Fight or Flight

Fight or Flight
Starring Josh Hartnett, Charithra Chandran, Julian Kostov, Katee Sackhoff
Directed by James Madigan

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. They also say "we have ____ at home." "Fight or Flight" is a film that imitates a much better movie, and when someone asks if they can stop on the way home to see said movie, the parent will say "we have 'Fight or Flight' at home.'" That's saying this is nowhere near as good of a movie as what it blatantly rips off, but thanks to Josh Hartnett's wonder-why committed performance, it makes it at least a little bit enjoyable. Maybe he was drunk during filming. That'd explain it.

Lucas Reyes (Josh Hartnett) is a mercenary for hire on the run from the government when he's discovered by his former boss Katherine Brunt (Katee Sackhoff) with a lucrative offer: find a mysterious hacker known as Ghost who's going to be on an airplane bound for San Diego, and he'll get his life back. He agrees, but once on the plane discovers he's not the only one after the hacker - in fact, pretty much everyone on the plane are paid assassins out for their blood. Together with stewardess Isha (Charithra Chandran), Lucas works to find Ghost himself and keep them safe while battling an army of assassins thirty thousand feet in the air.

So you may ask what movie is "Fight or Flight" ripping off? That's the 2022 action film "Bullet Train," directed by David Leitch, who also directed "Deadpool 2," "The Fall Guy," and "Atomic Blonde" among others. "Fight or Flight," directed by first-time director James Madigan, obviously took license from "Bullet Train" for his own film, but instead of one man taking on a train of assassins, one man takes on a plane of assassins. No matter how high the film goes, however, there's absolutely nothing worth of note and it doesn't hit any highs.

Josh Hartnett is hitting a resurgence of late, appearing in the Oscar-winning film "Oppenheimer" and, to a much lesser extent, last year's M. Night Shyamalan's snoozefest "Trap." He continues his downward spiral here, where he stars as your typical action hero - imbued with so much plot armor he might as well be a gladiator clad in iron. He takes on a plane of professional killers with relative ease, and does so with an energy that rivals Brad Pitt's in "Bullet Train" - but comes off as the Dollar Store equivalent.

It seems that cinematographer Matt Flannery went to the "Bourne Identity" school of filmmaking, where any action set has to be followed with shaky camera work and bounding up and down, somehow making it more exciting? I know I formed that in a question, but I'm seriously asking. Because it didn't really make it more exciting, just more like I was actually on a plane experiencing turbulence. It's like they really did try to re-create the magic of "Bullet Train," but their magic trick didn't land - and neither did the proverbial plane it flew in on.

The Score: D