Southeast Asia-set action comedy ‘Fight or Flight’ is a bumpy ride

With no agents in the area (none left alive, anyway), head honcho Katherine Brunt (Katee Sackhoff) turns to her ex, the blonde-tipped, Vans-sporting Lucas Reyes (Josh Hartnett). The drunk former operative trawls Bangkok’s garishly yellow-filtered streets for his next bottle, giving off the vibe of a burnt-out ska saxophonist trying to find himself in middle age. Hartnett delivers a wild-eyed performance as an unstable former operative scraping to win back his reputation, something Katherine’s sudden and ill-advised mission might be able to help with. The only problem? Lucas isn’t the only one on the Ghost’s tail. As it turns out, he’s one of several dozen mercenaries aboard the plane, the rest of whom are trying to win a bounty by taking out a target for whom they have no identifying information.

This crossed-wires premise has the potential for pandemonium. However, it never quite kicks into full gear, nor does it use the unique closed-confines of the aircraft to its full comedic effect. There are scenes when Lucas engages in slickly edited hand-to-hand combat against the occasional, quirky assassin (one of them happens to be a salsa dancer), but little about how these scenes unfold feel plane-specific. One particularly gnarly fight takes place in a sprawling first class bathroom that may as well be attached to a hotel room, but for the most part, the story feels as though it could take place in practically any environment.

Charithra Chandran as Isha in "Fight or Flight."

Fight or Flight

As far as aviation-based bedlam is concerned, it’s no Money Plane. (“You want to bet on a dude f*cking an alligator? Money Plane.”) In its best moments, Fight or Flight threatens to fly off the handle, with galley fights that feature hints of nasty carnage. In its worst, it slows down to be a more serious, character-centric movie laced with jokes that don’t quite land. With the help of two air stewards of South Asian origin—the headstrong Isha (Charithra Chandran, Bridgerton) and the more squeamish Royce (Danny Ashok)—Lucas begins making his way through the plane’s two levels to identify the Ghost and the other assassins, but there’s no real moving target for the trio to hit. The fights all seem to occur at random as they move between sections, with no real sense of story or build. Their goals and instances are often vague, though Isha does reveal surprising layers to her character in a way that challenges Lucas’ reckless demeanor—at least, to the degree that he causes any real problems in the first place. Overall, things are surprisingly calm for a movie containing this many fist-fights at forty thousand feet.

As the film plays out, you get the sense that there’s meant to be some kind of chemistry (or at least camaraderie) between Lucas and Isha, but their dynamic falls into rote territory, suiting the progression of the film’s overly simplistic plot, rather than any sparks that might result from friction in such close quarters. Even when the movie tries to introduce complex ethical layers to its story—by revealing the Ghost’s motives to be secretly altruistic—few of these changes end up challenging anything the characters believe or hold dear. Each time Fight or Flight gestures towards plot twists, it’s hard to know exactly how to feel about them, because the movie has little by way of solid dramatic grounding. What are we meant to initially believe that suddenly gets thrown out the window? Who’s to say.

The story problems continue to mount, between flimsy moments centered on minor characters—the gi-sporting martial artists are the center of enormous dramatic turns that don’t land, since we never get to know them—and the appearance of ethical quandaries where none really exist. However, the biggest problem with Fight or Flight is its tone. The film is, on its surface, appropriately joke-y for such an absurd setup, but its exchanges are all filled with dead air. Where some fights are rightly edited within an inch of their life, resulting in spurts of whizbang adrenaline, most of the movie drags out each punchline and dialogue exchange as though there was meant to be a laugh track someone forgot to turn on. It’s unbearably awkward.

Josh Hartnett as Lucas Reyes in "Fight or Flight."

Fight or Flight

Harnett swings for the fences with his gonzo characterization, but nothing in the movie ever reaches his level of undiluted, unhinged mania. The movie, in addition to feeling endless, also quite literally doesn’t really have an ending—which would’ve made for a much wilder swing had it been crazy or entertaining enough to warrant a sequel. Instead, the mere suggestion that the story might need to continue is a head-scratcher, since it barely gets off the ground in the first place.