight-to-streaming debut. Visually, there’s not much to distinguish the presentation, besides ramped-up action similar to the John Wick and The Raid franchises. Madigan’s work boasts high-impact fights—but not the sort of glossy, dancelike hand-to-hand combat we’ve become used to from Eastern-influenced martial arts movies. Fight choreographer Brahim Chab, who brought the same gritty intensity to last year’s Monkey Man, deploys brutal blows, rubbery broken limbs, and even a zero-gravity bout. Cinematographer Matt Flannery captures them in zippy, handheld camera movements. The increasingly cartoonish fights—accented by Paul Saunderson’s flavorless, guitar-riff score—finally reach comically psychedelic levels in a late sequence fueled by hallucinatory toad venom. 

Fight or Flight is what Boy Kills World (2024) and Havoc (2025) wanted to be, only better: An action movie distinguished by its bloody-as-hell combat and seemingly straightforward concept. Not surprisingly, this story ends up with too many twists and turns. Like many movies today, it’s overly reliant on subverting expectations and keeping the viewer disoriented instead of just telling a story. This is evidenced in some preachy but well-meaning dialogue about how companies use child trafficking and slave labor to assemble smartphones and video game consoles—serious themes tacked onto this otherwise unserious material to give the illusion of substance. But this lowbrow actioner can be fun in a shut-your-brain-off kind of way. Those who want to see Hartnett clearly having a blast or need a 101-minute burst of action movie adrenaline could do worse.