Josh Hartnett takes to the unfriendly skies in assassin action thriller Fight or Flight

Josh Hartnett, as you may have noticed, is having a moment. The former teenage heartthrob reemerged for many moviegoers when he popped up in Oppenheimer. He further endeared himself to mainstream audiences with M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap the following year. His latest outing, Fight or Flight, features Hartnett in charisma overload, playing a former Secret Service agent who finds himself in over his head and often high as a kite while sporting frosted tips.

It may not be Great Cinema, but much like Hartnett’s re-emergence, it’s what we need right now.

Hartnett plays Lucas Reyes, a burned-out former agent on the run after unwillingly taking a fall. On a call from his ex-handler/ex-flame, black ops operative Brunt (Katee Sackhoff), informs Reyes that a terrorist named “The Ghost” has struck, and wiped out the nearest team to apprehend them. Brunt has a simple offer: if Reyes boards a flight she’s confirmed The Ghost will be on, and brings them in unharmed, Reyes will be a free man.

Of course, none of them know the plane is also littered with bad guys who’ve learned The Ghost’s itinerary via a dark web leak.

It happens.

That goofy setup, combined with frenetic pacing and candy-colored visuals suggests an airborne version of 2022’s Bullet Train, though Fight or Flight lacks that movie’s stacked cast (and, presumably, its budget). This is more like the action-heavy, plot-thin bangers Cannon Group or New World Pictures churned out in the 80s and 90s — ones where the characters didn’t have names but were identified by how they died or their weapon of choice. Fight or Flight has no time for subtext, even if making time for that means you might have depth along with all that violence.

The throwback vibe is also embodied in Hartnett’s performance, which owes more than a little to Bruce Willis’ action star golden era. The character’s background is straight out of The Last Boy Scout. The hair recalls The Fifth Element. Reyes crawls across broken glass, takes multiple punches from dudes twice his size and quips all the way, like John McClane in Die Hard (or, as the case may be, Die Hard 2). Hartnett manages all of it with charm, comic chops and ‘tude that suggests he should be doing movies like this far more regularly.

Hartnett succeeds in part because of the ensemble he’s surrounded by. Reyes teams up with flight attendant Isha (Charithra Chandran) to survive in the sky, and they make a great buddy duo. Though they don’t share the screen, Hartnett and Sackhoff seem like they’ve known each other for years. And then there’s Cheyenne (Marko Zaror), an assassin who just wants to make enough money to pursue his true passion: opening a dance studio.

Of course, in a movie like this, there’s no denying that there are faults to accompany all the superlatives. There are enough plot holes to depressurize a 747, let alone one full of killers. The film features copious amounts of practical blood, but that modest budget also means a less-than-ideal amount of digital blood often. Some secondary performances are wooden to non-existent.

But it’s arguable that none of this really matters. When your movie features female warrior monks, a lady with cat eyes, people being choked out by seatbelts, and Chekov’s chainsaw, something has to give.

Fight or Flight is definitely B-movie fare, but in this case, that’s a positive. First-time director James Madigan isn’t shooting for the moon; he’s shooting to delight in a way that so many big-budgeted studio efforts fail to do these days. This is a movie that wants to provide a solid distraction for 100 minutes as you nosh on popcorn with a smile plastered on your face. It delivers. Buy the ticket, take the ride, and enjoy the bliss that is drugged up Josh Hartnett is just trying to do the best he can.