A wild new mythology has recently permeated motion films — particularly that the world is chock-full of employed assassins. They take pleasure in their very own luxurious lodge in the John Wick movies. And so they appear to take pleasure in touring collectively in teams, as demonstrated in Bullet Practice. Now dozens of them have boarded a airplane in the brand new gonzo action-comedy marking James Madigan’s directorial debut. Starring Josh Hartnett in one other instance of his profession rejuvenation, Battle or Flight represents the newest entry in what can solely be described as a Hartnettaissance.

The actor, who after a years-long hiatus has made a robust comeback with such movies as Oppenheimer and M. Night time Shyamalan’s Entice, right here delivers a terrific flip as a former authorities agent recruited for a harmful mission. His charisma and stunning aptitude for bodily comedy elevate this B-movie into one thing approaching A-level standing, even when it’s finally undercut by its low-budget limitations and awkward tonal shifts.

However for a lot of the way in which, the movie is a wild experience that needs to be loved by anybody who’s ever misplaced circulation in their limbs from being cramped for hours on a long-distance flight. The overwhelming majority of the proceedings, together with a gap sequence offering a style of the ultra-violent mayhem to return, consists of struggle scenes happening aboard a packed airplane.

How this got here to be doesn’t actually matter, however for the report it entails Lucas Reyes (Hartnett), a former authorities operative who’s spent the final two years hiding in Thailand after a earlier mission went disastrously incorrect. He’s recruited by his former boss, and former lover, Katherine Brunt (Katee Sackhoff, enjoyably leaning into the absurdity, comparable to her character utilizing CBD drops to calm herself down), who desperately wants him to apprehend The Ghost, a infamous cyber-terrorist of unknown id who the group has realized might be on a airplane heading from Bangkok to San Francisco.    

Reyes is in no form for the duty, having devolved right into a drunken, Hawaiian shirt-wearing slob with a nasty bleach job. However he reluctantly agrees and is quickly aboard a packed flight on a jumbo jet, sitting subsequent to a garrulous performer who demonstrates his dance strikes for him. However as with so lots of the passengers, his seatmate will not be fairly who he appears.

Reyes finally discovers that the airplane is crammed with assassins trying to kill the Ghost, and finally him. Recruiting plucky feminine flight attendant Isha (Charithra Chandran, in fairly the stylistic leap from Bridgerton) and her semi-hysterical colleague Royce (Danny Ashok, amusing) as allies, he finds himself battling dozens of foes whereas choosing up some associates alongside the way in which, together with the Ghost, whose revealed id proves a shock.

It’s principally all an excuse for Madigan — beforehand a second-unit director for such large-scale films as Transformers: Rise of the Beasts and The Meg — to stage a sequence of elaborately choreographed struggle scenes underneath extraordinarily confined situations. The director and his proficient collaborators rise to the problem, using practically each object you’d discover on a airplane as a possible deadly weapon.

Brooks McLaren and D.J. Cotrona’s screenplay traffics closely in humor, as demonstrated by such scenes in which Reyes, who’s already began ingesting in the course of the struggle, does brutal battle with a combatant even after being closely drugged. When his opponent expresses disbelief that he’s nonetheless standing, Reyes shrugs, mentioning, “You possibly can’t pickle a pickle.” At one other level, he’s compelled to struggle whereas on a psychedelic journey after ingesting toad venom.

Somebody ought to alert the Thai authorities that their airport safety is critically missing, judging by the sheer quantity of weaponry, together with weapons, knives, and even a chainsaw, that the assassins have managed to spirit onto the airplane. The final system offers the chance for one of many movie’s wildest sequences, accompanied by Elvis Costello’s rousing “Pump It Up.” As for the weapons, the killers would have benefited from a viewing of Goldfinger for an illustration of the risks of taking pictures whereas aboard an plane.

It’s all a variety of enjoyable, assuming you verify your mind on the door and may abdomen the copious quantities of gore which can be gleefully served up. Moreover the spectacular struggle choreography and athletic stunt work, what actually makes Battle or Flight pop is Hartnett’s go-for-broke flip that finds him alternating between being a John Wick gone-to-seed and the kind of hapless dwelling punching bag seen in Looney Tunes cartoons. The actor demonstrates that he’s greater than in on the joke, embracing the violent madness of all of it with an eagerness that proves enjoyably infectious.