The against-cast Bob Odenkirk is great as Hutch “Nobody” Mansell, a new action hero archetype in the making.
RZA, Bob Odenkirk and Christopher Lloyd star in a scene from the movie “Nobody.” (CNS photo/Allen Fraser, Universal Pictures)
Comedians starring in action films isn’t a new thing. From Owen Wilson in Behind Enemy Lines to Michael Cena being handy with a katana in Scott Pilgrim vs The World, even Marvel has built a bit of their empire by casting comedians as their heroes, with Paul Rudd and Kumail Nanjiani to name a few.
I mean an argument could be made that comedians were the first real action stars of cinema. Silent movie stars such as Buster Keaton trying to outrun a train in The General or Harold Lloyd hanging on for dear life in Safety Last! I guess both genres demand a level of physicality from it’s stars, not found in other genres.
So I’m pleased to say that we can now add Bob Odenkirk with his role in Nobody to this great cinematic lineage. Not only does he excel in the action sequences, but he’s created an iconic action hero up there with the likes of John Wick and Jason Bourne. Nobody might just be my new favorite action hero.
Bob Odenkirk stars as Hutch “Nobody” Mansell, a mild mannered, middle aged, family man coasting through his seemingly dull life. After a failed burglary attempt leaves him and the rest of his family shaken. Something awakens in Hutch that he thought was left buried. A chance encounter with some drunk Russian thugs on a bus. Finally tips Hutch back into his old ways.
Nobody is the kind of action premise that I love. The unassuming protagonist who everyone looks down upon is secretly a badass assassin. It’s totally wish fulfillment. Casting against type has always worked for action flicks. It brings added stakes needed. Now don’t get me wrong, I love The Arnies, The Slys, The JCDVs of the world. They’re the reason I fell in love with action movies in the first place. But there’s a little part of me that just buys into the action a little bit more when it’s someone you can Identify with. And Odenkirk really plays up the downtrodden angle of the character. An everyman brimming at the seams, just wanting an excuse to return back to his old ways.
I think that was the main appeal when seeing the trailers for Nobody, was that it felt fresh because we hadn’t seen Bob Odenkirk do anything like this before. I now know what it must have felt like when audiences first saw Bruce Willis in Die Hard for the first time back 1988. Odenkirk is surrounded by an amazing cast too. Connie Nielsen might play the typical wife character, we’ve seen a thousand times but she brings an emotional weight to the film.
Christopher Lloyd plays Hutch’s retired FBI Dad. Lets just say, he’s handy with a shotgun or should I say shotguns. Rza plays a mysterious friend to Hutch. Much will be made clear about him later on in the film. He is also handy with a sniper rifle. I need to talk about the main villain, Yulian. Who’d rather spend his nights doing blow, singing and dancing than taking care of Russian mob money. Russian’s may be typical action movie villain fodder but Aleksey Serebryakov plays him with such charisma that it comes off feeling fresh.
Which leads me to give a shout out to the scene where Nobody finally confronts Yulian at his nightclub. Not only is it one of the most badass scenes of the year but one of the most badass scenes ever. Not to spoil anything, but all I’m saying is, don’t bring guns to a claymore mine fight.
Bob Odenkirk as Hutch Mansell in “Nobody,” directed by Ilya Naishuller.
We need to talk about the action in this film. You wouldn’t expect anything less from 87eleven, the markers of John Wick and Atomic Blonde. They have mastered the art of creating well crafted action sequences on budgets that would be the catering budget of most blockbusters. For a film that cost $16 million to make, it’s full of action sequences.
Credit must also be given to director Ilya Naishuller who keeps the action raw. Building on from the rough and readiness of the very underrated Hardcore Henry. Naishuller is all about broken bones, smashed out teeth and every punch leaves a mark. The action never tips into The Raid levels of nastiness. There’s an element of slapstick to every fight scene. Hutch takes punches as much as he dishes them out. The bus scene where our hero confronts a bunch of drunken Russian heavies can only be described as ouch! As much as Hutch is a bruiser. He’s also very tactical. Using whatever he can find to despenace his enemies from fire exguisters to bus handrails. He even gets a bit Home Alone’y during the end climax.
The shades of John Wick in Nobody don’t just end with 87eleven producing. Screenwriter Derek Kolstad also penned the script. He brings his signature world building to the film. There’s a bigger world to Nobody that’s only hinted about in the film. Kolstad brings that extra layer of comic book style mythology to the story. Not content with just having Hutch as the standard assassin for the intelligence agencies, he’s called an “Auditor”. His boss is someone called ‘The Barber’. The film is elevated with these hyper real touches.
(from left) Bob Odenkirk, producer David Leitch, director Ilya Naishuller and producer Kelly McCormick on the set of “Nobody.”
Nobody is a film they don’t make anymore. You know, that mid range budget action flick that used to be a staple in Hollywood. The kind we got in the 80’s and 90s. The ones where not everything had to be a $200 million, end of world, special effects bonanza. Sometimes the stakes were low, more personal. I kinda wish that 87eleven/87North Productions would just become the Blumhouse for action films already.
Nobody may have not set the world on fire at the box office back in April (it did ok numbers). But neither did John Wick back 2014 and look where we’re at now with a fourth installment in production. I might be a bit premature here but Nobody is destined to be an action classic years down the line.
It’s a fun action flick you can stick on and lose yourself for 90 mins. Odenkirk is great as Hutch “Nobody” Mansell, a new action hero in the making. I want to see more films with him as this character. I just hope the wait isn’t too long until Universal greenlights a sequel. If they do, they better call it, The Nobodies.
Article by Robert Hatton – a filmmaker from the UK who grew up on a healthy diet of action cinema. Everything from Jackie Chan to Schwarzenegger. His dream one day is to direct an action flick and to do the splits like JCVD… without being rushed into hospital.
How much can you really learn about a three hour film in a two and a half minute trailer? Let’s find out…
WARNING: POTENTIAL SPOILERS CONTAINED IN THIS ARTICLE!
As many social media users point out, the next two weeks will determine if the upcoming James Bond film No Time To Die becomes a great movie or a great meme. On August 24, during the CinemaCon event in Las Vegas, MGM’s Michael De Luca screened nine unseen minutes of the pre-credits sequence of the film and assured attendants that the film will be released for good on October 8 in the United States and a week earlier worldwide, on September 30.
The promotional machine ramped up once again in the following days with different kind of posts on the official James Bond Twitter account (@007) and announcing the booking of the Royal Albert Hall to celebrate the film’s premiere on September 28. Two trailers were surprisingly released on August 31 which was followed by ads from sponsors such as DHL, Smirnoff and Globe Trotter. Meanwhile, an article by Variety insisted that another delay could take place as MGM insiders are worried about the film not meeting the expected box-office numbers. Will we get the film? Do we risk another delay?
At this point, no-one can be sure, but even a poorly financial Bond film can make a better impression than a meme-able Bond film. The five John Glen-directed films of the franchise (three with Roger Moore, two with Timothy Dalton) from the 1980s were among the least lucrative outings featuring Ian Fleming’s spy, yet they tend to be generously remembered by fans forty years on.
In early morning hours of August 31, 2021 (noon GMT, for reference) a “Final US Trailer” for No Time To Die appeared on YouTube. The link was rapidly spread on forums and social media while there was still no word about it on the official Bond social channels. Soon enough, the video was labeled as “private” by the community managers of the Bond accounts, only to be formally made accessible and shared by the accounts some hours later, followed of the international version (which will be analyzed later).
Interestingly, this US trailer begins with highlights of the earlier adventures starring Daniel Craig as James Bond and dialogues from those films. In a less flamboyant way, it reminds us to the theatrical trailers of You Only Live Twice which showed footage of Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger and Thunderball as we read the words: “First, then, next, last” referring to each of these movies. It is important to note this, because no trailer referred a previous movie so directly since 1967, treating every other production as a standalone adventure for Ian Fleming’s secret agent.
In this No Time To Die promotion, we are teased with captions that “every mission and every sacrifice has led him to this”, and there is where the footage for the 25th Bond film kicks in, with an opaque birds-eye shot of London. The content of these captions is ironic, because back in 2015 a few TV spots made to promote SPECTRE also announced that “everything led to this”, but as we all know, Barbara Broccoli took over two years to convince Daniel Craig to return for the role of 007 and the man finally said yes on August 2017, expecting to go “on a high note”.
This trailer reveals an important plot point regarding the main motivations of villain Safin (Rami Malek), as M (Ralph Fiennes) complains to Bond that now enemies are “dust floating in the ether”. An observation by the secret agent gives us another hint: “the people become the weapon”. This is indeed a very relevant subject to deal with in the times of coronavirus, yet it is not completely new in the franchise as On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (both the 1963 novel and 1969 film) dealt with a villain that brainwashed patients in his clinic to spread a virus that provokes “total infertility” to harm the livestock of Britain and/or the world, depending on the format.
While much of the dialogue is a rehash of what we have previously heard in other promos, Safin describes that Bond is “in love with Madeleine Swann” so he can be “speaking to his own reflection”. As it frequently happens with the trailers, dialogues and scenes are taken out of context to mislead the viewer, but if this is not the case, we can infer that there’s a reason for Safin to also being in love with Léa Seydoux’s character or needing her for his plans. Footage is also seen of this villain stalking her in her childhood days over a desolated village in Norway, so, for a reason -either for love or “business”- Safin wants Swann. And he also notes that for Bond, “life is all about leaving something behind”, a clear reference to the deaths of Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale and Judi Dench’s M in Skyfall.
The rest of the trailer shows the film’s visual spectacularity, with Mark Tildesley’s set design and Linus Sandgren’s photography standing out. The trailer feature nothing of Hans Zimmer’s score, but we have an eerie piano melody evoking the notes of the James Bond Theme at one point. Towards the end of the video, we have previously seen footage with a couple of new shots, one of them appears to show Bond finding a way out of the villain’s hideout as retractile doors shut above him in a mechanism that reminds us to Ernst Stavro Blofeld’s volcano base in You Only Live Twice.
Other captions placed over the 007 logo, intercut with the footage, teases that “nothing can prepare us for the epic conclusion” of what began in Casino Royale 15 years earlier, a mini-saga approach that feels a bit strange for James Bond and is perhaps closer to the marketing of sagas like Harry Potter or The Hunger Games. The US trailer ends with the gunbarrel-esque shot of Bond shooting to the camera in Safin’s lair, which was first seen in the “first look” trailer from December 2019, when no-one suspected the film would face three delays.
The final international trailer for No Time To Die tones down the references to the previous Daniel Craig 007 adventures considerably, opting to focus on the high anticipation for the film: “The wait is over”, we read superimposed on various shots like an imprisoned Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) meeting Bond, M checking his cellphone next to a brand new Aston Martin Valhalla and the classic Aston Martin DB5 making an aggressive turn in Matera, Italy. Most of the scenes and dialogues from the US trailer are repeated, like the idea of enemies “floating in the ether”, but the focus rapidly turns to Madeleine Swann: “She still loves you, did you know that?”, comments Blofeld, and then Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) will ask Bond if she’s “one of them” (a SPECTRE agent) to what Bond replies “I don’t know her at all”, evidencing that the happy couple will come through many disappointments along the story, which is connected to the dialogue about an apparent betrayal from Swann to 007 during their holidays in Matera. The betrayal, of course, has little to do with cheating in this case.
This trailer gives us a hint of what could be one of the most spectacular and chilling scenes in the Craig era. We’ve seen footage from it on other trailers and TV spots, but this time the idea seems clearer: Bond is exploring an old barge (apparently in Cuba) which is hit by a torpedo fired from a seaplane at dusk. Soon, the secret agent finds himself with the water up to his neck and is desperate to find a way out. It’s soon to judge the outcome of this movie, but it gives us the feeling that this may be the first time Bond is in real danger in a long time, considering the escape from Blofeld’s Moroccan base in SPECTRE seemed too easy and the antagonist from Skyfall, Javier Bardem’s Silva, was more into killing Judi Dench’s M than 007 himself.
Nomi, the 00 agent played by Lashana Lynch, takes a little more protagonism in this promotion than in the American one, as we see her “stealing” kidnapped scientist Valdo Ubrochev (David Dencik) from Bond during a gala party in Santiago de Cuba, using a retractile rope in a manner that reminds us to Jinx, Halle Berry’s heroine from Die Another Day. Similarly to its American counterpart, this trailer uses captions to emphasize that “everything has led to this”. The feature finishes with a quip from Ben Whishaw’s Q asking Bond to have “one nice evening before the world explodes”, just before we are giving a short clip from the finale where 007 blows a couple of enemies by detonating a remote explosive charge.
A couple of random observations: all the footage featuring CIA agent Paloma (Ana De Armas) belongs to the scenes in Cuba, which makes us think her screen time may be short. While the film’s soundtrack was composed by Hans Zimmer, the trailers music was done by an independent company, yet both tracks sound incredibly inspired in the works of the German composer. The US version has the distinction of having an eerie, somewhat delicate, piano notes of the James Bond Theme amidst this industrial, grandiloquent sound.
What else? We’ll just have to wait. The film is almost three hours and we’ve been treated with a summary of two minutes and a half in each trailer, so there’s still a lot to discover and we know how misleading trailers tend to be these days. “The wait is over”, MGM says so. Do we believe them? Well, for the time being…
Looking at ‘The Protégé’ and how it contains nostalgia, a lesson for today’s filmmakers, revenge and something else…
Is Martin Campbell doing yet another “revenge” movie after we saw Mel Gibson and Jackie Chan avenging their daughters’ death in Edge of Darkness (2010) and The Foreigner (2017)? The most apparent answer is “yes” and the trailers will make you think that way.
Mr. Campbell himself told a Reddit user some weeks ago that Maggie Q’s motivation is avenging a loved one during an AMA session. But the truth is… The Protégé is a little more than a simple revenge story, at least a less evident and blunt one than the aforementioned productions.
During the first minutes of the film, cinematographer David Tattersall (who previously collaborated with Campbell in 2000’s Vertical Limit and The Foreigner) rewards us with a colorful palette that mixes cyan and magentas from neon lights reflected on a puddle made of raindrops. It’s heavily raining in Da Nang, Vietnam, on this day of 1991 where contract killer Moody (Samuel L Jackson) was assigned to carry on an assasination job. He’ll soon be surprised to find his intended targets, a couple of Vietnamese gang members, in a puddle of blood. They were gunned down by an innocent little girl who is timidly hiding on a small closet, firmly pointing an “usually dependable” Beretta 93 ready to terminate anyone approaching her.
This will be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, or, better still, the beginning of a father-daughter relationship. And over the course of 30 years, Anna (Maggie Q) will become one of the world’s most dangerous contract killers under the wing of Moody. Everything seemed business as usual until, one day, Moody is brutally shot down after enquiring one Lucas Hayes, the son of a businessman and war criminal head-quartered in Vietnam he eliminated decades ago.
The connections with Nikita, the 2010 series where Maggie Q also played a traumatized assassin, are almost obvious. Although, interestingly, it was the 2008 romantic film New York, I Love You the one that made Campbell pick Q for the leading role after seeing a scene she shared with Ethan Hawke. Either way, the Hawaiian actress of Vietnamese descendence succeeds in seducing the audience: she is sexy, human, charming, sympathetic and equally deadly.
The same person that can cook, play with a little cat and have an academic knowledge on literature and Edgar Allan Poe’s short-lived poetry can also slay enemies with knives hidden in a box of Macanudo cigars or conventional cellphones. While the movie may show you that she learned much of the business by herself, she’ll have the humility to recognise how much Moody changed her life: “He didn’t save my life. He gave me a life”, she tells her friend Billy Boy (Robert Patrick) when he encourages her to stay safe. Over a journey that will take her from Bucharest to London and Da Nang again, Anna will come across a mysterious murderer: Michael Rembrandt, played by the equally charismatic Michael Keaton.
Michael Keaton, Samuel L. Jackson and the Rest of the Crew
Keaton’s performance, a mix of acid sense of humour, bon mots, elegance and chivalry has attributes that could have been part of the Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan incarnations of James Bond. Don’t forget Martin Campbell’s first Bond film was GoldenEye, which The Protégé homages with a subtle (and probably unintentional) way: both characters can identify the weapon the other is using just by hear its cocking, much like Robbie Coltrane’s Valentin Zukovsky did in the 1995 modern 007 classic. The chemistry between the two leading stars is convincing, despite the age difference. They care for each other despite knowing they are on different sides, although it is well clear that Rembrandt is more interested in obeying “the man who writes the checks” than sticking ideologically with the villains. But who are exactly “the villains”?
That would be a spoiler, but one of them who stands out -and another great casting choice- is the evil Mr. Duquet played by Ray Fearon. The Coronation Street actor, who played Commander Bromley in The Foreigner and will return in Campbell’s upcoming project Memory, portrays here a deceitful lawyer who shoots before asking and has a predilection for “enhanced interrogation techniques” (waterboarding, actually). His commanding onscreen presence and wicked smile truly makes him a modern day Yaphet Kotto, and that is enough to captivate the audience despite his relatively short screen-time in The Protégé.
Summing up to the 90s nostalgia of seeing names like Michael Keaton and Samuel L. Jackson, Patrick Malahide from The Long Kiss Goodbye (1996) and The World Is Not Enough (1999) also makes a short appearance as Jossino Vohl, a character that Bond fans will surely relate to the short-lived Swiss banker Lachaise from the third film of the Pierce Brosnan era.
Campbell’s choice of collaborators is, as usual, spot on. Diyan Histrov, the film’s stunt coordinator, makes sure that the action looks real and painful – and it does. The level of violence is quite graphical and visceral, you can really feel that those who are offed have been killed for good. A special mention deserves the fight between Anna and Rembrandt, a lethal choreography that involves the use of knives, shotguns, blunt objects and a little seduction over the sound of the Isaac Hayes song “That Loving Feeling”. Production designer Wolf Kroeger, who worked in Love In The Times of Cholera (2007) and served under the director’s orders in the romantic drama Beyond Borders (2003), makes the Far East look exotic and modern, but also dangerous, echoing the protagonist’s words that “Vietnam has always been a place of death” for her.
Editor Angela M. Catanzaro (returning from The Foreigner) is who deserves the credit for keeping the film fast-paced and agile without provoking unnecessary distractions. She’s far from the aesthetic elegance of other directors who have worked with Campbell –Terry Rawlings. Thom Noble and Stuart Baird come to mind– but she succeeds in her job very well considering this type of film. The soundtrack by Rupert Parkes, aka “Photek”, has tunes that could have very well belonged to composers like Hans Zimmer, Eric Serra or Dan Romer, yet it turns out to be very unique on its own way: a mix of metallic sounds and percussion blended with soul-touching ethnic chorus to make us sympathise to Anna’s story and escape from Vietnam, explained with flashbacks throughout the film.
Will The Protégé have a sequel? Maggie Q said she’d be up to it and doubled the bet by recently revealing a journalist that she knows exactly what happened in the (sort of) open ending the movie offers, which is up for multiple theories. On the other hand, Campbell always saw it as a standalone film and therefore no talks of a sequel took place, at least during the production of the film.
In any case, The Protégé should teach a thing or two to modern filmmakers, the first one being that we don’t need three hours to deliver a good story or to overcomplicate stories with unnecessary drama and tarnished pretentiousness. Don’t go for the Oscar, go for the people. And that’s what The Protégé cleverly does. Bravo, Mr Campbell. You’ve done it again!
Article by Nicolás Suszczyk: Read his book The Films of Martin Campbell, available in paperback and Kindle on the Amazon store. It will soon be updated featuring an thorough analysis of this movie.
In 1992 Albert Pyun realized his ultimate action masterpiece with Nemesis, a film the world is still recovering from…
Albert Pyun may be best known for his Van Damme vehicle Cyborg which he cobbled together from the remainders of sets and props of two abandoned Cannon productions. Pyun had a great talent for creating eclectic and atmospheric settings, and competently staging action sequences, yet people have always been quick to dismiss his films as utter trash or a guilty pleasure at best. At which point in his career he picked up this reputation I don’t know, but it couldn’t have been in 1992 when he took the opportunity to realize his ultimate vision for action cinema, and created Nemesis.
With Nemesis, everything seemed to fall in place for him for once, he had a reasonable budget at his disposal, was in creative control as director and writer (under pseudonym), and worked with an aspiring new action hero (Olivier Gruner).
Cybernetically enhanced LAPD cop Alex Rain hunts android terrorists. After a run-in with some heavily armed enemies, he loses some body parts and is rebuilt. After his recovery he starts to question his job as a paid killing machine, and leaves the LAPD. His past violently catches up with him, and he gets entangled in a conspiracy that involves his former employer, a datachip with the mind of his android ex-lover, and a sinister plot for world domination.
Nemesis is a film that would not have existed without other movies such as Blade Runner, Robocop and The Terminator that came before it. But as opposed to the flood of copycat cyborg movies in the 1990s, Nemesis has a plot that actually requires to pay some attention to it, not least because it is a bit muddled occasionally. Nemesis also puts the “Punk” back into Cyberpunk big time with a quasi-anarchic society and its members causing as much chaos as they can with cutting-edge cyber-technology.
Pyun throws a staccato of classic Cyberpunk themes at the audience, and Nemesis features discourses on familiar topics such as biological vs. artificial consciousness, and identity crises of humans and androids alike. And while it’s not a philosophical treatise and often far from a coherent display, it’s surprisingly thoughtful in some moments and its ideas retain some relevance even today.
Throughout his career Pyun created several films with a unique visual style such as Radioactive Dreams, Vicious Lips and Mean Guns, but Nemesis arguably is his best-looking film. A glossy and light-suffused cinematography gives the movie a sultry elegance and often makes it look like a blend of an arthouse and a softcore flick. All the locations are photographed beautifully, and the different settings (dark urban alleys, desert ghost towns and tropical jungles) contrast each other nicely.
The fashion of the characters in Nemesis may already be worth a whole article in itself, also in relation to how the famous Matrix movies are suspiciously similar in outfitting their protagonists. Every single character makes interesting attire choices, but what sticks out most are the cyborgs with their Armani suits and Gucci sunglasses. Their classy look is deceiving, as they are all just a bunch of violent vandals. The soulless stare of these cold killers and their monotone, inhumane voices also render them a nice caricature of corporate level managers.
Nemesis features a lot of badass female characters, which was still rather unusual in action movies in the 1990s. Most women have male names (such as Max Impact!), and vice versa. Together with a consciousness swap between genders, Pyun coarsely connected the traditional Cyberpunk transhumanism theme with feminism, and nicely visualized the concept that gender differences may become obsolete when everyone is a cyborg.
Nemesis was supposed to be the entry point for newcomer Olivier Gruner to the action movie business, and while his career never really took off afterwards, he’s doing a more than decent job in his portrayal of the film’s main character Alex Rain. He’s jacked, good-looking, and cynical, it all adds up to create a believable kick-ass action hero.
Alex finds a formidable antagonist in LAPD commissioner Farnsworth, who is played by the great Tim Thomerson. Thomerson is the very embodiment of coolness in Nemesis (and one of the best villains in movie history in my book), who is either scheming, shooting, or just standing around looking grim while shouldering his shotgun. Farnsworth must have been another inspiration the Wachowskis found in Nemesis, as The Matrix’s main baddie Agent Smith is an almost exact copy of Farnsworth, a slick-looking, sadistic control freak. The coolness of the film’s characters is also enhanced by its dialogues, which are chock-full with awesome cybertech one-liners.
All this craziness is masterfully interwoven by Pyun with many spectacular action sequences, and what he puts on display in the action department is the crowning achievement of his career. Every single action scene becomes a playground of massive destruction, with complex set pieces that are executed flawlessly (watch out for an insane shootout on a muddy waterslide!). The gunplay is of the highest quality, with obvious inspiration drawn from John Woo’s classics. Hundreds of bullets are flying left and right, unleashed from gigantic weapons that are fired from the hip with magazines that never run empty, and there’s explosions everywhere.
Pyun can also pride itself as inventor of the bullet hole floor and door as convenient means to entering and leaving rooms, as well as creative weapon customizations, such as a grenade launcher mounted onto a shotgun. The practical effects are cost-effective, but not too shabby, with a lot of body modifications and violent disassembly of the cyborgs during combat. Pyun seemed to have taken a lot of pleasure in coming up with new ways for arranging the piles of skin and metal that frequently remain in the aftermath of the many shootouts. The overall production quality is just awesome for a movie with a budget of 2 million USD, we can only wonder how Pyun pulled it off without robbing a bank halfway during shooting.
With Nemesis, Albert Pyun forcefully broke through the conventions of 1990s DTV offerings, and arguably created the best low-budget action flick ever. Full of raw energy with an overload of visuals and ideas, it should have been the door opener for him toward bigger projects, but sadly this never happened. Nemesis is Pyun’s Godfather, a film that captures the essence of his style in every frame, and which has become an eternal masterpiece of action cinema.
A look at the best hybrid action/horror genre flicks of the past 20 years!
Action-horror is experiencing a renaissance and long may its ghostly light shine down on us all. Evolving from the blood-soaked cop thrillers of the 1990s, action-horror in the 21st century explores more diverse themes such as religion, veterans’ issues, and encroaching big tech. Reinvigorated with some new blood behind the camera, action-horror kicks into overdrive with impressive visuals, substantive storytelling, and brutally innovative action sequences.
So what makes action-horror its own thing and how are these types of films different from their component genres? The connective tissue in the movies I’m highlighting is that the protagonist(s) fights back against the threat in all three acts of the screenplay. Horror movie leads tend to be helpless victims struggling to survive the slasher/demon/monster’s onslaught throughout 75-90% of the runtime. During the final showdown, the characters left standing summon their remaining strength to escape or push back enough to end the nightmare.
The good guys in action-horror might get thrown off at first but they are constantly finding new ways to kick monster ass and protect those in their care. The leads are still allowed to be afraid and become squeamish at the sight of ruthless carnage but they are packing heat and ready to rumble, come what may.
The modern action-horror films below feature no-nonsense characters who have paid their dues and won’t lay down for anyone unless a weaselly tech nerd shuts off their mobility through an AI microchip implant. Here are at least six must-watch movies that perfectly balance the terror and suspense with the shoot-outs and bare-knuckled beat downs.
The 2000s started off strong for action-horror but leave it to the limeys to steal our thunder. Dog Soldiers has to be the most effective genre mash-up for the budget from the last 25 years. With its perfect blend of werewolf lore and underdog daring, this sleeper hit has rightfully developed a cult following for both action and horror fans on both sides of the Atlantic.
A rag-tag platoon of reservists are dropped into the wrong side of the 100-acre wood for a routine training exercise. Instead of pooh bears and tiggers, they find werewolves and betrayal. Dog Soldiers expertly stitches together Predator and EvilDeadII with impressive gun battles and a last stand in a spooky old house in the woods. Working with a shoestring budget, Director Neil Marshall stretched every dollar to deliver a bloody, yet character-grounded, shoot ‘em up. Those beasties better think twice before pre-empting the footie match on the telly (recommend turning on subtitles for this one).
Legion is one of those movies that randomly show up on Prime Video that you vaguely remember seeing a trailer for at the time but never got around to watching. Well next time it shows up during your nightly scroll for entertainment, give your thumb a rest and just hit play. This schlocktacular masterpiece shares quite a few strands of DNA with a previous action-horror entry, From Dusk Till Dawn (1996).
Somehow Paul Bettany, Dennis Quaid, Charles Dutton, and the rest of the cast manage to play it straight despite the ridiculous story and wild demon battles, one of which involves an impressive use of a flamethrower against a ghoulish horde. Paul Bettany’s Michael is an angel hell-bent on protecting man’s last chance for survival on Earth.
The unborn savior’s mother is just trying to get some relief at a dusty old truck stop alongside a lonely road. Before you know it, God calls forth an army to wipe out the human race but first, he sends a bloodthirsty, wall-climbing granny into the diner to commence the apocalypse. Yes, God is the bad guy and little old ladies aren’t always to be trusted.
No, it doesn’t have to make a lick of sense but the filmmakers do a decent job of stringing together some mesmerizing action sequences with fun character designs and a fantasy flair. It’s a fanciful tale of survival and roasted demon guts splattering all over the desert sand.
I was vaguely familiar with the immediate sequels to the 1992 action-scifi classic but I wasn’t prepared for what director John Hyams was doing with the franchise in more modern times. After seeing some positive feedback on social media from some trusted action buffs, I decided to get reacquainted with Luc Deveraux and Sgt. Scott; maybe see what they’ve been up to all these years.
Oh. Oh no, dear God—Nooooooo!
Well at least the two arch-rivals seem to be on friendly terms but that’s about the only thing that’s uplifting in this gritty and horrifying DTV tour-de-force. Hyams keeps his camera on the action and particularly the gore. All too often in modern DTV action, we get rapid-fire editing, cutaways, and brief glimpses of brutality but this guy wants to make sure you see bullets ripping through flesh.
US:DoR is a singular work of action-horror, with an undercurrent of social commentary, showcasing Scott Adkins’ acting abilities as he kicks his way through wayward UniSols. This undervalued, carnival of carnage also features: coping with profound grief, losing and regaining one’s humanity, struggling to sift through broken memories, and succumbing to one’s base instincts. The film’s substance and humanity make it one of the riskiest narratives on the list.
Whether intentional or not, Hyams also seems to comment on long-running franchises that just need to die. The old UniSols have nothing else to live for other than dulling the senses with booze, sex, and violence along with Sgt. Scott’s occasional rousing platitudes. Neither dead nor truly alive, they’re tired, directionless, and have nowhere else to go but to self destruct.
This is the most fascinating and affecting film on this action-horror survey that mashes genres into an unrecognizable yet satisfying pulp. Taking place in the near future, Grey Trace is left for dead after he and his wife are mercilessly taken down during a roadside ambush. His wife dies and Trace survives as a quadriplegic with his chair and a fully automated home to care for him throughout his remaining days. A tech-savvy whiz kid offers to help get him back on his feet and regain his mobility but at what cost?
Upgrade dials the revenge action-thriller way past eleven to deliver a beautifully composed film with a heart and soul. Although the narrative gets a bit out of hand in the third act, the characters and action set pieces draw you into a world that requires further exploration. Luckily, the director Leigh Wannell is making an Upgrade TV series as I write this (along with an Escape from New York reboot?!).
The central theme is man’s reliance on technology to the point of surrendering one’s humanity entirely in return for escapism and comfort. Wannell crafts a pulse-pounding, expressionist thriller with a tragic character that also includes bad guys with shotguns built into their arms. The mix of high- and low-brow entertainment confuses and excites us at the same time. So, basically, it’s the cinematic equivalent to Allison Cooper’s “I’m Eighteen.”
Here’s where we go a bit avant-garde and really explore the genre. Mandy is a colorfully trippy revenge story about a man, a not-so-well-endowed cult leader, and a biker gang of drugged-up mutants. Eight years after his directorial debut with the experimental Beyond the Black Rainbow, Panos Cosmatos decided to jump back into the game with his overpowered color-grading software and a wild and wooly Nicolas Cage leading the charge.
If you recognize the Cosmatos name, Panos’ father is George Cosmatos. He directed such ultimate action movies as Rambo II, Cobra, Tombstone, and Leviathan. Naturally, the “Son of Cobra” would don the action-horror mantle and produce an indie feature with a nod to the 80s and a vision for the genre’s future.
This freaky feature drops all of the acid without skimping on the axe-plunging mayhem. Cage transforms into an unstoppable force of vengeance after his wife is kidnapped, tortured, and burned alive in front of his eyes. He forges his own axe, which is one of the more badass weapons created for modern cinema, then takes us along for the gory ride.
The 2010s ended with another sleeper hit for action-horror. VFW and Mandy make an excellent pairing for a full night of high-octane chaos. Some old war buddies get together at their VFW post/watering hole to blow off some steam while a neighboring drug lord fuels his army of zombie junkies to track down a young woman who stole his stash. That’s all the plot you need for this delightful, Fangoria-produced gore fest.
And look at that cast list! William Sadler, Stephen Lang, Fred Williamson, Martin Kove, David Patrick Kelly, and even George Wendt stops by to round out this ensemble of crusty 80s movie veterans. Along with some new recruits, they hold off wave after wave of mindless addicts with whatever weapons they can find or create with the materials available. It’s a gritty, and grainy, take on zombie/slasher movies with a high kill count and breakneck pacing.
Both The Guest and Constantine deserve special recognition for their admirable action scenes and genre-bending styles. The Guest plays out like a traditional horror-thriller and Constantine is more aligned with a dark comic book movie in the same vein as Spawn and The Crow. Still, The Guest sprinkles in some fantastic fights, dual-fisted grenade throws, and a machine-gun shootout to please any 80s action fan. A flame-throwing crossbow gun and impressive visual effects highlight Constantine’s demon-busting, brass-knuckled escapades through the underworld.
These titles are hard to come by on most streaming services but you can rent or buy them through Prime Video or scrounge around the Walmart $5 dollar bin (that’s where I found Mandy). Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning is available on Crackle, Plex, and Pluto TV. You can find Legion on NBC’s app along with SyFy’s and Bravo Now’s service. The Guest has found a home on Netflix and Constantine is up on HBO Max. What a better time than now to start building an action-horror library and re-stocking your watch lists as the days grow shorter and a chill starts creeping through the night air. Oh hell, I’m just ready for a kick-ass Halloween watch party!
Ranking the best ultimate action movies from acclaimed director Jesse V. Johnson. Check out our top picks below…
Jesse V. Johnson is one of maybe a handful of directors working today who actually know how to create highly entertaining action films. In many of his works, he distilled the essence of genre classics and gave them a much-needed modern upgrade. Johnson successfully manages to embed high-octane martial arts action and devastating shootouts into classic story templates about redemption and revenge, that are sometimes funny, sometimes tragic, and which usually feature archetypal, but charismatic characters.
A distinguished stuntman and stunt coordinator, he started started to write and direct his own movies in the late 1990s, and created his vision of how action cinema should look like in the 21st century. In this article we’ll list and discuss the top 10 movies of Jesse V. Johnson, one of the masters of contemporary action cinema!
After their first clash in The Expendables, Steve Austin and Dolph Lundgren faced each other once again under Johnson’s direction in this slightly above average B-actioner that tells a simple story without much fuss. Mob enforcer Tommy (Austin) is tasked to deliver a package with unknown content to crime lord “The German” (Lundgren). His job is severely hindered by all sorts of criminals that want to see him dead before he accomplishes his mission. The Package is another typical Austin vehicle, in which he plays his usual character, the monosyllabic and slightly fatalistic behemoth with a code of honor. Lundgren only shows up in a couple of scenes as flamboyant and sadistic mobster boss, but those are some of the movies’ best.
The action comes at a good rate with plenty of fights and copious amounts of bullets flying around. There’s no fancy martial arts, Austin usually just grabs people and breaks them into half. There are some intense and raw fights for action fans to enjoy, and the relatively sober cinematography fits Austin’s style pretty well. The Package is a decent job from Johnson, and also one of Austin’s best movies so far.
Pit Fighter is the film that earned Johnson some early recognition with action movie fans. It tells an atmospheric and action-packed tale in an artificial micro-cosmos. The movie’s vibe shares some similarities with Robert Rodriguez’ El Mariachi, but then is a lot more darker and violent. Jack suffers from amnesia since he got injured during a firefight. He now spends his days as a tournament fighter. As he gets through one brutal fight after another, his past slowly catches up with him in the worst way possible.
Pit Fighter could have been an ultra-cheap run-of-the-mill actioner, but in Johnson’s capable hands it became a fine example for indie action movie making. The film looks as good as it probably can with solid acting, atmospheric cinematography and a pervasive melancholic vibe. The fight sequences are full of raw brutality and occasionally even border on a gore flick, but fit perfectly with the overall grim tone. The action choreography is simple and not overly spectacular, but that’s okay. Pit Fighter has its limitations, but Johnson successfully demonstrated his talent as director and action choreographer with it.
In the 2000s, Johnson’s films were still firmly rooted in low-budget action cinema. The Last Sentinel is another one of them, and it became another success! In the future, humanity has lost the war against the cyborg drone police. One of the last survivors is Tallis, a genetically engineered super soldier, who roams the ruins of human civilization. One day, he rescues a woman from a drone police squad, and together they devise a plan to save what remains of humanity. The Last Sentinel was directed and written by Johnson, and the script features a lot of goofy, but terrific stuff! It’s the perfect mix of ingredients for a B-action flick with cyborgs, sword fights and talking weapons.
The film delivers fully on the action front, with explosions and shootouts by the minute, and gallons of blood being spilled. The largest part of the story takes place in an abandoned refinery, and the special effects crew did an impressive job in blowing up a large part of the site. Don Wilson plays the main character Tallis, and delivers a surprisingly convincing performance as disillusioned and depressed combat veteran. The Last Sentinel is an entertaining action inferno that looks a lot better than it should considering its budget.
Triple Threat gave us the ultimate showdown between Eastern and Western martial arts titans Iko Uwais, Tony Jaa, Scott Adkins, Michael Jai White and a few others. After being lured to take part in the raid of a Thai village under false pretenses, ex-special forces members Payu and Long Fei are on the run from mercenary leader Deveraux and his goons. Their paths cross again when Deveraux takes a job to kill rich philanthropist Xiao. They also run into Jaka, who saw his village destroyed by Deveraux in the raid, and together they take the fight back to Deveraux.
The plot of the film is somewhat fragmented and its characters are extremely shallow. Thankfully with Johnson a director was brought in who could make the film shine where it matters, and he gives everyone ample opportunity to showcase their incredible fighting skills! So just lean back and enjoy the action and there’s a ton of it, with a bodycount that feels like it’s in the triple digits. Especially the finale is just incredible with three martial arts masters on either side giving it all! Triple Threat may suffer a bit from the high expectations placed on it but it’s still a highly entertaining action flick!
Everyone’s favorite debt enforcers are back, thanks to the brazen ignorance of the first part’s ending by writers Jesse V. Johnson and Stu Small! After an explosive reunion, Sue and French are sent to Vegas to collect money for their boss Tommy once again, this time from casino owner and Sue’s former love interest Mal. During their mission, a vengeful shadow from the past begins to haunt them, and we’re in for another display of plenty broken bones and bullet-perforated bodies. Just like in the first installment, the story is mostly composed of episodic segments with Sue and French going from place to place and putting their assets (= fists) to use to collect outstanding debts.
The chemistry between Adkins and Mandylor is just as great as in the first movie, and their coarse and bickering exchanges already make this second installment worth a watch. On top of that we get many fight scenes where both of them again get the opportunity to showcase their skills, including a violent clash between the two of them (to quote French on the matter: “Just like good old King George used to say: Come and fucking get it!”). Debt Collectors is more of the same, but that same is pure awesomeness!
“You know, it’s just not like the old days.” That’s the opening line of The Butcher and the motto for this nostalgic gangster action flick. Merle is an enforcer for local crime lord Murdoch. He gets set up during a job, but instead grabs the opportunity to run away with a bag of money. Together with bartender Jackie he embarks on a violent escape from Murdoch and his henchmen. The Butcher oozes an atmosphere and melancholia like you’ll hardly find in a DTV actioner. A life that took a few wrong turns (Merle) meets an unfulfilled life (Jackie). The film features several moments of calm reflection, and while it’s not exactly a philosophical treatise, many of the dialogues should resonate with viewers.
Eric Roberts leads an impressive cast of B-movie veterans, and Johnson was able to tease out great performances from all of them. The Butcher doesn’t chain action-packed set pieces into another, but still has enough eruptions of violence to keep action fans hooked. Johnson creates some epic scenes of gun violence, the shootouts are stylish and brutal. The Butcher is the best of his earlier works by quite some margin.
Savage Dog was not the first collaboration between Jesse V. Johnson and Scott Adkins, but it started a streak of great films the two made together with no end in sight yet. A labor camp in 1959 Indochina is run by corrupt local military and the German war criminal Steiner. Former inmate and boxing champion Martin agrees to participate in fighting contests taking place in the camp. A tragic turn of events instigated by Steiner’s henchmen leaves Martin with an insatiable hunger for revenge. Savage Dog gives us Scott Adkins unleashed, deforming and mutilating his opponents in ways you wouldn’t have thought possible.
The first half already has a couple of decent fight scenes, and once all plot points are ticked off its carnage time! Adkins faces some formidable adversaries, among them Chilean behemoth Marko Zaror in another clash between the two after their first unhealthy meetup in Undisputed 3. Knives and machetes turn many scenes into a massacre, and the fights are complemented by ultra bloody shootouts. The whole package is old-school action heaven, and Savage Dog was another home-run for Johnson and Adkins.
Almost all of Johnson’s film were serious affairs until 2018, but in that year he changed course and created two rather light-hearted action flicks, one of them being Accident Man. The film is based on a comic book, and once again Johnson teamed up with Scott Adkins, who also co-wrote the script. Mike Fallon is a professional killer, whose specialty is to make his murders look like accidents. Fallon is member of a guild of eccentric assassins that meet regularly at the pub Oasis. When someone who he used to hold dear gets killed, Mike picks up the trail of the murderers, which leads him right back to the Oasis.
Spectacular fights, foul-mouthed banter and a groovy soundtrack are the ingredients that make Accident Man another highly successful collaboration between Johnson and Adkins. With Michael Jai White, Ray Park and Amy Johnston, Johnson managed to assemble some martial arts grandees as formidable adversaries for Adkins. Accident Man also was a visible step up in production quality for Johnson compared to his previous works, and combined with a flawless execution of the action sequences and sharp cinematography, makes it one of his best works to date. And on top everything, we’re introduced to the interesting concepts of relieving post-murder tension and defenestration (It’s a word, look it up!).
The Debt Collector is Johnson’s take on 1980s buddy action flicks, and with it he managed to establish Scott Adkins and Louis Mandylor as a dream team of modern action cinema. French is running a rather unsuccessful dojo and has accumulated considerable financial obligations. He joins a debt collecting agency and is paired up with one of the companies’ veterans, Sue. French quickly learns that most debtors will only hand over their money after a good beating, but when the two are sent to collect a debt from a dangerous criminal, they need more than their fists to survive.
Sue and French proceed relentlessly during their jobs and turn every location they visit into a remodeling case with plenty of broken furniture, bones and noses. Their love-hate relationship also gives us plenty of funny and wise-ass banter. It’s not all light-hearted fun, the script manages to strike a good balance between comedy and some darker moments. In addition to being fantastic martial artists, both Adkins and Mandylor do a terrific job in creating believable and relatable characters. We can only wonder why Johnson was not given the opportunity to direct an A-list film since then, if The Debt Collector is not testimony to his talent, I don’t know what is!
After Accident Man, Johnson followed Scott Adkins again to his British turf, but what they achieved with Avengement outshines everything they did so far in both of their careers. Convict Cain Burgess escapes from his guards during a day release, walks into a bar, and takes a group of gangsters hostage. He is out for revenge, and holds them responsible for a botched job that got him into prison and his face disfigured. One wrong choice, and from there it all goes downhill for Cain into a spiral of violence. Avengement is a grim film with tragic moments and a dark sense of humor that always treats its characters with respect, however.
Adkins undergoes a bizarre transformation from average Joe to a cynical and brutish avenger with a frightfully deranged look. As for the action, there’s no artistic martial arts with flying kicks, just brutal fist fights with an incredible intensity. It’s street violence to the extreme with stabbings, some other rather unappetizing moments, and a finale that will give you a concussion and nosebleed from just watching it. It’s a slick production with a perfect choreography of the action sequences and razor-sharp editing. Johnson’s films just keep getting better and Avengement is the highlight of his career so far, a prime example for first-class action cinema in the 21st century!
Raging Fire hits hard (plus offers an ultimate farewell to legendary Hong Kong filmmaker Benny Chan)…
I got to tell you guys, 2021 has been a bit disappointing on the action front for me. All the more highly anticipated movies haven’t hit me as hard as they should have. Mortal Kombat, Snake Eyes, Fast 9. Even Nobody, which I liked, I found to be lacking in parts. It just seemed like 2021 was going to be a dud, action wise.
But then, this came along. The final film from the great Hong Kong Filmmaker Benny Chan, starring martial arts action legend Donnie Yen, as well as asian pop culture icon Nicholas Tse in what I’m calling the best action film of the year. That film is… Raging Fire.
Inspector Cheung is a highly respected cop with a long history of success on dangerous cases. However, his past soon comes back to haunt him when his former protégé seeks revenge against all those who have wronged him.
If you’ve been just as disappointed by the lack of great action this year as I have, Raging Fire is the one you’re looking for. The great Benny Chan has left us with a final, glorious masterpiece of blistering action. Truly some of the best stunt work I’ve seen in years. When the action kicks in, it grabs you by the throat and never lets go.
You get a grand heaping of fantastic fights, shootouts and chases, all epic in nature. Yen (who was the action director) as well as stunt coordinator Kenji Tanigaki and action choreographer Kang Yu reeeally showed out with the action here. You guys are in for a treat.
Yen & Tse are also to be commended for their fantastic work not just on the action side, but the acting as well, as they deliver some of their very best work yet. Playing two former friends turned enemies, they go tit for tat that reminds me of great performances such as Pacino & De Niro in Heat, and Travolta & Cage in Face/Off.
But it’s easy for them to be as good as they are due to the excellent script, which touches upon loyalty, honor, and corruption, which is par for the course if you’ve seen some of Chan’s previous films (Gen-X Cops, New Police Story, Invisible Target).
Any issues? The film ends a bit too abruptly for me, as there were some lingering points that I would’ve liked to have seen resolved, but it is what it is.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the film is a bit of a bittersweet watch. Watching the masterful work of Benny Chan on display, it really hits you where it hurts to realize we will never see this grandmaster give us greatness like this ever again.
And the loving tribute that plays during the end credits did not help me emotionally at all. Benny Chan has been one of my favorite directors for a while, and his death was a tremendous loss for the entire filmmaking world.
But he left us with not only an indelible legacy, but a parting gift, and it is a wonderful one. So thank you, Mr. Chan. For all you have done for the world of action filmmaking.
A retrospective look The Marine (2006) and John Cena’s foray into the ultimate action ring…
John Cena is a man of many talents. He found himself to be a force of nature and crowd pleaser in the ring. He took his expertise and applied it to the screen. This transition to some probably came as no surprise after seeing Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson shift his career to screen actor. As his career continued, Johnson has become a bigger than life persona. One can only assume that maybe lightning can strike twice with John Cena.
Now If you’ve been paying attention to Cena’s film career path he is nowhere near the level of Dwayne Johnson’s fame but he has been able to find himself some success. Recently he has been acting in some high profile blockbusters and they have allowed him to show the different sides of himself. However, before he was in The Suicide Squad and a part of the Fast Saga he was in a small actioner called The Marine (2006).
For Cena’s first foray into being a leading man he was directed by John Bonito. Bonito’s name may not ring any bells because his film career never really lifted off. The Marine has explosions, fist fights, car chases, beautiful women, and beautiful men. Sadly the movie is not as exciting as it sounds. It is more of a perfect TNT movie you would play in the background while cleaning the house on a Saturday morning
The film opens with John Triton (Cena) in the midst of a mission to rescue his squad. He does so by disobeying direct orders. With a face covered in camo and a gun full of lead, he unleashes his fury on his squad’s captors. This scene introduces Triton as a total badass and complete killing machine, it’s a great practical setup.
But it does play out similar to a fever dream of action and not in a good way. There’s a punch here and a gunshot there and it is done in more of an impressionistic manner . The editing is done so fast it is almost disorientating. Each shot gives you new information and you never really have time to process any action you are seeing on screen.
After he rescues his squad, he is discharged for disobeying orders and finds himself behind the desk as a security guard. Part of me almost wishes the film kept him as an ex-military security guard trapped in the mundanity of civilians. Bonito’s film goes down the generic action movie path, which is understandable, WWE has longstanding ties to the military.
With that said, their film The Marine would most definitely display the military as unstoppable heroes. Does Triton get his chance to be a super soldier once again? Yes, once a band of thieves led by Robert Patrick kidnap Triton’s wife Kate (Kelly Carson). Patrick’s psychopathic villain has some charm but there are too many jokes and awkward moments that bury his charm.
M-73 John Triton Ð aka THE MARINE (John Cena) Ð makes an explosive entrance during his quest to find his kidnapped wife. Photo credit: Vince Valitutti
Once Triton’s wife is in the hands of these poorly written thieves, the stunts and action get bigger. If the first scene accomplished anything it was showing us what we were going to see for the rest of the film. The physical fights are again often edited in a headache inducing manner. It often feels as if the editing is being used to cover up for either the choreography that is lacking or the actors unable to perform the physical acts. It’s unfortunate because Cena is obviously a man that is capable of performing physically. It can only benefit a movie to display his prowess properly.
The area where the film really shines is when stunts involve pyrotechnics and any type of vehicular mayhem. Cars fly through the air and an 18 wheeler cab drives into a building. This should give you some idea of just how intense some of these vehicular stunts are.
Most of these stunts are punctuated by an explosion and then with, which makes sure you feel the flames from the explosion. I have to warn you, they tend to feature some special effects that don’t quite hold up. Time comes for us all so it’s not really a hard negative to me, but they are a little too obvious. As I stated earlier this film feels generic, but I found that my issues with it did not stem from its unoriginality.
On paper this film could easily be a Gary Daniels film from PM Entertainment but there is a lack of craftsmanship and heart in this film that makes it incomparable to the films of those times. It claims to be an action movie, but it just seems like the dead body of an action movie was reanimated.
Overall, John Cena’s film debut is quite lackluster. It features a tired story and characters that feel more like archetypes that don’t really allow you to feel for them. When vehicles aren’t involved the action leaves a lot to be desired. This film has a lot of influences but sadly none of the greatness from them shine through. I will say one positive thing, the film features an insane kill involving a chain near the end of it. There is also some grisly body horror shown too. Sadly this was too little and too late for me.
What may be hard to believe is this was only the first of a six film franchise. The sequels continue without Cena and go into DTV (Direct-to-video) territory. They also get some DTV heavy hitters such as Roel Reiné (Seal Team Eight: Behind Enemy Lines, Hard Target 2), William Kaufman (One in the Chamber, Sinners and Saints), and James Nunn (Green Street 3, Eliminators). Is DTV where the series will shine? I’m going to find out as I dive deeper into the series. Thanks for reading and hope you come back for more.
Article By: Cameron Levins is a filmmaker, comic book lover and fight scene enthusiast. Ever since his dad showed him Bruce Lee as a kid, he became obsessed with action films. In his free time he’s either day dreaming about an action scene or researching fight choreographers. Follow Cameron on Twitter here.
A Man Apart (2003) isn’t perfect, but F. Gary Gray and Vin Diesel do deliver intense and brutal action without complications…
Vin Diesel carved out a big niche for himself in the action movie world with the Fast & Furious franchise. This film series and most of his other productions in the last 20 years featured a rather comical and light-hearted approach to action cinema, including the Riddick films. It looks like that these are the type of roles he prefers to take, but his physique and charisma could also have turned his career towards grittier and more violent action flicks.
There is exactly one film in his filmography where Diesel got the opportunity to be an old-school action hero and to put his own spin on the classic Death Wish revenge theme. This film is a A Man Apart, for which Diesel teamed up with director F. Gary Gray who already left a mark in the 1990s with the excellent action thrillers Set it Off and The Negotiator. In this article, we’ll have a look if Diesel’s and Gray’s collaboration for A Man Apart was equally successful.
Sean Vetter and his team of DEA agents capture a drug baron during a raid in Mexico. The cartel sends its henchmen to take out Vetter as retaliation, but during the attack on his home Vetter’s wife Stacy is killed instead. He craves for revenge and sets out on a violent vendetta against every member of the cartel who had a hand in the murder of his wife. His rampage takes him all the way up to the top of the organization, where the reclusive Diablo has taken charge.
This is one of the archetypal revenge stories, and A Man Apart brings zero novelty to the table in the plot department. Even despite this simplicity, some of the story elements are handled kind of sloppy, and don’t connect very well to each other. The backdrop of cross-border drug trade and crime-ridden LA neighborhoods is also not explored in depth. Not much effort is made either to work out the characters, and the especially the villains are walking cliches.
Sounds lame? It could be, but this is the type of setup that can work if your ambition is to create a straightforward action flick. If you take time to flesh out characters and add complications to the story, you have to dial back the action, there’s no way around it. And despite its lack of depth, A Man Apart manages to grab viewer’s attention through its energetic direction, killer action sequences and intense performances of everyone showing up on screen, first and foremost Diesel.
As with many vigilante movies, Vetter undergoes an almost almost instantaneous transformation from a decent guy and loving husband into a remorseless killing machine. His performance is nowhere near as iconic as that of a Bronson or Eastwood in the classics but then what is. Yet when Vetter goes loose, Diesel gives him an intimidating and intense presence that explodes into raw brutality in some scenes and into a gruffly charm in some of the film’s calmer moments. It’s quite easy to identify with Vetter’s killing spree, as all the villain characters are delightfully sleazy, with a breakout performance by Timothy Olyphant as flamboyant hair salon owner and drug distributor, who seemed to have walked over from a Miami Vice set.
The action sequences, just like the rest of the movie, are devoid of originality, but still have a lot going for them, and after the death of Vetter’s wife they keep coming almost non-stop. Vetter knocks down one door after another, sometimes alone, sometimes with his old buddies from the hood, and beats up the culprits or kills them right away. It’s really not more than that, but this simple approach works incredibly well thanks to some great adrenaline-charged verbal exchanges and the various shootouts and fights with some of them being exceptionally brutal.
A Man Apart could have been a great start for Diesel to establish himself as a go-to actor for other gritty action productions. It tanked at the box office, though, and that may have put a hold on this avenue for him. The film is not perfect, and doesn’t excel at anything in particular, but delivers intense and brutal action without complications. I think it’s one of the best films Diesel made so far, a highly entertaining venture into unrestrained old-school action cinema.
One of the truest – if not best – attempts at family-oriented ultimate action from the golden ’80s era…
“We got robots, we got cavemen, we got Kung-Fu. What is this, some kind of goddamn comic book?” These words are uttered by the astonished Harry Fontana, one of the main characters in the movie, and could not be a better summary of what Eliminators is about! If you would have asked a child in the 1980s what ingredients are needed to create his favorite action movie, he probably would have mentioned these elements and added time travel, possibly a beautiful female scientist, and of course laser guns and explosions.
That’s what Charles Band and his production company Empire Pictures may have had in mind when they created Eliminators. Many B-action movies in the 1980s were trying to compensate their lack of excitement and overall quality with ultra-violence and unpleasant sleaziness, but Eliminators went into the completely opposite direction, and became one of Empire’s few films that received a PG rating!
The script was written by Paul de Meo and Danny Bilson, and shares much of its campy attitude with another Empire classic, Trancers, which they also penned. The approach of shoving as many genre tropes as possible into a film is done regularly these days with post-modern and parodist takes on the genre. But Eliminators can actually claim to be one of the first movies to plunder the repository of action classics and throw them all together into a fairly chaotic, but surprisingly self-aware mix.
The Mandroid returns from a time travel mission to recover a historical artifact for his creator, the evil genius Abbott Reeves. Reeves decides he has no further use for his servant and orders to have him disassembled. The Mandroid escapes and sets out on a quest to get rid of Reeves once and for all. He is joined by the scientist Nora Hunter who sees her life’s work in ruins thanks to Reeves, the mighty martial arts warrior Kuji, and the opportunistic boat captain Harry Fontana.
The majority of the film follows the unlikely companions on their journey through the wilderness to reach Reeves’ fortress. While the characters could all find a home in a kids novel, in Eliminators they clash with the tough attitude of 1980s action movies. Everyone plays their part upbeat: Andrew Prine shines as dodgy river guide, Denise Crosby plays the feisty scientist with a charming smile on her face, and Conan Lee delivers a great comical martial arts performance.
The bad guys also reign in on the campy fun. Roy Dotrice portrays the stereotypical evil mastermind Abbott Reeves appropriately over the top. And even minor villains such as “Bayou Betty” are highly entertaining, and are testimony to the creative spirit that went into making the film.
The real star of the film is the Mandroid, the most gentle and honorable cyborg in movie history. He is portrayed by Patrick Reynolds in his only lead role ever, and who stepped out of the acting business right after Eliminators. A logical decision, what else is there to accomplish when you already have immortalized yourself with this character?
The Mandroid suit looks pretty cool and his mobile battle unit (a sort of mini-tank he can mount by taking off his legs) is an absolute highlight of the film! Eliminators came out a year before Robocop, and both the style of the Mandroid armor and his painful struggle with the memories of a former human life are two suspicious commonalities with one of our all-time action movie classics. Anything you want to confess, Mr. Verhoeven?
Eliminators also distinguishes itself from your standard kids movie by the quantity and intensity of its action sequences. The heroes’ jungle trip is hindered by motorboat chases, a moped squad ambush, and plenty of shootouts, explosions and brawls (watch out for the moment when Nora walks into a bar full of roughnecks and says “I want the toughest guy in the place!”). It’s all staged on a modest scale, but competently filmed and never looks trashy.
And while the action is staged entertainingly, the key factor why Eliminators is a truly great movie is that it is infectiously cheerful. It’s one of those rare films where everyone, good and bad alike, seems to have a great time at what they’re doing. The characters are extremely likable, and the humor is simple but never too silly.
Eliminators is an upbeat Sci-Fi adventure that maxes out on creativity and excitement as much as possible for a movie on a budget. It’s one of the most sincere attempts to create a true action movie for the whole family I’ve ever seen, and at the same time is an awesome throwback into 1980s B-movie madness.
