So we come to part 2 of my action movie
countdown, beginning with film number 42. What will this bad boy be?
Check out after the jump for my next ten favourite action flicks....
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42. THE MECHANIC (1972) The Mechanic was
directed by the late Michael Winner, a man more famous now for his
fucking E-Sure adverts and not for bringing us awesome action film in
the the 70s like the brilliant Death Wish, the spy-tastic Scorpio and
this hitman thriller starring Charles Bronson. Bronson plays master
assassin Arthur Bishop who takes the son of his former handler under
his wing to teach him the ways of the hitman. The film features some
great action scenes including a motorbike chase, a shootout on a
mountain road and a gun fight in a mansion. Winner got a lot of flack
for his movies but there's no denying what he lacked in quality he
made up in sheer entertainment value. The Mechanic was remade in 2011
starring Jason statham and while that film is actually pretty good,
the original just beats it due the awesome presence of Charles
Bronosn.
41. ASSAULT ON PRECINT 13 (1976) A lot of
people automatically link John Carpenter with horror and that's all
well and good as the man did give us classics like Halloween and The
Fog but he turned his hand to action more than a few times and this,
his first major theatrical film after the low budget space comedy
Dark Star, essentially follows the same plot as John Wayne's classic
western Rio Bravo. The follows a group of people, police and
criminals, holed up in a closing down police station under siege by a
ruthless street gang. It's an incredibly tense action film and
features some great action scenes. If you're a fan of Carpenter or
you're just getting into Carpenter's films, do your self a favour and
seek this film out immediately.
40. MAN ON FIRE (2004) Man On Fire is a
remake of a 1987 Scott Glenn film of the same name that follows a
former special ops soldier hired as a bodyguard for a young rich
girl. This update takes the action out of Italy and places it smack
dab in the middle of Mexico city and follows the kidnapping and
ransom of the young rich girl and the lost, depressed bodyguard who
discovers a reason to live, the reason being, to track down and
rescue the girl using assorted violent ways. Director Tony Scott
shoots the film with a constant adrenaline fuelled pace and for a
film that runs for nearly 2 and half hour, it really zips by, this
could be due to Denzel Washington's performance and the trippy ADD
style editing that Scott employs throughout the film, either way Man
On Fire is a contained action film on a massive scale and well worth
your time.
39. FROM PARIS WITH LOVE (2010) The second
film on my countdown from writer Luc Besson and director Pierre
Morel, From Paris With Love is fucking nuts from minute one to minute
92, featuring a gonzo performance by John Travolta as the FBI's most
talented agent, Charlie Wax. This film is almost on par with the
Crank movies for full on straight up action which feature a gun
battle in a Chinese restaurant, a warehouse, a housing estate, a foot
chase across roofs, a car chase along a massive freeway, a totally
WTF spit water everywhere moment and an RPG freeway explosion. It's
92 minutes of bang bang boom boom and it's so much fucking fun.
Totally worth your time. For more of my thoughts on this film, I
reviewed it a few weeks back the link is on the front page of the
website....
38. TAKEN (2009) Whats this? Another
Besson/Morel production one after another? Well Taken is the sort of
film which should have flopped, it contains a generic revenge movie
plot, evil middle eastern villains that are constantly portrayed in
movies and the man who played Oscar Schindler and Darkman as a 50
year old former CIA agent but you what happened? It didn't flop
because it was fucking AWESOME!, who'd have thought Liam Neeson could
bring the pain in such an effective way. We watch Liam as he
literally kills France while trying to find his kidnapped daughter,
fucking up an killing anyone who gets in his way. Had the film
starred someone else in the role of Brian Mills, I don't think it
would have succeeded as well as it did, Neeson is the reason to watch
Taken, he's the reason it made so much money and he's a fucking
revelation in the role. It's violent, sadistic and that speech, it's
become Iconic. So much awesomeness in one film, however the sequel,
aptly named Taken 2 is a big old bag of wank.
37. SUDDENT DEATH (1995) Our first Van
Damme film of the countdown and it features the muscles from Brussels
as a disgraced firefighter turned Fire safty officer for a large Ice
hockey arena that comes under terrorist control during the Stanley
Cup final, however Van Damme is no ordinary firefighter, he's a
highly trained martial artist and when his daughter is taken and held
hostage in the presidential booth, Van Damme goes into Dammage mode
and starts kicking some serious ass. The fight with penguin mascot
alone is worth the price of admission but the films biggest win is
the casting of Powers Booth as the leader of the terrorists. What we
essentially have here is an almost direct clone of Die Hard only this
die hard is set at a hockey arena, but because the film is so fun and
so action packed you can easily look past the similarities and enjoy
Sudden Death for what it is, full on Popcorn action Van Dammage
awesomeness.
36. THE BIG HIT (1998) Trace Buster
buster!!!! Oh man, if you haven't seen The Big Hit do your self a
favor, stop reading this and go and watch it. Have you watched it?
Good. The Big Hit, directed by Kirk Wong and produced by John Woo
follows master assassin Melvin Smiley and his team of co-horts
including a fucking awesome Lou Diamond Philips, Bookeem Woodbine and
Antonio Sabato Jr who moonlight by kidnapping the daughter of a rich
Chinese businessman, problems arise when the daughter turns out to be
the god daughter of their boss, Lou blames Melvin for the kidnapping
and double crosses him which puts a hit on melvin that lou has to do.
All the action centers around the day Melvin's girlfriends incredibly
Jewish parents are visiting. The film is a hoot from start to finish
and to this day is still insanely quotable. The Action scenes are
also very well handled especially the open hotel hit which wouldn't
be out of place in a film like Hard Boiled or The killer. Watch this
film!
35. FLED (1996) Fled is essentially an
update of the 1958 Tony Curtis film, The Defiant Ones. Fled follows
prisoners, Lawrence Fishburn and Stephen Baldwin who escape a chain
gang and go on the run, but not all is as it seem because Fishburn is
an undercover cop placed on the chain gang to help Baldwin escape to
lead Fishburn to a disc containing some information that could be
damaging to a Cuban Crime boss. Fishburn and Baldwin come up against
corrupt U.S Marshals, Cuban Hitmen and the local PD in their race
against time. Fled is pure awesome. Action packed and pretty funny,
it's one of my sick day films, when I'm ill, on goes Fled, Baldwin is
surprisingly good compared to some of the roles he had (massive
Bio-Dome fan here) and Fishburn, before he raided the pie shop, is a
very creditable action star. Fled is just a fun a fuck movie and I
love it.
34. FAST 5 (2011) This was the point in
which The Fast And Furious series decided to slowly move away from
focusing on the street racing culture that had dominated the series
since the first film. Instead of car racing, which still does feature
a bit in the film, Fast 5 decided to up the ante and cast Dwayne
Johnson in the role of Interpol Agent Luke Hobbs, the man tasked with
tracking down Dominic Torretto and Brian O'Connor, doing so brought
in the element of shooting people and massive car chases turning the
series into one the most profitable action franchises since Rambo
first strapped on his red bandanna. Fast 5 brought us foot chases
along the rooftops of a Rio favella, a massive gun battle on the
streets of Rio followed by one the most insanely choreographed and
practically shot car chases ever shot on film. Fast 6 followed and
upped the action even more but it was Fast 5 that took the tired
series and gave it a new lease of life.
33. FIRST BLOOD (1981) While first blood
does only contain one death and that death is from a rock being
thrown, the pacing and action sequences alone make First Blood one of
the most influential action movies of all time, it pretty much
started the whole 80s muscle and guns genre which brought us action
stars like Schwarzenegger and Willis. John Rambo is a vietnam vet, a
man alone in a world where he's treated like scum, while passing
through a small town he comes up against local Sheriff Brian Dennehy
who drives him out of town. Rambo ignores the warnings and turns back
to the town. He's arrested and suffers from intense Nam flash backs
which puts him into berserker mode, stealing a motorbike and heading
to the forest. The cops pursue but they're not ready for rambo who is
a highly trained special forces operative trained in jungle warfare
and he gives them a war they won't forget. Stallone is incredible in
this first film in the Rambo saga and he's equally matched by Dennehy
and Richard Crenna as Rambo's former commanding officer, it's less
about the action and more about a man trying to survive and matched
with an incredible score by Jerry Goldsmith and some taut faced paced
direction from Ted Kotchef, First Blood is one of the best damn
action films ever made.
Stay tuned for part 3 coming
shortly....
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