Tom Jolliffe recalls ten heartbreaking moments from an eclectic action video (with main spoilers). . .
Action movies are exciting, often challenging, chaotic and evolve at a frenetic pace. The main guideline of an action movie is to invest enough in the search for the characters so that you care about what is happening, although usually only up to a point. Commando or Under Siege, for example, may excite, but they won’t let you wonder why there’s so much dust in your living room. We need smart guys to win, and regularly, without too much fuss, they will.
Meanwhile, there are certain movies, often dramas, where there is a different, very calculated, push to bring tears to your eyes. Marley and Me is a natural delight until that inevitable moment when the dog, whom we, the viewers, love, falls asleep. Melancholic and bittersweet dramas have those moments. Some are downright sensitive and make us cry so much that we actively oppose them. My natural inclination, even as a spectator who has been strangely sedated over time, is to remain actively dry with tears when there is a forced wait.
But only occasionally. The type of action can push feelings to the left. Some are actually very unexpected, especially if we look, for example, at moments in martial arts videos where, atypically, we are worried about blows. The secret is to conscientiously tame a dormant drama on a regular basis. under the action. It may not be subtle, or even as skilled as a playwright in a song, but often the culmination of the elements and our inversion work wonders. Here are ten emotional moments from action cinema. . .
I gave my Leon DVD (after buying a Blu-ray) to my ex-girlfriend’s sister a few years ago. She is hard as a nail, unbreakable. Schindler’s List?Not the slightest emotion. However, I won the verdict. She enjoyed the movie, but also: “I can’t, I cried in front of a movie. “
Luc Besson’s masterpiece remains one of the most productive action films of the ’90s, if not of all time. It’s great, unique, modern and with remarkable performances, in addition to Jean Reno, Natalie Portman (who is remarkable) and Gary Oldman. The disposition of a hitman and a brutally orphaned woman is endearing without being disgusting, thanks to the kind and naïve protagonist of Reno. The connection (at least in the theatrical montage) is quite pure, so when a reaction team bends down and Matilda enters a hotel and the only way out is a pit the size of a woman with drywall, it is too inevitable that Leon wins. I won’t make it.
To make matters worse, he gets away with it. He leaves the structure when Stansfield (Oldman) shoots him in the back. Leon, on the verge of death, makes sure to take Stansfield with him, then it’s water until Sting plays until the end credits.
Okay, this may be obvious, but it’s also entirely Simon Pegg’s fault. It wasn’t until I heard him refer to the emotional resonance of Arnold’s terminator submerged in molten metal with one last raised push, that it suddenly stuck with it. Since then, with each of the views, this damn dust has tickled my ducts.
In addition to the relentless chases and mind-boggling action, in between is a mother-son relationship, but also a father-son bond between Arnold’s T-800 and young John Conner. There’s a lot of sincerity and James Cameron never gets too much. sentimental.
Action master Gary Daniels has had a career focused largely on the top kicks and chaos of martial arts. He has worked hard to try to improve as an actor, which becomes complicated when he is paralyzed by low-quality productions or by the reluctance of the studios. Stray too far from the fight.
Spoiler is an underrated gem directly on video from 1998. Es a crime film with shadows of Demolition Man, but Daniels plays a guy sentenced to cryo-criminal, where convicts are frozen during their sentence. He struggles to get out in contravention of the parole board and, desperate, flees, resulting in his recapture and return to the freezer. The challenge is that as she spends years, and then decades, desperately looking to go out and see her daughter, she naturally ages.
Spoiler alert (sorry), but we have the inevitable moment, as noted most recently in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar (with a slightly different temporal element) where the old woman on her deathbed is, regardless, visited by the father who promised to go. He returned (and kept the same age as when he left her). Okay, then Mason (Daniels) makes stupid decisions that are inevitably punished and doubles down at every turn, however, the relentless crushing of his brain and the unhappy final action attract him. in the heart fibers. It’s not the best, but the concept has the means to succeed and Daniels’ functionality is sincere.
RoboCop is a bloodless classic. In addition to being crisp and full of charming lines and even greater presentations of anarchic and comic violence, it also has heart. Murphy (Peter Weller) is annihilated by a gang of criminals and declared dead, resurrected as RoboCop, the long-term law. law enforcement that executes a series of directives.
Of course, Murphy hides under the programming formula, and his humanity and memories slowly return. We need Murphy to be resurrected. He will never be the same again, relying on his mechanical formula to stay alive, but he is taking root not only because of his revenge, but also because of the popularity of others that he is still a person. It comes to an end when ” The Old Man asks, ‘What’s your name, son?’Murphy is the answer and I’m a mess.
Yes, really. A combat festival by Jean-Claude Van Damme, no matter how many times I see it, makes me jump. There are several reasons why Lionheart is effective. On the one hand, the story sees Leon (JCVD) leave the Foreign Legion and join his brother. on his deathbed. He arrives too late but tries to supply his sister-in-law (who needs nothing to do with him) and his niece.
Léon never deviated from his singular mission. He’s a sympathetic character and although Van Damme is still very marginal, he has a kind of puppy-like innocence and sincerity. There is a purity in their pursuit, based on an eternal devotion to family, which is admirable and moving. Then there’s Harrison Page, who brings a lot of his own pathos to the story, as well as a remarkable performance. It’s consistently endearing even when you make the “wrong bet. “Finally, music, perhaps the most subtle theme of Van Damme’s canon, intervenes in melancholy moments.
After the decisive one-on-one fight, Leon is taken by the legionnaires to bring him back to face the music. They snatch it from their incredibly adorable and heartbroken niece, Annie-style. She waits outside the front door. When the car crosses the hill and disappears from sight. Then there is a respite, the two agents replace their minds and let Leon go. The music comes into play, rising to a crescendo as Leon emerges from the distance, runs in front of his niece, and my eyes are a little cloudy just as I write it.
Best of the Best gave the impression that the regenerative boom of martial arts videos began in the 80s, especially the scrapper tournament. Where Bloodsport is simple, devastating but emotionally light, with a cartoon-like menacing villain, nothing like Best of the Best. It had an unforeseen basis in drama. On the one hand, the cast is bolstered through several Oscar-nominated actors, adding Eric Roberts, James Earl Jones, Sally Kirkland, and (Oscar winner) Louise Fletcher. Like Cobra Kai, for example, it may not be exceptional in the individual elements and the script privileges predictable rhythms, however, the mixture of all the elements and its stimulating soundtrack make it a strangely honest film for the genre.
The final tournament becomes increasingly dramatic with so much baggage on the canvas. Tommy (Philip Rhee) is haunted by his brother’s death at the hands of his South Korean opponent. Will his anger take hold of him?He asked for clemency and, in doing so, sacrificed the tournament victory for the American team. Then the Koreans, very moved by this act and their respective fights, will be offering the medals of their winners to the Americans. Well, it’s not as chauvinistic as it sounds. In the end, the film is a story of redemption, especially for Alex (Roberts) and Tommy.
Seven Samurai will simply be the biggest action movie ever made. It is an epic film full of drama, action and moments of lightness. The cast is very good in a film that has proven to be an inspiration for the genre in the future. Kurosawa’s skill in action scenarios is matched only through its dramatic nuances.
Toshiro Mifune is one of cinema’s most magnetic presences and is here absolutely burning in the role of a drifter who makes his way through a band of samurai hired by bandits in a poor village. Kikuchiyo’s transition from clumsy, mouthy idiot to The Heroic Warrior is thrilling and his final demise is overwhelming.
Road house is wonderful. It’s tacky, the combat scenes are wonderful, and the soundtrack is wonderful. Ben Gazzara is brilliantly horrible as the villain. While action cinema can occasionally be hampered by the limitations of its muscular actors, there was the option of employing more actors such as Mel Gibson, Bruce Willis, and Patrick Swayze. The latter acts in Road House and, like his other flirtations too brief in the action genre, brings to the debates a lot of mystery and presence on the screen.
Swayze is great as Dalton and hides a tormented past. Like a refrigerator tasked with cleaning the trash cans of a community bar in a city controlled by a crime lord, Dalton will have to quell the anger that once saw him rip a man’s throat. He enlists the help of his former mentor and things get better, but we know there will have to be a point where Dalton’s anger erupts. This comes with the death of Wade (Sam Elliott), who crushes Dalton into a collapse.
John Woo’s Hong Kong action cinema, in its heyday, has been based on emotional depth. He may have created impressive shootouts like few others, but his films also felt based on intriguing characters, occasionally a wonderful sense of duality of opposing forces in both. aspect of the law (which occasionally joined).
In The Killer, there are several wonderful moments of emotion, where Woo staggers to fall into a deep melodrama but drifts away magnificently (like an elegant dove in slow motion). For a moment, Chow Yun Fat looks like the titular killer he is heartbroken when he realizes that a friend has betrayed him. In the end, the friend redeems himself, but the resulting war ends tragically for the assassin and singer he blinded in a coup and tried to help.
All told, Top Gun: Maverick is something of an emotional rollercoaster. Delight itself and warm nostalgia played a part of a role. It’s a film made with the knowledge and concentration on the screen of yesteryear. In a way, a relic, but in others, a timely reminder that videos don’t need to be filled with green screen and CGI from the most sensitive to the bottom to be spectacular. It is an adventure of undeniable but effective emotion that manages to hook us to the point that they are almost exhausted (in a clever way) in the end.
The rhythms of the end paint the best. Maverick makes a sacrifice. It’s Mav, so we know it’s not over, but it doesn’t cancel out that emotional effect and tension. Goose’s son Rooster, who spent most of the film resentful of Maverick, then returns to the danger zone. to save his father’s old friend. There are no real surprises in Maverick, but it is a wonderful example of the best writing rhythm. Captivate the audience, excite it and really thrill the feelings in the right places.
Then there’s also Val Kilmer’s return to the screen, which is a bittersweet and well-managed moment. It may have been flawed and tearful or forced, but the scene works well. It is also a meta-moment due to the emotional considerations of the series. almost both the actor and the character.
What are your favorite heartbreaking moments in action movies?Let us know on our social networks @flickeringmyth. . .
Tom Jolliffe is an award-winning screenwriter and passionate cinephile. He has directed several films around the world, including When Darkness Falls, Renegades (Lee Majors and Danny Trejo) and War of The Worlds: The Attack (Vincent Regan). and more will soon be available, adding Cinderella’s Revenge (Natasha Henstridge) and The Baby in the Basket (Maryam d’Abo and Paul Barber). Find out more about the most productive private audience you’ve ever seen here.