FIGHT OR FLIGHT : Tuesday 23rd September 2025

I saw the MA15+ Rated 'FIGHT OR FLIGHT' this week at my local multiplex cinema, and this action comedy film is Directed by James Madigan in his feature film Directorial debut, although he has been the Second Unit Director on the likes of 'G.I. Joe : Retaliation', 'RED 2', 'Insurgent', 'Allegiant', 'The Meg', 'Bill and Ted Face the Music', 'Snake Eyes' and 'Transformers : Rise of the Beasts' more recently. This film premiered in the UK at the end of February this year, was released in the US in early May, and here in Australia on 4th September, has received positive critical reviews and has so far grossed US$4.5M at the Box Office. 

Following a raid on a hideout somewhere in downtown Bangkok, an elusive expert hacker simply called The Ghost manages to thwart the local authorities and escape. A government sect, operating undercover as part of a social media app, manages to quickly piece together enough information to locate the Ghost's escape route, via a flight to San Francisco. Agent Aaron Hunter (Julian Kostov) informs head Katherine Brunt (Katee Sackhoff) that due to lack of field agents in the area (the nearest being in Singapore), they have no way of catching the Ghost in time. 

With no other option, Brunt decides to call upon disgraced former Secret Service agent Lucas Reyes (Josh Hartnett), her former partner and boyfriend who was forced to go into hiding two years ago in Bangkok following a savage beating he gave to a high ranking government official he was guarding at the time. That government official had a penchant for beating up prostitutes he was fucking at the time and something snapped in Lucas, resulting in his dismissal by the head of the FBI who just happened to be the brother of that government official. Lucas had his passport seized and was handed down a no fly penalty so grounding him in Bangkok. He is needless to say seriously angered that Brunt would call him out of the blue, but with the promise of clearing his name, Lucas reluctantly takes the mission. 

The Ghost is particularly adept at keeping his identity a very closely guarded secret. Lucas's only way of identifying the hacker is an apparent bullet wound sustained in that earlier raid on a hideout, and a trail of blood left on the street. As he gets on the plane, and is ushered to his seat he has a brief run-in with dancing obsessed killer Cayenne (Marko Zaror) who laced his drink and who tells him that the Ghost has a bounty on his head. 

Lucas manages to kill Cayenne and then convinces airline stewards Isha (Charithra Chandran) and Royce (Danny Ashok) to help him with locating the Ghost and the other killers. Brunt learns that due to the Ghost's actions, multiple high-end companies have also managed to locate Ghost's whereabouts onto the plane and have all hired assassins of their own. Down in the cargo hold, where Isha shoots and kills another assassin in waiting, Lucas quickly figures out that Isha is in fact the Ghost after he observes her cold sweating, and gets her to begrudgingly trust him as he is the only person that is trying to prevent her from being taken out.

Lucas and Isha are forced to fend off the assassins with whatever is at their disposal, during which both their identities are sent to the mobile phones of everyone on the plane. Lucas slowly bonds with Isha, revealing that her motives are based on the fact that as a young child she was trafficked into slave labour and uses her skills to now help free other child labourers around the world. Brunt figures out that Hunter had kept information to himself about the Ghost, and that she possesses a supercomputer that is capable of hacking into any encrypted coding within mere seconds. Knowing that possessing it will make their app company more powerful, and turn them both into multi-billionaires overnight Brunt agrees to Hunter's plan of securing it, should the plane arrive in San Francisco on time.

Isha is quickly aided by Master Lian (JuJu Chan Szeto), another passenger and ally on the plane along with her students Monk Heather (Heather Choo) and Monk Claudia (Claudia Heinz), and together with a drug-induced Lucas recovering from a slash and stab to the stomach from an earlier fight for which he thought he had taken a dose of adrenalin, but in reality swallowed a much more potent animal extracted serum, fight through the rest of the assassins. 

Using a mountaineering pick and then a chainsaw which Isha found in the hold, Lucas sets about literally carving up the remaining assassins, while two of the goons fire off several rounds of their automatic weapons causing the plane's hull to rupture, and several assassins being sucked out of the plane at 35,000 feet.

Despite descending and levelling the plane, both pilots (Sanjeev Kohli and Declan Baxter) are killed along with Lian and her students. A gravely-injured Lucas and Isha make it to the cockpit, but the plane misses its SFO landing, resulting in Brunt killing Hunter with a bullet to the head, for his incompetence. Despite Brunt's attempts to get Lucas to turn Isha over, he refuses and resigns himself. Isha reveals that her computer device had been piloting the plane the entire time, her real escape plan. Lucas passes out from his wounds and exhaustion.

Lucas comes round several days later, bandaged up and on a drip, in a war-torn hospital where the sound of rapid gun fire and explosions are heard in the distance. As he wakes and stumbles to his feet, an explosion rips through the wall of the make-shift hospital, as Isha bursts into the room and tells him that they are not finished yet, much to his dismay.

First time feature film Director James Madigan, has here proven his film making chops by delivering us a very entertaining albeit no holds barred violent bloody and at times laugh out loud funny movie in which leading man Josh Hartnett performed all his own stunts, and that sense of letting loose comes shining through in his role. This film is very reminiscent of 2022's 'Bullet Train' but set on a plane, and by comparison that film grossed US$240M - a far cry from what this film is expected to take at the worldwide Box Office based on its poor US$4.5M haul so far. The action sequences are well choreographed and the close quarter fight scenes are so over the top I thought I was watching a Looney Tunes cartoon. That said, if watching creative kills and Josh Hartnett wielding a chainsaw at 35,000 feet floats your boat, then you're in for a thrilling ride. And if not, you can always watch it from the comfort of your sofa when it arrives on a streaming platform in the next few weeks. 

'Fight or Flight' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-