Bullet Plane

When I got Fight or Flight (2024), the only thing I knew was that it was "Bullet Train on an airplane." I just didn't realize how literally to take that.

The premise is that an international hacker terrorist called the Ghost is getting on a plane from Bangkok to San Francisco, with a McGuffin. But the government doesn't have any agents in Thailand, so they can't get anyone on hte plane in time. They have to re-activate drunk, disgraced agent Josh Hartnett, by promising him a legit passport.

Recognize the setup? Female agent activates cute but unconventional agent for assassination mission? Hartnett is even styled to look a little like Brad Pitt. 

To cut to the chase, when he gets on the plane, he discovers that everyone on the plane is either the Ghost, or trying to kill the Ghost, for the John-Wick-style bounty. Mayhem ensues. 

I don't think I need to go into any more detail. You get the idea. It was a fun ride, maybe not quite Bullet Train level. If you loved that, you'll at least like this. 

Falcon Cresting

Working my way through random Michael Jai White movies, I came across Falcon Rising (2014). It it is set in Brazil and White has some capoeira-adjacent skills, I figured it was a good bet.

White is a troubled veteran. He plays a complicated game of Russian roulette, and survives. Low on liquor, he heads to a local party store, which inevitably gets held up. When confronted, he holds the robber's gun to his heart and demands that he shoot. When the robbers won't kill him, he gets impatient, beats them up, pays for his booze with their money and leaves.

He meets with his sister, who has been down in Brazil, doing social work in the favelas. A while after she leaves, he is contacted by old Army buddy, now State Dept guy, Neal McDonough (white haired baddy from Arrow), His sister has been beaten into a coma, and they haven't caught the people who did. So White heads for Brazil.

There he meets Millie Ruperto, a beat cop in the favela who uses community policing methods, and Jimmy Navarro, a tough talking officer who pledges to do whatever it takes to find White's sister's killer. In one scene, White's PTSD is triggered by a loud noise, and he gabs Roperto's gun, triggering an armed standoff between the police and the favela gangs. Navarro defuses it by offering to fight the biggest guy in the gang, one on one. Ths is a decent fight scene with a capoeira flavor. 

Unfortunately, there aren't as many of these as you might want. White has a number of fights, but I didn't find them to be his best. There were a lot of chases, some gunfights, etc. It was a fine action movie, and White's power and charisma shone through, but the actual fight choreography didn't impress me. 

In the end, Nick Fury Neal McDonough invites White to join the Falcon Project, to become a deniable loose cannon for the State Dept. This would set up a series of sequels. SPOILER - never happened. 

Haunting Presence

While looking for some other DVD, I discovered an unopened copy of The Haunted Palace (1963), a Roger Corman/Vincent Price movie supposedly based on an Edgar Allen Poe story, but mostly a version of Lovecraft's Case of Charles Dexter Ward. 

It starts in colonial days in Arkham MA, with Vincent Price using hypnotic powers to get young women under his power for some hideous purpose. The townspeople, including Elisha Cook Jr., and Bruno VaSoto, drag him out, tie him to a tree and burn him alive. He cursed the town and its people, unto the last generation, and promised to return.

One hundred ten years later, Price, a descendant of the burnt witch and his bride Debra Paget come to Arkham in a coach. They have inherited the great palace that the witch lived in - although it has been uninhabited the entire time (?). They stop in a pub where they meet some of the hostile locals, including descendants of the witchburners. They advise him to leave, then when they find out that he has inherited the haunted palace, they get really nasty. The doctor, Frank Maxwell, is at least friendly, but also suggests that they leave and don't look back. But Price refuses to leave without at least looking at his palace.

When they arrive, they find it in pretty good shape. That's because caretaker Lon Chaney Jr. has been alerted to their presence and has made preparations. It makes the creepy place a little homier. And the mad painting of the original owner is disturbingly familiar. Done in a vaguely van Gogh style, it had a bit of the Ivan Albright (Picture of Dorian Gray) creepieness.

At first, Price agrees with Paget that they should leave as soon as possible, but the place begins to grow on him. Soon, he is talking like the old witch reborn. And what is in the mysterious tank in the deep dungeon? Some ancient aquatic abomination? 

I felt like this is on of the best of the Price/Corman/Poe (?) pictures. The cast is good (Paget wasted?), and the sets/art direction as well. But after a few days, I wonder if this is recency bias - I guess I have to do a rewatch.

In conclusion, I was pleased that the evil Price never lusted after his good self's wife. In fact the only time he made advances was to terrify her into leaving him alone.