Lee Loves Action Movies

Everyone who knows me knows I love two things: 1) Lists and 2) Action Movies. Thus, I will create a list right here of my favorite action films of the last 10 years. Action films are usually the butt of the joke because most people just have a vision of a shitty car chase and a bad one-liner uttered by a washed up old actor. People see Bruce Willis now in 2013 and see a sarcastic, bloated, uninterested old man doing paycheck cameo roles in movies like GI Joe: Retaliation while forgetting that for the past 25 years, he has been one of the biggest actors in the world and played arguably the most beloved action film character of all time, John McClane in the Die Hard movies. Just because A Good Day To Die Hard (which I really enjoyed) was clearly a case of Well, Why The Hell Not Make Another One, We Don't Have Anything Better To Do, it doesn't take away the fact that those first three movies are all-time greats. There are always a slew of bad action movies in theaters and on video store shelves (oh, wait...) but there are also a whole slew of god-awful dramas and comedies and every other genre. Action films just have a stigma that they will never be able to get past. There will never be a best action film category at the Academy Awards* and as much as films like Gladiator, The Hurt Locker, and Braveheart are considered action films, I want to see a movie like 13 Assassins win an Academy Award so that they have to show a 15 second clip where dozens of people are being decapitated and lying in a pile of bodies and blood. I am a complete homer for the aforementioned one-liners and car chases, it's something I loved as a kid, then became too cool for when I was a teenager and then became enamored with again as I got older. The most recent example was Lockout, which I just watched a few weeks ago, with Guy Pearce sneering & snarking his way through a space prison to rescue the president's daughter from the world's most dangerous criminals, which is pretty much the most awesome plot for a movie in recent memory. With all that said, let the list commence (in no particular order):

KILL BILL VOL. 1 - Almost all of my favorite directors are the ones who love movies and love making movies that harken back to their favorites. I can't think of anything better than getting paid millions of dollars to make a movie with your childhood idols that you wrote and directed about whatever genre you're obsessed with at the moment. Quentin Tarantino is such a director. He created a world with these movies where he could incorporate all of his favorite things about the genre and make something completely original while being an homage to its predecessors. The final battle between Beatrix Kiddo and the Crazy 88 in the House Of Blue Leaves is operatic. I think when QT jerks off, he closes his eyes and thinks about the 5,6,7,8's and finishes when Lucy Liu gets scalped.

FAST 5/FAST 6 - While the future of the franchise is in question with the death of Paul Walker, it's hard to not see the last two films as two of the best of the series, if not two of the best action films in recent memory. They did something smart with this series; they moved beyond them being "car movies" and just turned them into solid, if absolutely insane and ridiculous action movies. A "family" of rich, globe-trotting criminals chasing bad guys in airplanes and tanks and trains and, of course, cars turned out to be a pretty great conceit. This franchise, even with the loss of Walker, could conceivably go on forever and if so, count on me being there opening day for Fast 12 in about ten years.

BELLFLOWER - This is a great movie that is not necessarily an action film, but it has action film DNA running through its blood. The first half is almost a romantic drama about two buddies who love their apocalypse-prepped Frankenstein monster of a car, Medusa, and the various weapons they've built to prepare themselves for a Mad Max-like apocalypse. A girl gets involved and the second half turns into a nightmare of violence, blood and sex that is admittedly pretty haunting.

SHOOTER - Bob Lee Swagger is one of my favorite literary characters and is played here by Mark Wahlberg who is much younger than the character in the book. He's an Army sniper on the wrong end of a conspiracy and left for dead in the Middle East but returns to live in solitude in the mountains with his dog but is summoned to hypothetically surmise how the vice president might be assassinated only to be set up for the crime and forced to go on the run. The sniper is always an interesting character, akin to the samurai or the lone gunman of a thousand spaghetti westerns. A fantastic long distance shootout atop a mountain is the crowning achievement of this movie. There's nothing better than a wronged man shooting his way out, doing what he was trained to do and having it come back on those very people who turned their back on him. I think I'm getting a boner.

13 ASSASSINS - This is a movie that people who I have never heard express interest in action movies say they loved. God knows I love it when someone puts together a team and a hell of a team get assembled here, in order to fight back against an evil relative of the current Shogun. They convert a small town into a warzone by using elaborate traps and setups designed to help them fight the expected 70 soldiers traveling with the evil lord but are beset upon by over 200 armed soldiers. The entire second half of the film is the ensuing battle, where just about all of the 213+ participants end up in piles of blood, mud, limbs and bodies. This is the dirty, gritty, more brutal younger brother of the House Of Blue Leaves fight from Kill Bill. This movie is amazing.

PACIFIC RIM - I think I loved this movie more than most people. There are giant robots fighting giant sea monsters who sprout wings and fly into space and then fall back to earth. That's amazing. Watching Charlie Hunnam and the girl from The Brothers Bloom pilot a giant American robot that can pick up a battleship and swing it at something is pretty fantastic to watch. I heard people's complaints and nitpicks about the film but then I listened to Guillermo Del Toro explain how every single thing in the film has a purpose and has roots in something he wanted to honor and discounted all the complaints wholesale. They don't matter. Why worry about petty little things and little plot holes when you are rooting for humanity to destroy a race of aliens living in another dimension inside the earth who are sending monsters to destroy all of humanity? My favorite scene is when the Australians are about to be killed by a Kaiju when, who's that behind it, backlit & inert and hanging from some helicopters, it's Gipsy Danger motherfucker, about to kick some ass. This one is pure spectacle, people. Just sit back and enjoy it.

OLDBOY - I haven't seen the Spike Lee remake yet but I intend to. However, I doubt it will surpass the pure, visceral, nightmare of a film that Park Chan Wook made. It really is a nightmare, being imprisoned for 15 years and then set loose on a desperate wild goose chase for answers full of dead bodies, incest, and live squids being eaten. Korea does this kind of extremely violent revenge fantasy very well, and this is the middle film of Wook's Revenge Trilogy along with Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance and Lady Vengeance. The single shot action sequence in the hallway with a hammer is still one of the best sequences I have ever seen.

THE RAID: REDEMPTION - I don't need to say much about this one, everyone worth their salt has seen it and loved it. Gareth Evans made a masterpiece of family loyalties and pure carnage. When all the bullets run out, it turns to some of the most brutal hand-to-hand combat I've seen until there are piles of bodies lining the hallways of a slumlords high-rise. The second one looks like it's going to be even more crazy.

IP MAN - Donnie Yen plays the titular Ip Man, who is touted as teaching his signature style of martial arts, Wing Chun, to the likes of Bruce Lee. In this movie, he is a wealthy martial arts teacher beloved by his community in China until the Japanese invade and turn his people into slaves and force them to fight to prove their superiority to the Chinese. Humble, yet superior, Ip Man refuses to fight at first but soon is compelled to fight and inspires and carries his people on his back and beats the shit out of a whole bunch of Japanese guys. I don't like martial arts movies as much as some others but this one is great and Donnie Yen is a pure star.

BAD BOYS II - This is the granddaddy of ridiculous, over the top, one-liner spouting buddy cop action movies. At one point, there is a car chase where they drive a hummer down a mountain taking out hundreds of shanty homes. There is a car chase on a freeway in Miami that would've snarled traffic for weeks were it real life. If you sit back and suspend your knowledge of reality, you can enjoy this because it is insane and wonderful. Buddy cop movies are great, and Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are two of the all-timers when it comes to sarcastic banter in the middle of carnage. I hate Michael Bay but this is his masterpiece and the man knows how to make an amazing looking movie. Car chases and shootouts in Miami were made to be filmed by Bay. And remember, "We ride together. We die together. Bad boys for life."

Honorable Mentions - The last 3 Bond movies, the 4 Bourne movies, the last 2 Mission: Impossible movies, Hot Fuzz, The Dark Knight, Crank, The Transporter, Sunshine, Lockout, Dredd, Death Race, Drive, Smokin' Aces, Taken.

*Part of the reason for thinking about action films right now is the fact that theaters for the next few months will be flooded with marquee Academy Award contending films and I will be needing to balance my film diet with some action and excitement, not just watch droll, depressing, "important," Oscar bait.