MY PERSONAL TOP 52 ACTION MOVIES PART 3: 32-23

So yesterday saw my countdown of my personal top 52 action movies and we wnt from 52 to 33, today we continue counting down with some epic movies of epic awesomeness starting with 32 right after the jump.

32. SAFE (2012) Jason Statham kicks ass as the former cop turned cage fighter turned homeless bum who returns to NYC after a few years away. He saves a little Chinese girl from a group of Russian Gangsters and discovers she knows a code that the Chinese and the Russians are after. Statham goes from skull cap wearing bum to suited and booted killer in a matter of minutes and starts taking out people with effortless ease. The action scenes are what sets safe apart from most Hollywood actioners, the fight choreography is awesome and doesn't suffer from the whole kinetic editing and quick cutting that has infiltrated action films for the last ten years, but it's the gunfights that stand out the most, expertly handled and wait till you see the gambling den assault, lots of bullets, corrupt coppers wearing bulletproof vests and Statham just in his suit, blowing motherfuckers away. Safe is an awesome film and one of the Stath's best roles. It's worth recommending the recent Homefront too.

31. THE TRANSPORTER (2002) What countdown wouldn't be complete without this film, our first introduction to the man who played Turkish in Guy Richie's Snatch as a full blooded, ripped, Kickboxing action hero. The Stath plays former soldier turned getaway driver for hire, Frank Martin in the south of France, Martin is hired to deliver a package and has three rules, one of the rules is do not open the package, this particular delivery see's Frank actually opening the package to find a beautiful Chinese girl bound and gagged in a bag. When his employers try to kill him, Frank lets loose the full power of his skills, kicking the shit out of and shooting anyone who gets in his way. This one once again comes from the pen of Luc Besson and this time a celebrated Hong Kong action director in the shape of Corey Yuen, director of the Jackie Chan classic Dragons For Ever and Jet Li's The Legend OF Fong Sai Yuk (and No Retreat No Surrender) so the choreographed fights look spectacular. The Transporter doesn't just focus on hand to hand combat though, it features some of the best car chases and automobile stunt work we've ever seen. The Transporter was successful enough to spawn two sequels and a TV show and put Statham on the map as the king of the new era of action heroes.

30. CON AIR (1997) Following on from The Rock, Nic Cage grew a mullet, beefed up and took the role of U.S Ranger turned prison inmate Cameron Poe, A man who on his final day of his sentence, hitches a ride home on a prisoner transport plane (dunno why they would allow this). Unfortunately the specific prison transport plane is transporting all of the America's most dangerous prisoners. What happens? Well what do you think happens, they hi-jack the fucking plane. Big stunts, big explosions and awesome one-liners follow suit. The action is awesome, the film is incredibly fun and oh so re-watchable. Made better by the casting of John Malkovich as Cyrus “The Virus” Grissom and Steve Buscemi as psychotic Garland Green and setting the action to a rousing score from both Trevor Rabin and Mark Mancina, Con Air is a one of the greats. Now remember to Put The Bunny Back In The box.

29(Joint). UNDISPUTED 3 (2010) & NINJA 2 (2013) There seems to be an elite club for the star and director of both these films, that try their hardest to promote this team as the next big thing and while the budgets increase and the films get better, they've still not achieved the level at which we action nerds want them to achieve, the people i'm talking about are actor/Martial Artist Scott Adkins and director Isaac Florentine. Both films feature some of the most astonishing martial arts choreography western movies have ever seen, Undisputed 3, the second sequel to Walter Hill's prison Boxing Drama from 2002, follows the villain from Undisputed 2, who fans immediately took a shine to and made him the hero. Ninja 2 Shadow OF A Tear follows the adventure of Casey, a man trained in the art of Ninjitsu who goes on a roaring rampage of revenge when his wife is murdered. It considerably ups the action ante from the first Ninja film which also stars Adkins as Casey and the fight choreography is an absolute revelation, there are points where you would goan and moan at some of the punches and kicks. Both films are tremendous action films that never seem to get the love that they so so deserve outside of our elite little club. Hollywood should pay attention to these guys to see how to make a proper action scene. I recommend these films very very highly.

28. SPEED (1994) “Pop quiz, hotshot, there's a bomb on a bus”, still quoted by me when I ring the bus station, well not really because I don't want to be arrested. Speed is exactly what it is, a film about speed, about miles per hour, and about cop Keanu Reeves trying to keep a bus full of people from blowing up by keeping the bus travelling above 50mph. While it doesn't feature full on action scenes like martial arts fights or mass gun fights, Speed keeps the adrenaline pumping by using tension as a catalyst for the action. Speed is a very very tense film and director Jan De Bont keeps the camera moving to allow for the viewer to feel like they're part of the film. Add in to the mix a good performance by Keanu Reeves as Jack Traven, the cop on the bus, a funny performance by Sandra Bullock and a brilliant role for the late great Dennis Hopper, Speed will keep you on the edge of your seat until the finale.

27. COBRA (1986) Stallone dons the Aviators and the lazer sighted gun to protect fasion model Brigitte Nielson from a strange cult who are intent on killing her after she witnesses a murder. What the cult didn't expect is the person who is assigned to protect her is maverick cop Marion “The Cobra” Cobretti, the best cop in town who plays by his own rules. From the director of Rambo 2, Leviathan and Tombstone and based on the novel Fair Game by author Pauler Gosling (which was remade as the far inferior but fun Cindy Crawford film Fair Game), Cobra is the quintessential 80s cop movie, featuring a some brilliant action sequences and some tense moments. It's hard to really point out why the film is so good, but it's a lot of fun and it's a film a keep returning to. Stallone is great, Reni Santoni (Dirty Harry) is good as Cobra's Partner and Brian Thompson is creepy as the brilliantly named Night Slasher. It's well directed and the motel assault is an awesome action scene. Definitely worth your time if you're a fan of 80s cop movies and Stallone.

26. CRANK (2006) Like a shot of epinephrine to the heart, Crank realy does crank it up, Jason Statham adds another iconic action character to his resume after The Transporter's Frank Martin with cockney killer in L.A, Chev Chelios. Chev's been injected with a chinese poison that will kill him if his heart rate drops so Chev begins his crime wave as he tries to keep his heart rate up while also trying to find the guys who injected him. Crank is fucking insane, the directors, Brian Taylor and Mark Neveldine employ a lot of crazy ideas to keep chev going from using a defibrillator, masses of Red Bull, public sex and grabbing live electrical wires to shock his heart. The film is 88 minutes long and feels like 10 because of the speed in which the film progresses. It's hugely violent too and foul mouthed. The directors found innovative ways to film some of the crazy action scenes such as one of the directors with a handy-cam rollerblading through traffic to get some shots. Crank is one of the most insane and innovative action films you'll ever see. It spawned a sequel which was equally as nuts but lacked the passion of the first, however, like the million other fans we really want to see a Crank 3.

25. OUT FOR JUSTICE (1991) Steven Seagal plays detective Gino Felino (?), a Brooklyn cop who's partner is gunned down in broad daylight by a psychotic criminal and childhood friend of Gino's, Richie Madanno. Gino sets out to find Richie to take him down using any means necessary. Out For Justice is a pretty violent film, of course being a Seagal film there a moments of unintentional hilarity such as Gino's insistence on wearing a beret and William Forsyth's over the top acting but under the direction of John Flynn, one of the most underrated action directors of all time (see Rolling Thunder and The Outfit, two prime examples of superior 70s crime/action), Flynn gives OFJ a gritty feel. I could have easily chosen any number of Seagal studio flicks to pop in on this list and I bet a few of you will ask where Under Siege is or Marked For Death, but for me Out For Justice is a prime example of 80s action excess being carried over into the 90s, the violence feels like Verhoeven violence, the film feels gritty and it's a hell of a lot of fun which is probably why it's the most watched Seagal film in my collection.

24. BAD BOYS II (2003) We come to the first Michael Bay film of the countdown, I know Mr.Bay gets a lot of flack for his movies, especially films like The Island, Pearl Harbour and those Transformers flicks but the man can shoot an action film like no-ones business. Take for example this film, Bad Boys 2, the reteaming of Will Smith, who at he time of this film in 2003 was probably the highest paid/earning actor in the world and Martin Lawrence, not anywhere near earning as much and paid as much, as Miami narc cops Marcus Burnett and Mike Lowrey. They get caught up in a case involving the flow of ecstasy into Florida. Mixing with Columbian drug cartels, violent Haitians and Russian mafia. Bad Boys 2 features some of the most exhilarating action scenes we've seen in a modern action film from the opening raid on the KKK gathering, that epic car chase through Miami with cars being thrown at them, the Haitian drug den shoot out and that final mansion explosion, all these action scenes look incredible and the chemistry between Lawrence and Smith is brilliant, however the film is 2 ½ hrs long and could have done with 30 minutes being shaved off as the film dives into silly slapstick scenes with Lowrey and Burnett getting into idiotic situations. If you can look past a convoluted at times plot, the silly adventures of the two miami cops and the extended run time, Bad Boys 2 is, for the action, a near perfect Hollywood action flick. It's also really funny.

23. HARD TARGET (1993) From the writer of Navy Seals and Darkman, the director of The Killer and Hard Boiled and starring the guy from Universal Soldier, Death Warrant, Bloodsport and Kick Boxer comes this variation on The Most Dangerous Game, the short story from author Richard Connell. We follow a drifter by the name of Chance Boudreaux, forced to participate in a human hunt who teams up with a beautiful woman who's father fell victim to the same hunters. Who am I kidding, it's fucking Hard Target, it's John Woo directing Jean Claude Van Damme and Lance Henricksen, it's fucking badass gun play, big ass explosions and epic wet look mullets. This film is awesome through and through, big on action and such a fun film, i'm not gonna go into plot detail because you ain't watching Hard Target for it's plot you're watching it to see Van Damme standing on a moving motorbike firing two hand guns. Van Damme is awesome, Henricksen is evil, Arnold Vosloo is awesome, Yancy Butler is sexy and John Woo shoots this like a HK movie, albeit a bit toned down, set all that awesomeness to soundtrack of deep south jangly guitars by Graeme Revell and you have the most 80s 90s action film you can think of. Hard Target is fucking awesome.