10 Key Titles in Action Cinema

With Stallone’s Expendables sequel blasting its way onto our screens this summer and The Raid introducing director Gareth Evans and star Iko Uwaiswas as names to watch, 2012 could be a significant year for action movies. 

So here I present ten movies that helped shape the genre.

1. The Wild Bunch (1969)

 

Famously using more blank rounds than during the entire actual Mexican Revolution of 1914, The Wild Bunch is modern cinema’s first example of total balls-out shooting mayhem.  Events culminate in a Gatling gun, six-shooter and rifle orgy of violence as the dusty landscape is painted blood red. 

Legacy:  The level of violence displayed onscreen; any action movie that climaxes in a massive shoot-out (that’s all of them, then).

Fun fact:  The climatic gun battle sequence took 12 days to film.   

2. Dirty Harry (1971)

 The Clint Eastwood-starring iconic police procedural is a benchmark for one man and his gun powerhouse cinema:  in a world where he can’t rely on his fellow cops to keep the streets clean, Inspector Harry Callahan has to take his sideburns and Smith & Wesson Model 29 and do the dirty work of testing punks’ luck all by himself.

Legacy:  Cop-orientated fare like Lethal Weapon; a vigilante taking care of things His Way such as in The Crow; Keanu Reeves discarding his badge at the end of Point Break.

Fun fact:  The movie was loosely based on the real-life current case of the Zodiac Killer in San Francisco, made into a more straight-up thriller in David Fincher’s Zodiac.

3. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

Indy’s dabbles into the realms of child kidnapping, possession and human heart extraction were, strangely, at odds with the family-friendly PG rating in the US, and thus the first Jones sequel is attributed with introducing the PG-13.  For the UK, see the fuss over Spiderman (2002) and the 12A, although The Bourne Identity was the first film to receive the new classification.

Legacy:  Watered down action movies ever since, but especially in the last ten years.

Fun fact:  Temple of Doom is the only film in the saga where Indy tries to sacrifice his love interest to an ancient Hindu Goddess.

4. Commando (1985)

Col. John Matrix’s (Arnold Schwarzenegger) daughter Chenny is kidnapped by evil vaguely South American types for some unimportant reason, resulting in the big guy tracking her down and playing a real life version of those classic shoot-the-screen arcade games with a never-ending succession of extras sporting invisible targets.

Legacy:  The one-man killing machine; the cementing of Arnie as an action legend.

Fun fact:  Future star Bill Paxton has a cameo as a coastguard.

5. Lethal Weapon (1987)

Mel Gibson is the suicidal loner ying to Danny Glover’s family-man yang in this classic, and decidedly dark, chalk and cheese cops comedy-thriller.

Legacy:  Too many mis-matched buddy-buddy movies to mention, some good (The Last Boy Scout, Bad Boys) some painful (the Rush Hour series).

Fun fact:  Gibson’s anguished performance as Martin Riggs earned him a stab at playing the original tormented soul in Franco Zeffirelli’s adaptation of Hamlet.

6. Die Hard (1988)

Blue collar copper John McClane (Bruce Willis) evades Alan Rickman’s group of Euro-scum terrorists who have taken over his wife’s office building, saving both the day and his marriage.  All whilst barefoot.

Legacy:  The ‘Die Hard on a…’ sub-genre:  any film featuring hostages and their liberation by one brave hero. See Under Siege (train), Speed (bus), The Rock (disused off-shore prison), etc.

Fun fact:  TV star Willis wasn’t deemed famous enough to have his mug on early posters of the movie, which instead focused on its principal building, the distinctive Nakatomi Plaza (really LA’s Flox Plaza).

7. Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)

The return of Arnie’s (almost) indestructible cyborg wasn’t rendered any less potent by him being the good guy, thanks to the sinister efforts of the eye-bogglingly effective ‘liquid metal’ T-1000 and director James Cameron’s liberal doses of top class chases and gun fights.

Legacy:  The film broke the boundaries of the use of special effects in thrill-flicks, and even today you can’t see the joins.

Fun fact:  Was the most expensive movie of its time.

8. Hard Boiled (1992)

‘Bullet ballet’; ‘an orgy of violence’; ‘heroic bloodshed’ – all terms used to describe John Woo’s last Hong Kong flick before his foray into Hollywood.  The Killer is the superior movie, but for sheer unadulterated carnage it doesn’t get much better than this particular example of Chow Yun-Fat jumping around holding two guns and blasting holes into everybody.  

Legacy:  Hollywood had seen the future of action, and it came from the East.  The bar had been raised.

Fun fact:  The climatic hospital shoot-out includes a two minutes, forty-two seconds single take sequence.  And it’s bloody brilliant.

9. The Matrix (1999)

Hacker Neo discovers that our existence on Earth is really a dream world and we are being harvested by a non-friendly alien species.  Only one thing to do then, and it involves ‘guns, lots of guns.’

Legacy:  Bullet time, a new physics-bending way to film action sequences. Something original for the first time in ages, even if the novelty wore off pretty quickly.

Fun fact:  The sequels are crap.

10. Rambo (2008)

Stallone drags his weary, rubber-faced John Rambo back into the battlefield.  Heads, arms, legs and plenty of other things that don’t usually detach go flying.  Complete nonsense in the best possible way.

Legacy:  So far this this splatter fest hasn't seen a return to Eighties style ultra-violence (boo!), but certainly it showed modern audiences that the old boys could still have some gas in the tank.

Fun fact:  Working titles included the enticing Rambo: To Hell And Back and the somewhat muddled Rambo: First Blood Part IV.

10 Best Director/Actor Partnerships

One simple caveat:  they must have done five or more films together.  Let’s go!

10. Ridley Scott & Russell Crowe

Gladiator (2000), A Good Year (2006), American Gangster (2007), Body of Lies (2008), Robin Hood (2010) 

A good start, of course – but then they made A Good Year.  Not sure who thought that putting one of Hollywood’s most intense leading men together with one of its most heavy-handed helmers to make a lightweight knockabout comedy was a wise move.  American Gangster doesn’t do much wrong, but is completely forgettable, which is the best thing you could say about… what was it called? Body of Evidence, or something?  A return to the sort of film they did best was welcome, but Crowe does make a distractingly mature Robin Hood.

9. Richard Donner & Mel Gibson

Lethal Weapon (1987), Lethal Weapon 2 (1989), Lethal Weapon 3 (1992), Maverick (1994), Conspiracy Theory (1997), Lethal Weapon 4 (1998)

Not sure which is harder to believe – that Gibson used to be an A-list leading man, or that he was once known as a strictly Catholic family man.  Either way, it was Donner who got the most out of the Australian to make audiences flock to see those blue eyes and that peerless mullet; and in Lethal Weapon’s Martin Riggs they took a superb Shane Black script and created an action hero who was a lot more complex and unpredictable than his contemporaries.  After peaking with charm-fest Maverick, things tapered off, and neither star nor director has been the same since.

8. Tim Burton & Johnny Depp

Edward Scissorhands (1990), Ed Wood (1994), Sleepy Hollow (1999), Corpse Bride (2005), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), Alice in Wonderland (2010), Dark Shadows (2012)

I admire and respect, rather than relish and enjoy, the output of these two.  As a director, Burton preferences visuals and quirkiness over story and character too much for my likings; as a star, Johnny is always just Johnny despite (and despite how much people like to go on about) how eclectic his oeuvre is.  But there’s no denying that as a team they have been responsible for some of the most memorable off-centre cinema of the last two decades, peaking with the hilarious and affecting Ed Wood.

7. Woody Allen & Diane Keaton

Play It Again, Sam (1972), Sleeper (1973), Love and Death (1975), Annie Hall (1977), Manhattan (1979), Interiors (1978), Radio Days (1987), Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993),

A big part of the ‘early funny ones’ (with the exception of the dour Interiors), Keaton’s breezy charm was a counterpoint to Allen’s neurosis – never better than in Oscar-magnet Annie Hall, of course.  But her influence in early farces Sleeper and Love and Death, when Allen was still finding his feet as a writer/director, cannot be underestimated either.  In later times Woody turned to Mia Farrow and a succession of other leading ladies to carry his films (Mira Sorvino, Jennifer Tilly, Radha Mitchell, Scarlett Johansson…) but none have proved as mutually beneficial as the original Miss Hall.

6. John Woo & Chow Yun-Fat

A Better Tomorrow (1986), A Better Tomorrow II (1987), The Killer (1989), Once a Thief (1991), Hard Boiled (1992)

A toothpick chewing Yun-Fat brandishing two pistols and blasting through hoards of triads without breaking a sweat is one of the truly iconic images of modern cinema.  It took the outrageous direction of Woo to take Chow out of cheesy Hong Kong comedy thrillers and into pure iconography via the first two A Better Tomorrow movies and the peak of both their careers, The Killer.  Simply put, when they work together it is pure action alchemy.

5. Tony Scott & Denzil Washington

Crimson Tide (1995), Man on Fire (2004), Déjà Vu (2006), The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009), Unstoppable (2010)

After a decade’s gap between first working together on superior Simpson/Bruckheimer thriller Crimson Tide, it’s seemed in the noughties that these two can’t make a movie without each other.  All the technical riffs and gimmicks of Scott’s less-than-subtle direction need a strong figure to ground the movie that’s buried somewhere underneath, and few have as steady a presence as Denzil.  After peaking with the brilliantly over-the-top Man on Fire, the duo produced a couple of duds, but were back on form with Washington now playing the grizzled veteran to a new young hot shot, Chris ‘Captain Kirk’ Pine in Speed rip-off (in a good way) Unstoppable.

4. Joel/Ethan Coen & Frances McDormand

Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), Miller’s Crossing (1990), Fargo (1996), The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001) Burn After Reading (2008),

The Coen boys have re-used a number of actors in their flicks:  John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, John Tuturro, Jon Plito.  McDormand (Mrs. Joel Coen) is their most frequent collaborator, ranging from a breakout performance in neo-noir Blood Simple to her hilarious turn as cosmetic surgery-coveting gym bunny Linda Litzke in the farcical Burn After Reading.  But it’s her Oscar-winning turn as Marge Gunderson in Fargo that really stands out, acting as the warm centre of a story inhabited by distinctly cold characters in icy climes.

3. John Carpenter & KurtRussell

Elvis (1979), Escape from New York (1981), The Thing (1982), Big Trouble in Little China (1986), Escape from L.A. (1996)

Carpenter chaperoned ex-Disney child star Russell through four iconic, wildly varied roles.  He gives one of the best screen portrayals of the King (returned to in a bit of stunt casing twenty years later for 3000 Miles to Graceland) and channels Clint Eastwood for Escape from New York and John Wayne for Big Trouble in Little China, with surly pilot R.J. MacReady sandwiched in the middle.  And then the pair went and made Escape from L.A.  Pity.

2. Steven Soderbergh & George Clooney

Out of Sight (1998), Ocean's Eleven (2001), Solaris (2002), Ocean's Twelve (2004), The Good German (2006), Ocean's Thirteen (2007)                 

Cary Grant had Alfred Hitchcock, and George Clooney has Steven Soderbergh.  Both did a lot of good for each other with their first collaboration, the fantastic Out of Sight, which gave Soderbergh the hit that his Palme d’Or-winning debut Sex, Lies and Videotape had promised nearly a decade earlier and rescued Clooney from the crash and burn of (shudder) Batman & Robin.  Solaris was George’s first attempt to stretch himself in a fully ‘serious’ role, and the Oceans films gave them both a franchise strong enough to recover from the disappointment of The Good German.

1. Martin Scorsese & Robert De Niro

Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), New York, New York (1977), Raging Bull (1980), The King of Comedy (1983), Goodfellas (1990), Cape Fear (1991), Casino (1995)

I do so hate to be predictable, but really it couldn’t have been anyone else, could it?  Never before or since has there been such a holy matrimony of star and director working together in tandem at the top of their respective games.  The movies are as iconic as the lead characters (or show-off support in the case of Mean Streets’ Johnny), and that many of their films regularly make best-ever lists is a testament to duo's combined prowess.  As a footnote, Marty seems to have dumped Bobby for his new favourite, Leo – one more film together would have made them eligible for this list.

BWD – Bruce Willis

A look at the Best, the Worst, and the most Different (for better or worse) of the enduringly iconic action veteran’s resume.

Best

Die Hard (1988)

Much has been written about Bruce’s breakthrough role, of course.  All I’ll add here is that if Russell Crowe – talented as he is, don’t get me wrong – can win an Oscar for Gladiator, an action movie with sandals, then Bruce should have at least been nominated for his towering work in the Nakatomi tower.

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Though it now reads like a who’s who of ‘90s casting (Stoltz, Roth, Rhames, Plummer, Arquette) and was the breakthrough for legend-in-waiting Samuel L. Jackson, the best piece of casting in Tarantino’s sophomore effort was our Bruce.  Comeback-wise, Travolta had to rise above worse (four words: Look Who’s Talking Now), but Willis had suffered a dip in popularity – via bombs like The Bonfire of the Vanities, Striking Distance and Hudson Hawk – that threatened to crash his movie star credibility when it was just taking flight.  As Butch Coolridge, Bruce is tough, wounded, sardonic and sensitive (the unexpectedly tender bedroom scene with Maria de Mederios) in turn, but it’s towards the end of ‘The Gold Watch’ vignette that a star is re-born. 

Having escaped from his gimp-suited guard, Butch has his hand on the front door knob, but hesitates.  In a moment of clarity, he realises that even though Marcelles Wallace was shooting at him earlier that morning, he is his brother in arms, and Butch can’t take his own freedom without going back for his comrade.  So he goes through his weapon options, and picks an antique samurai sword, giving the screen an image of bloody and beaten one-man redemption to rival any of John McClain’s best moments.  Welcome back, Bruce.

 

Twelve Monkeys (1995)

I remember reading an interview Willis did for Pulp Fiction where he said that he was sick of running around holding a gun, and wanted to stretch himself further as an actor.  Whilst subsequent releases like The Fifth Element, The Jackal, Tears of The Sun and Hostage (not to mention Last Man Standing, 16 Blocks, Die Hard 4.0, R.E.D, G.I. Joe: Retaliation…) have rendered this declaration void, he did go through a late ‘90s hands-free period that produced his strongest performances.  His turn as time traveller James Cole sees him vulnerable, confused and alone, and brought a depth of performance that had barely been hinted at before.  Brad Pitt’s showier turn got a Best Supporting Actor nom, whereas Bruce was typically, and unfairly, overlooked.

The Sixth Sense (1999)

Willis has always been good with child actors.  Sandwiched between his kiddie-centric roles in Mercury Rising and M. Night Shyamalan’s follow-up Unbreakable, Sixth Sense is Bruce’s best screen performance.  Quiet, mournful and with neigh a smirk in sight, it’s a testament to how he commands our attention that he stops the viewer from noticing what, on reflection, was a pretty sign-posted twist.  The gimmick value of the movie’s ending, as well as all the focus on man child-child Haley Joel Osment, meant that Bruce’s good work went largely unnoticed.       

Sin City (2005)

Frank Miller called Willis ‘his generation’s Humphrey Bogart’, and it’s hard to disagree.  Few other actors could have brought the same mixture of toughness and vulnerability to the role of betrayed and beleaguered cop John Hartigan, who has to be equally comfortable stomping a yellow paedo-freak’s face into the ground as struggling with polemic fatherly and erotic urges towards a suddenly developed Jessica Alba.  As in Pulp, Bruce stands out from a star-studded cast.

Worst

Hudson Hawk (1991)

Vanity projects are never a good thing:  they reek of smug self-indulgence and you always feel that they were having a lot more fun making the thing than you are watching it.  Hudson Hawk is one of the very worst, a charmless romp that resembles a hyperactive toddler as it runs all over the place, producing a lot of noise, making very little sense and exhausting all that keep its company.

Color of Night (1994)

Ever fancied seeing Bruce Willis’s penis?  Here’s your chance, as it makes a cameo appearance flopping about in the swimming pool during one of many tedious sex scenes with Jane Marsh in this woeful erotic thriller. Taking over a therapy group from murdered buddy Scott ‘Quantum Leap’ Bukula, psychiatrist Bruce has to figure who from a troubled line-up including the likes of Brad Dourif, Lance Henriksen, Lesley Ann Warren and Marsh in drag is really a killer.  Silly doesn’t begin to cover it.

Different

Death Becomes Her (1992)

Willis ditched his macho image just as he was cultivating it to go against the grain as wimpy plastic surgeon Ernest Menville, who spends the whole movie being manipulated by ageing divas Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep.  Willis lets the clown he had so far kept mostly within run free – if you can ignore Hudson Hawk, which is advisable – gurning his way through Robert Zemekis’ dated but fun screwball romp. One thing you can say about the man is that even this early in his career, only four years after Die Hard, he wasn’t afraid to send himself up.

 

10 Best Movie Casts

Forget your huge explosions and CGI extravaganzas – there is nothing more awe-inspiring to watch on screen than a great line up of famous actors bouncing off each other.  

This here list disregards ‘ensemble casts’ – movies that follow multiple storylines and are often somewhat cynically designed to sell on the strength of the line-up alone.  So recent efforts such as He’s Just Not That Into You, Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Day don’t count, and neither do all-star disaster flicks.  I also discounted multiple interlocking epic story type efforts, so much of Robert Altman and Paul Thomas Anderson’s output.  In short, no movie that feels like it’s trying to have a star-studded cast. Which also, sadly, rules out the Expendables films, which are heavily marketed around their gimmicky casts.

Each entry had to have at least ten names in the cast list that can legitimately be described as ‘recognisable’ – either by name or face.  So although I considered titles like Glengarry Glenn Ross, The Big Chill and Troy, for all their quality they simply don’t have the quantity.

So here’s the top ten (and a couple of special cases):

10. Top Gun (1986)  AKA ‘The 80s Special’




Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis,  Anthony Edwards, Meg Ryan, Val Kilmer, Rick Rossovich, Tom Skerritt, Michael Ironside, Tim Robbins, James Tolkan

See also: Silverado (1985)

9. The Departed (2006)  AKA ‘The Awards-baiter’

Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Vera Farmiga, Ray Winstone, Alec Baldwin, Anthony Anderson, David O'Hara

See also: JFK (1991)

8. Out of Sight (1998)  AKA ‘The Soderbergh Brigade’

George Clooney, Jennifer Lopez, Ving Rhames, Steve Zahn, Don Cheadle, Albert Brooks, Dennis Farina, Luis Guzmán, Isaiah Washington, Nancy Allen, Catherine Keener, Michael Keaton, Samuel L. Jackson

See also: Traffic (2000)

7. A Time to Kill (1996)  AKA ‘The Courtroom Collaboration.’

Matthew McConaughey, Sandra Bullock, Samuel L. Jackson,  Kevin Spacey,  Oliver Platt, Charles S. Dutton, Brenda Fricker, Donald Sutherland, Kiefer Sutherland, Patrick McGoohan, Ashley Judd, Chris Cooper, Kurtwood Smith, M. Emmet Walsh

See also: A Few Good Men (1992)

6. TrueRomance (1993)  AKA ‘The Tarantino Collection’

Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Michael Rapaport, Bronson Pinchot, Saul Rubinek, Dennis Hopper, James Gandolfini, Gary Oldman, Christopher Walken, Chris Penn, Tom Sizemore, Brad Pitt, Val Kilmer, Samuel L. Jackson

See also: Pulp Fiction (1994)

5. Enemy of the State (1998)  AKA ‘The Young Cast Showcase’

Will Smith, Gene Hackman, Barry Pepper, Ian Hart, Jake Busey, Scott Caan, Jason Lee, Jack Black, Jamie Kennedy, Seth Green, James LeGros, Gabriel Byrne, Philip Baker Hall, Jason Robards, Tom Sizemore, Jon Voight

See also: The Outsiders (1983)

4. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)  
AKA ‘The Fantasy Folio’

Viggo Mortensen, Elijah Wood, Sean Bean, Dominic Monaghan, Sean Astin, Ian McKellen, John Rhys-Davies, Orlando Bloom, Billy Boyd, Ian Holm, Liv Tyler, Hugo Weaving, Cate Blanchett, Andy Serkis, Christopher Lee

See also: any of the Harry Potter movies (2001–2011)

3. Heat (1995)  AKA ‘The Crime Spree’

Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer, Jon Voight, Tom Sizemore, Diane Venora, Amy Brenneman, Ashley Judd, Wes Studi, Ted Levine, Dennis Haysbert, William Fichtner, Natalie Portman, Tom Noonan, Hank Azaria, Jeremy Piven, Xander Berkeley, Mykelti Williamson

See also: Snatch (2000)

2. Mars Attacks (1996)  AKA ‘The Comic Ensemble’

Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Danny DeVito, Martin Short, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michael J. Fox, Rod Steiger, Tom Jones, Jim Brown, Lukas Haas, Natalie Portman, Pam Grier, Lisa Marie, Jack Black, Christina Applegate, Paul Winfield

See also: Tropic Thunder (2008)

And the winner is:

1. Sin City (2005)  AKA ‘The Rodriguez and Pals’

Mickey Rourke, Jaime King, Carla Gugino, Elijah Wood, Rutger Hauer, Josh Hartnett, Clive Owen, Benicio del Toro, Rosario Dawson, Michael Clarke Duncan, Alexis Bledel, Devon Aoki, Brittany Murphy, Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba, Nick Stahl, Powers Boothe, Michael Madsen, Nicky Katt

See also: Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003)

Honourable mentions

Ocean’s Twelve (2004)  AKA ‘The Love-in’

This would have certainly won, were it not for being firmly in the consciously-starry camp.  But it deserves recognition for being possibly the most smugly self-aware movie of all time, that Julia Roberts/’Julia Roberts’ skit alone being so brazenly arrogant that it’s actually quite charming in its audacity.

Brad Pitt, Catherine Zeta-Jones, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Andy Garcia, Casey Affleck

Scott Caan, Bernie Mac, Don Cheadle, Matt Damon, Carl Reiner, Eddie Jemison, Elliott Gould

Jared Harris, Vincent Cassel, Eddie Izzard, Robbie Coltrane, Albert Finney, Bruce Willis

See also: Ocean’s Eleven/Ocean’s Thirteen (2001/2007)

The Thin Red Line (1998)  AKA ‘The We’re-all-Brothers-in-War’

Again, without my selection criteria this would have been well up there.  But having every principal character be a soldier makes the actors (literally) too uniform, diluting their star power.  And they often feel like merely faces in the background anyway, as Terence Malick focuses his true attention on a tree, or an insect, or a blade of grass.

Sean Penn, Adrien Brody, Jim Caviezel, Ben Chaplin, George Clooney, John Cusack, Woody Harrelson, Elias Koteas, Jared Leto, Tim Blake Nelson, Nick Nolte, John C. Reilly, John Travolta, Thomas Jane, Miranda Otto, Nick Stahl

And a whole host of stars turned up on set, only to be cut from the final print:

Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Sheen, Gary Oldman, Bill Pullman, Lukas Haas,

Jason Patric, Viggo Mortensen, Mickey Rourke

See also: Black Hawk Down (2001)