The Hartnettaissance is upon us. Even though the movie as a whole was a misfire, his performance in Trap showed that there was more to Josh Hartnett than previously thought. Now, with the enormously entertaining action comedy, Fight or Flight he doubles down on the near Nicolas Cage levels of thespian hijinks and turns in a career-best performance in one of the best movies of the year.
Hartnett stars as a disgraced Secret Service agent (his backstory is the same as Bruce Willis’ in Last Boy Scout) drinking himself to death in Bangkok who is offered a shot of redemption if he can board a plane to San Francisco, find a passenger who is a most wanted hacker, and bring them to justice. The only problem is that nearly everyone on the plane is an assassin who also happens to be looking for the hacker. And Hartnett.
Fight or Flight is kind of like Bullet Train on a plane. Or maybe Snakes on a Plane but with assassins instead of snakes. It builds slowly and sprinkles in occasional dollops of crazy fight sequences here and there while keeping a relatively straight face. (I’m thinking of the scene where a heavily drugged Hartnett battles Marko Zaror in the bathroom.) Things get increasingly looney as they go along, to the point that when three women dressed like killers from a ‘70s Shaw Brothers movie show up, no one blinks an eye. The gore is solid too, with a champagne flute to the eyeball being an especially gnarly bit of carnage.
Things quickly escalate in the third act. It’s here where Hartnett inadvertently takes a mess of toad venom, begins tripping balls, and proceeds to carve up trained assassins with a chainsaw all the while Elvis Costello sings “Pump It Up” on the soundtrack.
In a word, cinema.
Hartnett was really good in the first two acts, but it’s here during this prolonged sequence where he really endeared himself to me. It was almost as if the toad venom acted like the mushroom in Super Mario Bros. and turned him into Super Hartnett. If he can bring that same level of demented glee to his next few pictures, I’ll be sure to check them out.
What separates the film from so many others of its ilk is its sly sense of humor and the crispness of the fight choreography. The camerawork is excellent during the close-quarters battles, and the editing is concise and effective. The dialogue has some real howlers too. My favorite line comes when Zaror tries to drug Hartnett and it doesn’t quite work, leading Josh to quip, “I guess you can’t pickle a pickle!”
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