The first thing that hits you about Fight or Flight is the bright, crisp picture. Its opening barrage of punches, flying chainsaws and a high-altitude explosion is eye-catchingly clean and vanilla. A pretty sharp observation on the anodyne nature of subsonic passenger flights, you may think, but mostly, it’s a narrative cheat. 

When Fight or Flight catches up with that flash-forward, nothing quite plays out the same. This isn’t a film too interested in an intricately laid plot, then, but making sure concussive punches land and CGI blood is splattered in the most spectacular way. And that’s fair enough because we’re all here to see a peroxide Josh Hartnett join a very special group: the badass good guy having a bad day club.

Abandoned ex-agent Lucas Reyes (Josh Hartnett) is propped up in Thailand, whiling away his time in bars until a shadowy organisation headed by his ex (Katee Sackhoff) is forced to bring him back into action. To get his life back, he just has to board a plane heading for the U.S. and apprehend a most-wanted cyber-terrorist known as the Ghost (strangely similar to the MCU antihero). 

While identifying a terrorist who could be anyone and wrestling with the conscience that originally pushed him into the cold is bad enough, things soon become more complicated and violent. A lucrative bounty on the Ghost’s head means the plane is filled with the world’s most deadly assassins, and they soon know what they are looking for.

Hartnett carries the character of Reyes with the required Bruce Willis level of wry nonchalance as he continues to round out the interesting mid-phase of his career. He passes off boozed, drugged and beaten with a knowing smirk that proves he’s having a bad day, and that’s just from his first fight. 

Fight or Flight is all digital high-concept with two gears: glossy scraps or slow character chats. That means it risks leaving its audience listless when Hartnett isn’t being put through Hell. What structure there is links bout to bout as Hartnett takes on new end-of-level bosses in various parts of the two-tier plane (triads in Diamond Elite!). All the barneys are suitably pounding, concussive and violent, each propelled by a different propulsive track until the budget kicks in with the final pounding use of Elvis Costello and the Attractions’ Pump it Up.

By its nature, Fight or Flight is packed with disposable extras, and it’s rare to get into any bad guy heads. But while Hartnett takes a beating, the rest of the cast tries to help it along. On the ground, Katee Sackhoff is capable of much more than her shadowy string-puller (“It’s like the years have turned him into something… Inhuman?”). Charithra Chandran’s flight assistant at least gets to meet Hartnett on screen, and the pair form a pretty likeable, if one-note, partnership. 

It’s a shame Fight or Flight doesn’t have much time for anything else. Much more comedy could have been pulled from the flight crew’s attempts to keep their service on track as a blood bath erupts. The pilots’ running joke about selling the rights to their story Sully-style is a hint of what could have been. 

But Fight or Flight is well aware of what it is as it powers through sword, fist and gun first. While it lags in the build-up and its twists (one pointedly satirical) are broadly sign-posted, it papers over it by endlessly ratcheting up its concept.