You're never too smart for a dumb movie

Josh Hartnett, ‘Fight or Flight,’ and the pleasure of the unburdened mind

(Photo: Vertical Entertainment)

We’ll get to this slab of beady-eyed beef soon. But first …

A quick note

Last week, I looked at the Austin Chronicle’s 2025 Best of Austin nominations, and I cackled. I’m nominated for best columnist in the city for Turning Out! It was a cackle of excitement and disbelief that my gay little newsletter is in the running for something like this.

It would mean the world if you voted for me, and you can do that here. Ballots close at 11:59 p.m. on Monday, May 19. Tell all your friends! Democracy has never been more important.

Now, our feature presentation

I'm not going to tell you with a straight face that Josh Hartnett’s new movie “Fight or Flight” is subtly smart, or subversive, or particularly transcendent. It’s dumb. Box of rocks. A mercenary twists Josh’s balls mid-fight, next to the in-flight snacks.

But: It is a symphony of dumb.

Hartnett (6’3”) stars as a disavowed secret agent type named Lucas Reyes (don’t think about it), who’s hiding out in Bangkok and giving crisis-blond bleach jobs a good name. If he touched a breathalyzer, it would cry. He’s given a chance to reclaim his life by an old flame, who needs Lucas to board a plane and suss out a fugitive cyber-criminal called the Ghost.

Unfortunately, this is one of those planes where half of the passengers are assassins trying to kill you. Airline deregulation strikes again.

There's a certain kind of wit to director James Madigan’s thriller/comedy that you don't always see in, say, your average Jason Statham vehicle.¹ There is intent! Awareness! A comedic vocabulary! Exhibit A: Rogue agent Lucas Reyes’ government ID photo is just Hartnett’s headshot.

Perhaps more of a red carpet photo, but the point stands. (Photo: Vertical Entertainment)

Hartnett thrives in this chaos. Whatever casting director discovered his talent for uncorked mania, god bless. We must continue to lock this man in contained environments and let him kill people. It is so obviously his raison d'être, his spiritual gifting.

Remember “The Faculty”? Josh killing aliens in locked high school. Or “3o Days of Night”? Josh, vampires, blizzard-stricken small town. He even made a meal out of “Trap,” a film that’s just M. Night Shyamalan turning Take Your Daughter to Work Day into everyone else’s problem.

After scrolling through Letterboxd—and that’s on me—I was shocked to read so many scathing reviews of this thing. People … please, have some vision. This is going to play in the midnight movie repertory circuit someday. It's “Turbulence.” It's “Turbulence 3: Heavy Metal.” (I haven't seen “Turbulence 2.”) There are no higher intentions in “Fight or Flight” than to be a live action cartoon.

Look at him. He’s so happy to have something sharp. (Photo: Vertical Entertainment)

This film put me in touch with my inner-almost-not-a-child. He was 17 and drinking sugar-free Red Bull. Aqua Reef-scented Old Spice sat thick in the air. He seemed convinced that he could probably win a fistfight under the right conditions. I didn’t bring it up. He just said that unprompted.

We need movies like “Fight or Flight”—full of goofy, gleeful, adolescent creativity. Cruel movies, or cynically empty ones? Save your disdain for those. Hollywood just spent roughly the GDP of Thailand to turn Harrison Ford into a CGI Kool-Aid Man. If we’re going to re-do the 1930s, sociopolitically speaking, we might as well get the same good escapism that they got in the Depression.

“Fight or Flight” is that kind of entertainment. It only demands your joy. You board this plane to see ligaments subvert expectations and limbs improvise exciting new shapes. Weapons—broken glass, a drink cart, a chainsaw—materialize as the situation requires. The film’s assorted murderers spawn into the aisles using “The Warriors” logic. Why is one gang of killers themed after Mormon missionaries? Eat your popcorn. Giggle. Gasp. Groan.

That’s pookie. (Photo: Vertical Entertainment)

I am feeling way too defensive about this thing. Sorry. It's just that I imprinted on Josh Hartnett in “Pearl Harbor” right as I hit puberty. He wears slutty little pajamas in this movie. Sugar-free Red Bulls are on me.

One rad thing

When a song returns to your rotation months, even a year after you first playlisted it … I can think of no higher praise. That’s what I’m currently doing with “Into Your Room” by Holly Humberstone & MUNA.

This is a rework of the track of the same name from Humberstone’s 2023 album, “Paint My Bedroom Black.” I have not listened to the original, and I’ll level with ya, I’m probably not gonna.

As with so many songs, I was drawn into this proverbial room by the sheer lesbian magnetism of MUNA. Katie Gavin makes the pathetic longing of this song sound cool. It’s wry, yearning, and pulsing with moonlit synths.

Mood board: train rides in a strange city, the blue light from a TV, distress about what you once wrote on LiveJournal.

Outbox

“The Righteous Gemstones” should have been precisely my bag, yet I never made it appointment TV. Always enjoyed watching! But the subject matter felt a little too raw for me, even if its TBN-style church dynasty wasn’t quite the style of holy rolling with which I grew up. However, my heart belongs to Judy Gemstone.

The family’s amoral, insecure, rage-stepped sister, played by Edi Patterson, was the best kind of comedy character, one beamed in from another dimension, prone to uttering combinations of words that had hitherto never existed.

On the heels of the series finale of “The Righteous Gemstones,” writer Brian Grubb gave Judy a right proper tribute for Vulture. Read it here.

…

If Parris Goebel choreographed it, you should watch it. Such is the power of the music videos for Justin Bieber’s “Sorry” and “What Do You Mean?” Bieber has little to do with that; you’d still stan if they were Ethel Merman songs. Goebel also choreographed Lady Gaga’s “Abracadabra” music video and her recent Coachella performance. So, step-ball-change with a quickness right into Vanity Fair’s interview with the choreographer to the stars. Read it here.

…

The New York Times’ Julia Moskin just wrote a fun story about “The color-drenched cult of Le Creuset.” Read it here. Help me complete my set—I only have one of the Vancouver Mugs so far, in the “Flame” colorway—here. The Heritage Loaf Pan would be a great place to start, but I’m not picky. Use your best judgement!

More Turning Out

1. I say this as an avowed fan of the “Crank” franchise.