Review of the “ fight or theft '': Hartnett saves him from accidents

Take note: if you have anxiety about flying, the “fight or theft” of director James Madigan will not be for you. But if an action thriller has one time cheap and cheap at the “High speed train” With one of the pre -eminent sorrows in the Y2K era is in your alley, well, then the belly to this bar (airport). The film is not a masterpiece, not even vulgar, but it is sufficiently cheeky and sufficiently entertaining in its dizzying hyper-violence, thanks almost entirely to the turn of the stars of Josh Hartnett, which has proven during its recent Renaissance that he is particularly brilliant in Bozo mode.

Hartnett was the bad boy in movies like “The Faculty” and “Virgin suicides”, Which exploded him to celebrity in the late 90s. But in recent years, his career has been invigorated, playing characters like “Boy Sweat Dave” in Guy Ritchie “Human Crôle”, And transform a particularly delicious work in the “trap” of Mr. Night Shyamalan. For “Fight or Flight”, Hartnett looks straight out of the 2000s with his discolored hair and his freight shorts, the only difference is that he is now unleashed, released from these bad mood chains: wild eyes and frequently covered with false blood the vibrant shade of strawberry jam.

Indeed, “fighting or leak” would not work without its sparkling central performance which brings an edge of the absurd premise, which is essentially “assassins on a plane”. The script, of Brooks McLaren and the actor of “Shazam”, DJ Cotrona, is based on the kind of style of style “John Wick” that the action franchise perfected when it poses the question: and if there was a bonus on the head of a hitman? The “fight or theft” borrows vanity and places it in a confined and high altitude setting, taking a humorous tone for its sensations.

Hartnett plays a Drifter of Lucas, who wakes up in Bangkok with a wooden mouth, a black eye and her ex hated Katherine (Katee Sackhoff) calling her for a favor. Professional of high-level security, Lucas is his last option after a pirate known as Ghost stole billions in cryptocurrency after a terrorist attack. Katherine needs Lucas to get on the same plane in order to deliver the pirate in detention (living), and she is the only one she knows on the ground at the moment. When he climbs aboard the flight, he does not know that a premium on the head of Ghost has spread on the dark canvas and therefore, the rest of the passengers are mainly assassins, seek to make easy money.

And so, the chaos of aviation follows, while Lucas fights on a wicked coterie through a mist of drugs and alcohol. He has his own reasons to want to finish the task – events from his past which explain why he found himself in his journey to the heart of darkness through the bottom of a bottle of whiskey in Southeast Asia. They are honorable, of course, and when we meet Ghost, we discover motivations that are just as altruistic, if they are a little superficially written.

The filmmakers still prefer to focus on bizarre violence. Hartnett holds his from top to bottom in the aisles, through the loading area and in the bathroom, using the space and the tools nearby. But it's more fun to watch your face move than your body, crazy eyes and tight smiles delivering high thread tension. He has great chemistry with a fiery edge agent (Charithra Chandran) and faces each enemy with a tight holder intensity and a feeling of real surprise each time he serves one. Madigan likes the trick that establishes particularly bloody sequences to high energy and tones – Hartnett hits and stabbed through everything, Punk punk.

But then, the already clumsy “flight or theft” takes an incredibly caricatured caricatured ride while it begins her descent, in a tangle of hallucinatory madness, unpaid twists and astounding cliffhangers. It is a real piece of Looney with a shocking quantity of digital blood. The film is almost entirely raised, whatever the appeal it could have occurred, except that everything happens so quickly. Surprisingly, Lucas de Hartnett has not exhausted his welcome, even if the film around him collapsed outdoors. Ergo, old truism has never been more true: when it comes to “fight or theft”, your mileage can vary.

Katie Walsh is a film critic from the Tribune Information Service.