Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

“Fight or Flight”

Vertical Entertainment

Directed by James Madigan

Starring Josh Hartnett, Charithra Chandran, Katee Sackhoff and Julian Kostov

Rated R

 

3 Stars

 

I was annoyed when my recent flight was delayed for more than an hour. Still, that’s nothing when compared to the events of the new movie, “Fight or Flight” where the cooped up passengers try to assassinate each other during their trip.

I am grateful that despite the delays, there wasn’t any actual bloodshed during my flight home.

Then again, perhaps some hand-to-hand combat might have helped pass the time while we were sitting on the tarmac. That’s certainly the case in “Fight of Flight,” which is filled with non-stop, B-movie excitement. It’s one of those, turn off your brain and enjoy the ride types of a movie.

Josh Hartnett stars as Lucas, a blacklisted Secret Service agent living in Bangkok who is pressed back into action when he’s hired to track down a mysterious figure known as The Ghost. Lucas boards an airplane, only to find that the other passengers are mostly mercenaries who are also looking for this character.

The basic gist of the movie is that there are a bunch of killers who are all aboard the same plane. What could possibly go wrong?

It doesn’t take long before the mercenaries attack, and Lucas, sensing that something is amiss with his orders, finds himself trying to protect The Ghost from one assassination attempt after another. The movie quickly turns into a series of bloody fight sequences where our hero uses his martial arts skills to fend off the unrelenting assault. Along the way, he employs everything from axes, champaign bottles and even a chainsaw as weapons.

You know, the things that every passenger has in their carry-on luggage when they board an airplane.

The story doesn’t make a lot of logical sense, but it doesn’t need to do so. This is just supposed to be a simple set up and then an hour of non-stop action. By this simple standard, the movie mostly succeeds. The fight sequences are brutal, very bloody, and a lot of fun. I found myself alternating between wincing at the bloodshed and then laughing over the absurdity of the story.

Hartnett proves to be the perfect leading man for this story, playing his character with a nice mix of humor and macho heroism. I also enjoyed Katee Sackhoff and Julian Kostov playing handlers at a shadowy mercenary organization on the ground, but they are only there to flesh out the back story. This movie lives and dies with the performance by Hartnett and the waves of caricatured assassins flooding up the aisle for the next attack.

Ultimately, “Fight or Flight” works because of its appealing leading man, a healthy sprinkle of comedy and lots of the over-the-top martial arts sequences. It probably won’t stand the test of time as a great action spectacle, but if you just want an entertaining bit of escapist cinema, the film is a lot of fun.

Certainly, it’s more fun than sitting on the tarmac at LaGuardia for more than an hour!

 

Movie reviews by Sean, “The Movie Guy,” are published each week in The Port Arthur News and The Orange Leader. Sean welcomes your comments via email at sean@seanthemovieguy.com You can get more of Sean’s reviews by subscribing to the 2 Movie Guys podcast.