In “Fight or Flight,” Josh Hartnett plays Lucas Reyes, an alcoholic bleached-blonde mercenary who is living in exile in Thailand.
Desperate to recapture his old life, Lucas accepts a job from a mysterious company led by his ex-girlfriend, Katherine (Katee Sackhoff). He needs to board a flight heading from Bangkok to San Francisco and, while midair, apprehend an assassin named the Ghost.
Like “Bullet Train,” the bad guys in “Fight or Flight” are a bevy of assassins who are keen to collect the bounty on the Ghost’s head. Reyes’s only help comes from Isha (Charithra Chandran), a young, virtuous flight attendant. Because the action takes place mostly inside the plane, the staging can be repetitive. The only surprises are the tools used for bloodshed, such as a chain saw or a climbing ax, which an invigorated Hartnett wields in the film’s climactic acid trip freakout sequence.
The director, James Madigan, doesn’t fully commit to the single location: He often cuts back to Katherine’s comedic bickering with her sniveling co-worker (Julian Kostov) and even positions the film’s stakes as the cessation of child labor.
Hartnett and Chandran’s laid back chemistry steady the film’s turbulent tonal shifts, adding a punch that the shakily choreographed action lacks. Hartnett and Chandran are so good together, Madigan’s last-second setup for a possible sequel doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.
Fight or Flight
Rated R for strong bloody violence and heavy drink service. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. In theaters.
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