An impossible mission, an enclosed space, and a whole lot of comedy wrapped up in an action-packed plot help fuel the new Josh Hartnett-led feature, ‘Fight or Flight.’ From first-time director James Madigan, the fast-paced story brings everything you love about a hard-hitting film, and takes it up a notch with a cast of eccentric characters and a few good laughs.
To chat more about the feature, Hartnett sat down with Metro to delve into the preparation and filming that went into it all.
What pulled you in about this film?
James [Madigan] came on a little after I did, but it was a mutual appreciation. I’ve known a lot of people that he’s worked with and they all had really nice things to say about him. And he’s originally a theater director, then he started doing visual effects, then he started doing second unit action and second unit directing on a bunch of big films. So he had this toolkit that was completely unique and exactly suited to this film. I knew that he would be the right person if he had the right interest in it, if he had a good take.
His initial take was that he felt like he wanted the action sequences to be like musical sequences in a musical, where the characters learn something or something changes over the course of the song. So it’s not like these action sequences are just plugged in there to satisfy something for the audience. They actually have a greater effect on the storyline and on the character arcs. I love that—everything should be character-based.
When you’re talking about a film like this, obviously the action stuff will be there, but if it’s not relatable and if it doesn’t feel like it’s coming from somewhere in the characters, you don’t have any skin in the game. It was an amazing directorial debut. It’s a lot to pull off and he was able to create such a unique tone, and the humor was the other thing that it needed—and I think it’s really funny.
Since he came from a unique background in that sense, what else stood out to you about James’ direction?
He really looked at character first and how character would affect the story going forward and the action. Part of it was we knew we had this limited space that we had to be inventive with [for]the action sequences. And those limitations would add to the unique quality of the film. He had to be game to not try to change the nature of what it is, which is literally on a plane.
But we had to also add some elements that would make it a little bit more stylized and a little bit more absurd. We knew that the tone had to go in a certain direction for it to really work. And it does take off—it gets to a point where obviously you’re not in Kansas anymore. It’s a little bit wild.
Since it’s so character-based, how would you describe your character?
Lucas is an ex-military secret service guy. He’s been betrayed and stranded for a long period of time in Bangkok. And this is his opportunity to get back into the world, to get out of this trap that he’s been in. And it presents itself in a way that is really not expected. His ex-girlfriend makes this offer to him, and he’s got to deliver this package—which is a person on this plane—and he doesn’t know who it is.
But then it turns out that everybody knows that this package—this person—is there and everybody wants that person, because it’s a very lucrative thing to have. So the plane is filled with mercenaries and he’s got to fight his way out.
I saw you opted to do all the stunts on this film—what does that bring to your experience? Why do it all?
Why not? Yeah, I mean, it’s very difficult, but doing very difficult things is rewarding. And when it works, you’re working with a team of people that are at the very top of their game and they’re teaching you things that you would never learn otherwise. So for me, I look at opportunities like this as an incredible gift. You’re not going to get a crash course in MMA fighting from some of the best MMA fighters in the world unless you do something like this. So it’s a real privilege.
Do any stunts stand out to you as being particularly challenging or surprising from the film?
Well, the whole thing was fun. I got hurt a lot because I am in my forties, and that’s not easy to do. But they were all pretty much superficial things and I was able to recover and get back up and do the film the next day because we had a very limited time to shoot this—about 25 days.
That’s incredibly unusual to try and shoot a movie with this much action in that amount of time, and yet to make it look so stylized and beautiful. We had a great team around us and the thing that really kind of stuck out to me is that everybody on the team was game to make this the best possible version it could be. And nobody was there for the money. Everybody was there for the ingenuity, for the creativity of it and the fun of it. And I think that shows in the movie.
It does. Even in some of the shots in the enclosed setting of the plane, you could see that everyone had to get creative.
A lot of it was the DOP (Director of Photography) who was operating the camera himself. [He] was just a part of the choreography, he had to slide in between fights that were happening and he had to jump over airplane seats and things had to be removed in front of him so he’d get the shot as it was happening. So it was this giant dance that was occurring in order to make these shots work. Everything had to go exactly right for it to happen, and to have nobody get hurt. Luckily, that’s how it worked out.
In a world full of action films, how does ‘Fight or Flight’ stand out to you?
It’s good. There are a lot of films that are trying to achieve a tone like this that just can’t—and Jim pulled something off here that is really, really difficult to pull off. It’s not like people don’t try to make films like this all the time. They do, but they can’t. Jim can. And I think for a directorial debut, it’s phenomenal. I’m really happy with the product and I think people are going to see it and be truly entertained. And that doesn’t happen very often. All laurels to Jim Madigan and his future career…I think he’s going to blow some people’s minds.
‘Fight or Flight‘ is now showing in theaters.
