It’s Josh Hartnett Vs. A Plane Full of Assassins
Fight or Flight gives an unexpected new role to the Trap star.
The last time Josh Hartnett can recall doing his own stunts for a movie, he was 29. The movie was Bunraku, a martial arts action flick that came at the tail end of a streak of movies that positioned Hartnett as the next Hollywood heartthrob — from Pearl Harbor, to Sin City, and Lucky Number Slevin.
But now, at 46, Hartnett finds himself enjoying something of a career renaissance with back-to-back turns in the critically acclaimed Oppenheimer and the future cult classic, Trap. All eyes were on his next project. So, it felt like a bit of a left-field choice for Hartnett to star in a wacky assassin thriller that could be described as “Bullet Train on a plane.” But for Hartnett, Fight or Flight was exactly what he wanted to do next.
“I wanted to make something that was going to have a unique tone, and I so badly wanted to do my own stunts,” Hartnett tells Inverse. “I'm in my forties and when they sent it to me, I said, ‘Am I ever going to get another chance like this?’”
For first-time director James Madigan, casting Hartnett was a bit of a pipe dream. He wanted to set Fight or Flight apart from all the other John Wick knockoffs, and knew that only someone like Hartnett could elevate it from all the other assassin thrillers flooding Hollywood.
“It was always Josh,” Madigan tells Inverse. “There was no way it was going to be someone else. As soon as we heard that he was interested, I couldn't believe it, because what you really want is someone that can play a great character and someone that can give a great performance. And you don't always know if those kind of real actors are going to want to do all the work involved on a movie like this, and thank God, he just did.”
Hartnett dove into training for the film, working a crew of MMA fighters and stunt guys to prep for his role as Lucas Reyes, an exiled Secret Service officer who is sent to retrieve an elusive hacker. But when Lucas boards an international flight from Bangkok to Los Angeles, where the hacker is expected to be hiding, he finds that the plane is packed full of assassins who are after the hacker as well — and they’re willing to take down anyone standing in their way.
Josh Hartnett and Charithra Chandran in Fight or Flight.
“The big action movies that are being made these days are mostly done with CG, so it's very rare to be able to do something like this, and it's a wonderful opportunity,” Hartnett says.
Hartnett found particular satisfaction out of pulling off the long action sequences — which were made of various moving parts, people, and items flying through the air — and the “sense of relief and the sense of having accomplished something” once they were finished. “It was like being on a sports team that won a big game, and I liked that atmosphere,” Hartnett says. “My teammates, the other stunt people, were all so involved. And all so... What would you say? They were all so encouraging... [They] really taught me how to do all this stuff in a very dramatic fashion. And it was fun. I would say yes a thousand times to something like this.”
But would Harnett say yes to a sequel? Fight or Flight leaves things on a notably open-ended note, with Lucas finding himself caught up in yet another situation. “If enough people saw the film and loved it, then yeah, why not?” Hartnett says.
Josh Hartnett found it invigorating to do an action-heavy film in his forties.
Madigan sees plenty of potential in the continued adventures of Lucas Reyes, whom he sees as more of an “old-school hero like John McClane, or Frank Bullitt in Bullitt, or Cool Hand Luke,” than as a John Wick-inspired protagonist. “Everyone really got it right from the beginning and got that it was going to be that we weren't going to make a clone of John Wick,” Madigan says. No one understood that more than Hartnett, whom Madigan could not gush about enough: “He's interesting because he's different in every role that he plays, and he clearly is not chasing after the big blockbuster.”
If a sequel to Fight or Flight happens, Madigan confirms that he’d love to work with Hartnett again. “We're talking about it now, so we'll see,” he teases.
