‘FIGHT OR FLIGHT’ RATED R

The hero of “Fight or Flight” is a bleached-blond washout, usually in a drunken stupor, hiding out in Bangkok because of a botched mission during his time in the Secret Service, but the disgraced agent is now reluctantly pulled back into service.

The film begins with a preview scene of an exceedingly violent mayhem on an airplane which plays like a coming attractions trailer and really sets the mood for the vicious fracas which the former agent must endure once he settles into his first-class seat. 

The writers and director James Madigan must have been inspired by the success of the “John Wick” films and Brad Pitt’s Ladybug, an assassin for hire, in “Bullet Train.” The commonality these films have is an abundance of hired killers and violent thugs run amok. 

This is what faces Josh Hartnett’s Lucas Reyes, who favors cheap Hawaiian shirts and shorts as if he were going to spend a day at the beach. He would rather stay idle, but then his former colleague and lover Katherine Brunt (Katee Sackhoff) offers him a chance at redemption.
 
The dissolute life of Lucas is obvious from his love of whiskey for breakfast and his encounter with the local bar owner at lunch when he says, “If I die in your bar, you can sell my organs to pay my tab.” 

All that Brunt asks of Lucas is to board a plane from Bangkok to San Francisco to track down a hacker terrorist known as The Ghost, with the inducement of a big payday and getting removed from the TSA’s “no-fly list.”

Once on the aircraft, the chaos that ensues is so intense that the action can only be labeled as bonkers, a description bandied about all over internet reviews with good reason.

Word that The Ghost would be on this flight has gotten around to the entire underworld, leading to the plane being filled with killers like the ones always trying to knock off John Wick.

Soon after takeoff, another passenger spikes Lucas’ drink with a drug before hauling him to a luxury bathroom to kill him, except that Lucas is immune to being rendered unconscious due to heavy drinking and he manages to turn a sprinkler head into a weapon.
 
Speaking of weapons, one must wonder how every assassin got past security screenings with knives, swords, handguns, machine guns and a chainsaw. Even a seatbelt and broken wine glasses are turned into weapons of death. The only thing missing is a rocket launcher.

While every passenger begins to look suspicious, Lucas finds allies in two flight attendants, the gutsy Isha (Charithra Chandran), showing an abundance of courage, and the amusingly nervous colleague Royce (Danny Ashok). 

For all his goofiness and knack for physical comedy, Josh Harnett is delightfully committed to the insanity that his role demands. In that respect, his nonchalant attitude results in an enjoyably charismatic performance. 

Forget any logic about the over-the-top wackiness of “Fight or Flight.” The film is an action-packed thrill ride filled with humor and carnage. This adds up to a lot of fun on a primeval level.

 

‘THE STUDIO’ ON APPLE TV+

Critics almost certainly would enjoy “The Studio” series on Apple TV+ more than the general audience, only because so much of the humor is like inside baseball, familiar mostly to those who cover the industry for a living.

The premise is quite funny. Seth Rogen’s Matt Remick is an ambitious executive at the troubled Continental Studios, which is desperate to create a box office hit that might just cover the losses endured with stinkers.

With bitter studio head Patty Leigh (a funny Catherine O’Hara) pushed aside, Remick, who has long coveted the position, has taken over, even though he lacks the killer instinct to squash anyone’s pet project.

Producers like Ron Howard and Martin Scorsese appear as themselves to seek support for their vanity projects, only to end up being humiliated by Remick because of his innate inability to be a straight shooter.
 
A lot of amusing studio intrigue is packed into the first episode, presaging good things to come. Bryan Cranston’s Griffin Mill, ruthless owner of the studio, has no vision for filmmaking other than to make huge profits, cinematic art be damned. 

On the other hand, Remick is a film lover interested in making films, as opposed to Mill only wanting to make movies, a distinction that rests with the belief movies can be commercial box office winners and films turn up in art-houses yielding meager returns. 

A general audience might miss the humor of an executive dismissively referring to a film producer as a “dime store Bob Evans.” The laugh comes from knowing Robert Evans, as the successful head of production at Paramount, delivered classics like “The Godfather” and “Chinatown.”

Seth Rogen, and his associates Ike Barinholtz and Chase Sui Wonders, lead a cast that delivers plenty of laughs, as the machinations of everyone jockeying for position is amusing and inventive, because it’s easy to appreciate the absurdity of workplace dysfunction. 

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.