Displaying items by tag: James Madigan

FIGHT OR FLIGHT

US/UK, 2024, 102 minutes, Colour.

Josh Hartnett, Charithra Chandran, Katee Sakhoff, Julian Kostov.

Directed by James Madigan.

One might say that there is no need for a review of Fight or Flight because it is too silly for words!

It opens with a beautiful blue sky, long shot of an ascending aircraft, the Blue Danube Waltz (we are beyond 2001 and space odysseys) – and, a visual upset with mayhem like human snakes on a plane, passengers fighting each other, and, suddenly, one swept through an opening in the body of the plane.

And then we go back several days, details of an espionage plot, a high-tech firm and its security officers, especially the commanding Katherine Brunt (Katee Sakhoff) in control of an enormous surveillance system, demanding of her underlings, discovering the threat to the company by mysterious character, The Ghost. She decides to activate a disgraced agent, Lucas (Josh Hartnett), drinking himself into oblivion in Bangkok. There’s nothing like mobile phones and camera surveillance to get things moving in matters of minutes, psychological persuasion of Lucas, her former boyfriend, complicit in his disgrace, getting him a passport, persuading him to get to the airport, to get on a flight to San Francisco and to discover and control The Ghost.

Gerard Butler has already done airline action on The Plane, so here is a chance for Josh Hartnett to be an action hero and to do some droll deadpan comedy. And he does.

Referring to snakes on a plane, this flight is full of human snakes, bounty hunters alerted to both Lucas and The Ghost. Lucas tries some attempts to identify The Ghost which leads to the beginning of the massively increasing body count. And, The Ghost is not at all whom we might have expected or suspected – and quite a discussion an explanation of why she (oops) is the target of the company.

With acknowledgement to the directors, The Daniels, once the action starts, all the international fierce bounty hunters, and the Ghosts female protectors, and Lucas, an alcoholic and accidentally drugged and high, the only description can be in the confined caverns of the plane, everything, everywhere, all at once!

There is a certain fascination in accepting that the filmmakers are deliberately enjoying themselves in going further over the top than might have been expected. But, it is still very absurd. And, there is a kind of epilogue which might have put everything in order but, suddenly, the film stops. Fans will be already planning to book their tickets for the sequel – others might feel that they have had enough!