Why is “Fight or Flight” rated R? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “strong bloody violence, language throughout and some drug material.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes many fight scenes that result in bloody injuries and death, including impaling, broken glass, and chainsaw injuries that create visible gore, a reference to a man with a sexual fetish for assaulting women, several people’s drinks being drugged, discussions of child slave labor and violent mercenary work, and 82 F-words and other strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

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Trying to redeem himself after professional disgrace, a former Secret Service agent (Josh Hartnett) boards a flight aiming to capture a mysterious hacker that’s on the plane. He soon discovers that the plane is full of bounty hunters seeking to kill his target. Also with Charithra Chandran, Katee Sackhoff and Julian Kostov. Directed by James Madigan. Several lines of dialogue are spoken in Thai and Spanish without translation. [Running Time: 1:42].

Fight or Flight SEX/NUDITY 2

 – A woman describes a man as having a fetish for “beating up young prostitutes” (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details). A woman says she was dating a man at the time they were working together, and she eventually betrayed him. A woman refers to a man as a “roguishly handsome blond.” A man gives a woman instructions on using a moisturizer and says, “I know it sounds a bit naughty,” as he explains how to apply it.
► A cab driver is shirtless (we see his bare shoulders); a man gets out of the cab and we see that the cab driver has given him his shirt.

Fight or Flight VIOLENCE/GORE 9

 – Massive fights break out on a plane in several scenes and people attack each other with punches, kicks, knives, hooks, and blunt instruments (we hear the blows and often see blood splatter). A man smashes a wine glass into a woman’s face; we see the glass embedded in her eye and the stem sticking out of her face as she screams and flails, attacking him, and he smashes the glass in deeper, killing her. A man’s head is impaled on a ceiling sprinkler; his body twitches and he then falls from the spike (blood sprays from the wound and we see the hole in his skull and brain tissue is visible on the sprinkler). A man is shot in the face with a flare gun and we see the flare embed in his eye as he screams. A woman shoots a man with a harpoon gun; we see the harpoon go through his torso and out his back, covered in blood. A woman throws a sharp hairpin into a man’s eye; we see it stick out and he collapses. A man attacks several people with a chainsaw: he stabs several people through the abdomen and saws several people’s limbs off (we see blood and viscera splatter), he chainsaws through a man’s head, creating a spray of blood and viscera, and a crowd of people scream. A man hallucinates during a violent fight, and we see frightening visuals, including a woman’s face morphing demon-like; he stabs a woman in the top of the head with a grappling hook and the wound sprays blood all over a nearby woman (the man sees this as sparks erupting from her head).
► During a fight between a man and a woman, she smashes his fingers in a door, shoves her thumb in his eye (we see a wound and hear him screaming) and smashes a glass coffee pot on his head, which shatters; she also smashes a heavy metal drawer on his head, killing him. A man shoves a metal drink cart into another man and we see blood splatter. A man strangles another man with a seatbelt; the strangled man’s face and mouth are bloody. A man kills several men using a broken bottle, stabbing them in the throat (blood sprays and we hear gagging and choking). Several people are shot in the head, and we see the bullet hole and blood. A man fires an automatic weapon and bullets strike several people; we see many bloody bullet wounds. A woman dives in front of a bullet to protect another woman and is struck and killed.
► During a knife fight, a man is stabbed in the abdomen; another man presses on the knife wound and he screams (we later see the wound and it oozes blood). A woman throws a dart, which stabs a man in the leg, and then tackles him to the ground (we see the dart stick out of his leg but do not see blood). A person breaks another person’s limb in several scenes and we see the limb bend in the wrong direction as the injured person screams. A man breaks another man’s neck and we hear the crack. A man kills a person using a seat back tray, smashing it repeatedly against their heads; we hear the impact and at times see blood splatter. A man grabs a woman from behind and attempts to stab her; she shoots him and he collapses.
► Two men fight in an airplane bathroom: they exchange punches and kicks, one man knees another in the face, smashes his head on a light fixture which shatters, and breaks a mirror with a punch (we see one man’s face dripping blood). A man steps on another man’s hand with his boot and the other man shouts in pain; the first man chokes the other man, wrapping his arm around his head. A woman and a man fight: she tries to stab him with a butter knife, he smashes a plate on her head, and she grabs his groin and twists and squeezes and he shouts in pain. A man holds another man at gunpoint, and the other man seizes the gun away and knocks him unconscious with it. A woman holds her abdomen in pain and we see blood soaking through her shirt; she tells a man she had an appendectomy, and he says, “Yeah, with a bullet.”
► A woman jumps on a man’s back and forces a plastic bag over his face. A wall of an airplane breaks open, leaving a hole, and several people are sucked through and launched outside while others struggle to hold on and scream and panic. A man has a flashback hearing sounds of violence in a hotel room and seeing a man assaulting a woman; the man pulls the woman’s hair and has his fist cocked back, she has blood and bruises on her face and she screams, as the observing man rushes forward and attacks the assaulting man punching him (off-screen) repeatedly. A man stabs another man with a fork; we don’t see the act but we see another passenger scream and panic.
► A man opens a trash chute and a dead body falls out; we see that the dead man’s throat is slit and bloody. We see blood drips in a trail along a sidewalk. Many bodies are seen in body bags being removed from a crime scene. Several dead bodies are shown piled in a room with blood visible on some of them. A man is seen with an injured face with cuts and bruises around his eye in many scenes. Flight attendants find the body of a murdered man; another man says, “I had to kill him, he made me”; they panic and he threatens to knock them out and zip-tie them if they cannot calm down.
► We see videos of violence on a large screen in an office in several scenes; we see explosions, shootings during a covert operation, and a woman passing out with a bloody face after implied torture. We see images of news articles about bombings and terrorism in a few scenes. People discuss the bounties and hits put out on other people in several scenes.
► People discover that their drinks have been drugged in several scenes causing them to stumble and fall; in one scene, a man knocks over glasses and they shatter and in another scene, a drugged man gasps for air and collapses dead. A man wakes up in a makeshift hospital, bandaged and injured; there is shouting and gunfire outside, and a wall of the hospital explodes.
► A man hands a woman a gun and tells her to hide it; she panics that it will go off and he says the safety is on. A child attempts to steal money and a bottle of alcohol from a sleeping man; the man wakes and grabs the boy’s wrist, curses, and the boy looks frightened until the man eventually releases him, uninjured, and the boy runs away. A man throws his phone against the pavement in rage and it breaks. A woman is on the phone with a man when a fight breaks out, and over the phone we hear the sounds of punching and screaming.
► A man screams at a woman on the phone, “[F-word deleted] you and die.” A woman tells a man that they are similarly “cutthroat,” and that they would both “sell our kids to get ahead.” A woman tells a man that a certain escape plan is “a death trap” and “suicide,” and he responds that he’s “dead anyway.” A man tells a woman she is “stitching a parachute together as we fall from the sky.” Two pilots discuss what would happen if people begin killing each other on their flight; they say a disaster “could be quite good” for them and refer to Sully Sullenberger. A man says that he drugged another man with enough poison to “put down a horse.” A man tells a woman that in his life, he has been shot, stabbed, burned, and run over. A man is told to deliver someone alive and that they are wounded and bleeding, so they should be easier to find. A woman tells someone on the phone to “start torturing the vet,” who treated someone she is trying to find. A woman discusses blowing up an electronics factory because they were using child slave labor to build electronics. A woman discusses being an orphan and being sold into slavery; she tells a man, “It wasn’t what you think” and says warlords used her for her computer skills and cries as she says she was forced to “commit atrocities.”
► A poisoned man swallows soap until he vomits; we hear retching but do not see goo.

Fight or Flight LANGUAGE 10

 – About 82 F-words (about 10 of which appear written on a phone screen), 14 scatological terms, 16 anatomical terms, 9 mild obscenities, name-calling (crazy, deranged, hobo, psychopath, paranoid, dumb), 4 religious profanities (GD), 8 religious exclamations (e.g. God, oh my God, swear to God, Christ). | profanity glossary |

Fight or Flight SUBSTANCE USE

 – A woman uses CBD oil tincture placing the liquid from an eyedropper under her tongue, a man says he gave a panicking woman “an Ambien or four” (we see her unconscious), and a man takes what he thinks is adrenaline but turns out to be psychoactive toad venom (we see his resulting hallucinations in several scenes). A man chugs liquor and wine in many scenes and sometimes directly from the bottle leaving him seemingly inebriated or hungover, a child attempts to steal a bottle of alcohol from a man but does not keep it, a man pours whiskey in his coffee in the morning and when a woman looks at him judgmentally and he says he’s Irish, a woman tells a man he is going to die young because of how much he drinks and he says that she can sell his organs when he does to pay for his bar tab, a man remarks about drinking himself into an early grave, and a man who is visibly drunk and stumbling boards a plane and asks the staff for a drink. A child has a cigarette behind his ear and an adult takes it and smokes it.

Fight or Flight DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Bounty hunting, human trafficking, child slave labor, betrayal, digital crime and hacking, warlords, tech companies.

Fight or Flight MESSAGE

 – A conscience can be a man’s most powerful weapon.