FIGHT OR FLIGHT

Producers: Basil Iwanyk, Erica Lee, Chris Milburn and Tai Duncan  Director: James Madigan   Screenplay: Brooks McLaren and DJ Cotrona   Cast: Josh Hartnett, Charithra Chandran, Marko Zaror, Juju Chan Szeto,  Julian Kostov, Sanjeev Kohli, Declan Baxter, Hugh O’Donnell, Danny Ashok, Heather Choo, Claudia Heinz and Katee Sackhoff   Distributor: Vertical Entertainment

Grade: B-

A live-action cartoon that situates a wacked-out John Wickish plot aboard a passenger jet, “Fight or Flight” is grossly over-the-top but will serve as a comic action bloodbath for those who enjoy that sort of thing, especially since it’s energized by an utterly unhinged performance from Josh Hartnett, who boasts bleach-blond hair as well as a goofy grin and zero reluctance to look silly.

The movie begins with a slow-mo melee aboard the plane set to the strains of the Blue Danube—Kubrick, anyone?—which proves to be one of those flash-forwards movies are so fond of nowadays; we’ll get a lot more of the mayhem later.

For now we’re introduced to Lucas Reyes (Hartnett), a seedy ex-government agent who’s been living a thoroughly dissolute life in Bangkok after a mission gone bad.  Dressed in a horrible Hawaiian shirt, belting back bottle after bottle and on the run from dangerous debt collectors, he’s astonished to get a call from Katherine Brunt (Katee Sackhoff), his former boss and squeeze, who offers him a job that can earn him professional rehabilitation and scads of money.  He’s to track down, and bring in, a super hacker known only as The Ghost, who’s just ripped off a Thai corporation but been wounded in the process.  Since the thief uses a cloaking device, even the security footage is just a blur, but intelligence has identified the flight that The Ghost is about to take out of the country.  Seeing a chance to escape his problems, Lucas hops aboard.

But word of The Ghost’s itinerary has gotten out, and there are parties who want the troublemaker terminated rather than brought in, and have offered bounties to that end.  So the plane is filled with snakes of a human sort—in Wickian terms, greedy hit-people.  Lucas gets his first taste of that when he’s seated beside Cayenne (funny Marko Zaror), a talkative, hyperactive guy who drugs him and then escorts him to the restroom for permanent disposal.  Groggy Lucas is himself surprised that he survives the encounter, which turns out to be but the first—though one of the best—of such potentially fatal meetings.  Another notable one has Lucas fighting while under the influence of psychedelics, which allows for director James Madigan and his team—production designer Mailara Santana Pomales, cinematographer Matt Flannery, editor Ben Mills, the stunt team and some animators—to go into full cartoon mode while a glassy-eyed, grinning Harnett and his opponents do hand-to-hand battle, though weapons like chainsaws are optional.  Composer Paul Saunderson adds to the visual wildness with his score, complemented at times by some raucous needle drops.

The Ghost’s identity is revealed fairly early on, but since it turns out that the hacker’s motivations are pure—unlikely those of the various powers aiming to snuff the thief out (and, as it happens, those who have given Lucas his mission)—their joint survival becomes imperative.  And in the process of staying alive, Lucas secures a few allies, including pretty flight attendant Isha (likable Charithra Chandran) and her nervous colleague Royce (Danny Ashok), as well as Master Lian (Juju Chan Szeto), who seems to be a serene eastern nun with martial arts credentials, and her two similarly skilled acolytes (Heather Choo and Claudia Heinz).

Dollops of very broad humor are to be found not only in Harnett’s wacky turn, but in asides provided by Sanjeev Kohli and Declan Baxter as the flabbergasted cockpit team and Hugh O’Donnell as a fussy flight attendant in first class.  Less engaging is the plot thread involving Sackhoff’s increasingly perturbed Brunt and Julian Kostov as her ambitious aide.  There’s also an obligatory MacGuffin in a “device” hidden on the plane, some sort of mini-computer everybody wants, that’s capable of decoding encrypted data and—as it turns out—even piloting an airplane.  It comes into play at the close, when an injured, woozy Reyes is informed by The Ghost that although they appear to have prevailed, there’s now a new threat to face—exasperating him and topping things off with not so much a suggestion of a sequel as a promise of one.

“Fight or Flight” is a completely bonkers addition to the John Wick everyone’s-a-hit-man genre, and it suffers from being essentially a one-joke, repetitive affair.  But Hartnett, a committed supporting cast and a raft of capable stunt people make what might have been a stiflingly claustrophobic trip more than bearable—if, of course, it’s the sort of comically violent journey you want to sign up for.