Fight or Flight

If you are looking for a film for a Friday afternoon of 100% leisure, this action film fits the bill like a glove. It's true that it runs out of steam in the last 30 minutes, but that's a minor flaw. To watch with a big bag of popcorn.

Some films do not try to reinvent anything and still know exactly how to give you a good time. This goes straight for that. Very early on it makes clear that its goal is not perfect logic, deep psychology or a serious, solemn thriller: it wants to put Josh Hartnett on a plane full of killers and see how much chaos the aircraft can take before landing. And once you accept that game, it works pretty well. We already said it when we watched it: there is a lot of Bullet Train here, that mix of violence, humor, eccentric characters and wildly over-the-top action that turns every encounter into a kind of physical gag. It never reaches that film's level, but it shares the same pleasure in controlled mayhem.Josh Hartnett is the key. I especially like seeing him at this stage of his career, when he seems to have found roles that let him play more, get dirty, make a fool of himself and still keep that movie-star presence. Here he does not need to look invincible. He gets hit, gets tired, improvises and often survives more through instinct than superiority. That makes the character fun and keeps him from becoming another John Wick clone. There is something very likable about watching a completely battered man keep going while every new passenger might be another assassin. Hartnett also understands the tone: if he played everything with total seriousness, the film would collapse. His smile, exhaustion and almost amused resignation carry a large part of the **** plane setting is also used very well. Such a confined space forces the fights to find different solutions: narrow aisles, seats, bathrooms, overhead compartments, luggage, anything can become a weapon. James Madigan shoots the action with real energy and understands that elegance matters less here than impact. There are brutal hits, cracking bones, blood and some completely absurd ideas. At times it feels like a cheaper airborne version of Bullet Train, yes, but I do not necessarily mean that as an insult. Some films know exactly what kind of B-movie they are and use it to their advantage. This one is not ashamed of being pulpy, excessive and a little stupid. Better that way.That does not mean everything works. The script is fairly basic, some turns are predictable, and whenever the film tries to give more weight to the conspiracy or personal motivations, it loses some spark. The story matters less than movement. Some characters barely exist beyond their function in the next fight, and the third act becomes more predictable precisely because we already know the mechanics. There are also moments when the nonstop action becomes slightly numbing: if everything is permanently turned up to eleven, each new blow surprises a little less. I completely understand people who see it as little more than a chain of noisy fights. That criticism is not invented. For me, though, the film has enough pace, humor and charm to keep that flaw from sinking **** chemistry between Hartnett and Charithra Chandran also helps a lot. In a film that could have become nothing more than a catalogue of beatings, their relationship adds some lightness and humanity. They do not need a huge emotional arc; it is enough that their exchanges work and offer small pauses between one outrage and the next. That balance between violence and humor is what most reminds me of Bullet Train: apparently incompatible people trapped in a form of transport while everything around them goes to hell. The difference is that this has less style, fewer memorable characters and less narrative invention. But it also has a certain honesty: it never seems to think it is making something more important than it actually **** the end, I am left with a very entertaining action film, knowingly absurd and better than its premise might suggest. It is not a masterpiece of the genre, nor does it pretend to be. It is the kind of film that goes down very easily when all you want is to watch a charismatic actor punch his way through an increasingly ridiculous situation. Hartnett proves he can absolutely carry an action movie, and Madigan keeps the pace moving almost to the end. It has too many familiar beats, lacks the visual personality of its influences, and years from now I will probably remember individual scenes more than the story. But while it lasts, it delivers. Sometimes that is exactly what you ask from a film like this: keep moving, enjoy its own madness and drag us along with it.