Another ultimate indie actioner that you should definitely check out!
I’ve met many great people since becoming a writer of action movie reviews. Maybe one or two numbskulls, but the majority of everyone else has been super awesome. Particularly Lee B. Golden over at Film Combat Syndicate. Lee has provided us at the UAMC with a heads up or two about exciting new action films, and introduced me to quite a few great action movies; past, present, and future.
One of those films he introduced me to was Die Fighting.
Released in 2014, Die Fighting is an extraordinary action movie featuring some of the most blistering fight sequences ever captured on film. What Writer/Director/Fight Choreographer/Star Fabian Garcia and his cast & crew put together was nothing short of exemplary.
Now, he and his Z-Team Films partners have returned to do it again. And this time, they need your help.
Garcia has started a crowdfunding campaign for his latest action epic The Hunt: Savage Within. If you click the link below, you will be provided with all the juicy tidbits of what this exciting new story entails.
Described as “a gritty action/sci-fi similar in tone to great action/sci-fi properties and franchises like Predator, The Terminator, The Thing, and Japanese manga series, Akira.
I don’t know about you guys, but that already sounds absolutely fantastic. I can’t wait to see what these immensely talented action filmmakers put together. But however it turns out, I already know it’s going to be a blast!
Steven Seagal had a successful career in the crowded market for action movies in the 1990s. He distinguished himself from other action stars by being an expert in the Japanese martial art Aikido. When watching it on the screen it seemed to be a more elegant and seemingly effortless way of defeating opponents compared to the impact-based fighting techniques in most American action movies. In addition, he created an on-screen persona that remained unchanged in almost all of his movies, which is characterized by an attitude of constant superiority and righteousness, and complete invincibility when engaged in combat.
Currently he is mostly being known for making one bad movie after another, eccentric behaviour and numerous accusations of sexual misconduct against him. I really want to put these things aside for this article, and go back to a time when a new movie starring Steven Seagal was something to look forward to. And I will argue that from this period Out for Justice (released in 1991) was his best movie.
In Out for Justice, Seagal plays Gino Felino, a Brooklyn police detective. One day the petty criminal and drug addict Richie goes mental, and embarks on a rampage together with some of his goons. When his partner Bobby is killed by Richie in broad daylight, things get very personal for Gino. His manhunt for Richie is framed by a sentimental journey through his neighborhood that includes childhood memories and reconciliation efforts with his ex-wife.
Out for Justice was Seagal’s fourth movie, and he was moving towards the height of his career at the time. His first two movies, while being more than decent, were still a bit clunky both in terms of direction and how Seagal presented itself. These things improved considerably with his third movie Marked for Death, while also cranking up the amount of carnage significantly. Then he made Out for Justice.
After that came the Under Siege movies and On Deadly Ground, which were his biggest productions. In those movies he had to share considerable screen time with the villains, and the display of his fighting skills had to take a back-seat more often to shoot-outs, explosions and other large set pieces. When taking all these things into account, Out for Justice and Marked for Death can be considered to hit the “sweet spot” for Seagal’s movie career, I believe.
Out of Justice is completely focused on Seagal, he is in almost every scene. If he’s not, then we get to follow Richie’s exploits. Seagal’s character Gino is pumped up all the time, even when trying to talk friendly to his son and ex-wife. In between intimidating and beating up people he gets to play the emphatic macho with his heart at the right place. He likes to play baseball with his son, but duty gets in the way, of course. He also tells a couple of colorful stories from his childhood when growing up in Brooklyn.
He is extremely patronizing to everyone he interacts with in the movie, and sometimes one may wish that he would just shut up. It never gets really irritating, though, and his larger-than-life behavior only helps to elevate the entertainment level of the movie, and I mean that in a good way. One other noteworthy item is Gino’s outfit when on duty. His guerilla-style shirt and cap may be his take on being an police officer in the urban jungle, that’s the best I can make of it.
The action scenes is where the movie really shines, of course. They are mostly contained to small skirmishes where Seagal cripples his opponents with his Aikido skills. The combat sequences are quite brutal occasionally, and Gino creatively uses his environment and improvised weapons to maximize the damage done to people. There is also a bar fight scene, and I believe it is one of the best action sequences you will find in a Seagal movie. It’s not very fast-paced or even overly violent. He just walks around, pushes and punches people, throws insults, and owns the place with his ego in overdrive. The choreography and editing of all the fights is done really well, and contributes to the intensity of the movie. There are no pyrotechnics or elaborate stunts in Out for Justice, but the movie works just fine without them.
The Brooklyn setting and Gino’s relations with the local community (including the mafia) add a lot of atmosphere, and are an important component of why the movie functions so well. The setting is full of cliches, but director John Flynn captures the ambience and livelihood of the Italian-American working-class neighborhood convincingly. Out for Justice also wouldn’t be as good without William Forsythe’s performance as Gino’s antagonist Richie, who has become a drug-addicted psycho-killer that terrorizes the neighborhood. And he certainly does it well! Whenever he shows up on screen, someone ends up being killed. Apparently Seagal even insisted of having some of Richie’s scenes removed, as he was concerned that Forsythe would steal the movie from him.
Out for Justice is overflowing with adrenaline and brutality, great hand-to-hand combat scenes, and a vivid depiction of the Brooklyn neighborhood. Due to the sole focus on Seagal’s violent escapades and eccentric manners, and a striking performance of William Forsythe as Gino’s antagonist, Out for Justice takes the top spot of his movies in my book, and is one of the movies Seagal deserves to be remembered for.
Date nights are supposed to be fun, so why torture yourself with some deep, philosophical movie when you can watch something interesting yet explosive? Anyone that knows movies understands that the 1980s and 1990s were a special time when guys with ugly mugs were tearing up the silver screen, and we’re going to appreciate the role these films can play in a modern date night. Be yourself in any situation and use tenderfling to win the heart of action movie lovers. For this, experts offer a list of the best action movies.
Top-5 action movies from 80-90s
Bloodsport
First Blood
Under Siege
Judge Dredd
The Terminator
The action movies that we’ve listed here are just a sample of some of the best that this era had to offer. While it might not be fair to list two movies with Sly Stallone in them, they’re both fantastic entries. These movies aren’t just mindless fun, though. These helped launch major careers and changed the way that people view action films. Specifically, First Blood was a social commentary that showed people can be broken through abuse and that they will retaliate when people attack them. The Terminator and Judge Dredd show a future that is horrifying and preventable. You can watch all of these as a popcorn flick, or you can look for the deeper message. The former is probably the way to go when you have a date with you.
Common lessons for life
Another great thing about these movies is that they offer some very surprising lessons for life. Here is what you should glean from each film:
Bloodsport: It’s better to have a strong will than to cheat.
First Blood: Soldiers need more support from their government and community. Violence begets violence.
Under Siege: Never look down on the guys with mediocre jobs. You might regret it.
Judge Dredd: The law can be a tool, or it can act as shackles.
The Terminator: Humans are their own worst enemy.
The lessons that movies teach you are largely up to your interpretation. However, many of the action movies in the 80s and 90s were black and white on their concepts of good and evil instead of trying to straddle the gray line and explain why someone was bad. Best of all, these movies don’t shove the message down your throat the entire time. It’s all the fun you need with none of the nonsense.
Watch action movies with someone special
Watching an action movie is a great pass-time for film lovers. However, a movie night is also perfect for when you have a date to enjoy it with you. You can always try meeting people at the movies, but if you’re looking to settle in for a night of retro action, it’s always good to use a dating site. Using a professional dating service, you can easily sift through the members’ profiles to find people that enjoy these films as much as you. The biggest difficulty of this sort of dating outcome is choosing the first movie that you would like to watch! Action movies are great, but they’re definitely better with someone sitting next to you.
Action films have changed drastically in recent years. Now, there is a lot more focus on style than substance and CGI rather than practical effects. There’s no better genre than the 80s and 90s action films to watch when you’re trying to zone out and relax. While there are many great films from this era, we’ve provided some of the best ones to consider while so you can narrow down the selection. Enjoy the show!
Relax and let Hulk Hogan return you to a simpler – and more ultimate – time of action!
Did you ever convince your parents to buy the ultimate box of cereal featuring all of your favorite wrestlers: WWF Superstars? Like Wheaties, you would find a new “athlete” on the box decked out in all of their spandex and oiled-up glory. My Mom gave in one day and I was pumped to try my first bowl with Saturday morning cartoons. The first spoonful of the hollowed out starry puffs tastes like a cross between Cap’n Crunch and Honeycomb. The second bite didn’t have as much flavor but whatever, GI Joe was on and Cobra was getting their asses kicked. By the time the real American heroes’ PSA came on, you were left with an amorphous, inedible soggy mess.
Just like the cereal, WWF Studios’ first feature film plays on your fandom, draws you in with its glitzy packaging and campy Wrestlemania antics, but ultimately leaves you unsatisfied and wanting something more substantive like steak and eggs with a side of crispy bacon. Speaking of bacon, a similarly hued Hulk Hogan does his very best to carry this movie with his pile-driving prowess and assorted tie-dyed manny panties that no woman can resist.
It’s not a great movie but it’s an entertaining movie and almost everything you could want from a hair-brained plot involving jealousy, revenge, a double-crossing floozy, and a rival redneck wrestling show called “Battle of the Tough Guys.” Here are the top three No Holds Barred action moments that happen chronologically and in order of greatness, just like its wholesome, corn-based breakfast counterpart.
Who in their right mind would think it’s a good idea to kidnap Hulk Hogan in a limousine in order to coerce him into severing his lucrative contract to join a rival network? The greedy, evil businessman of course, who is played by noted sleazy character actor, Kurt Fuller.
The scheme quickly unravels.
Right after the limo driver locks him in the backseat, the Hulkster just starts kicking the crap out of the car as a Soul Glo-inspired track hilariously plays over the scene. This prompts the driver to kick it into high gear and rush over to a standard-issue grimy warehouse chock full of awaiting goons. Once the driver barrels on in and throws it into park, Hogan bursts out of the roof and proceeds to head-butt, close-line, high kick, and uppercut his way through all of them.
All that’s left is the hapless limo driver who Hulk grabs out of the decimated vehicle and menacingly stares down. There are several staredowns in the movie and they are all laugh-out-loud ludicrous. Needless to say the driver soils himself, which further enrages an already irritated Hulk. Then it just kind of ends. A brilliant sequence with a poo-stained climax that craps out rather suddenly as well. After a slick one-liner, he could have thrown him into a toilet or grabbed a toilet to smash over his head. Grab a hose and chase him around for a little bit. I don’t know, anything!
A different group of miscellaneous bad guys make an unfortunate error in judgment when they attempt an armed robbery at a diner that the Hulkster is patronizing with his generic love interest. First off, what kind of score are you expecting from a local diner? More importantly, if you bust in there and see a 6’7”, 300lb mustachioed dude wearing knee-high boots along with light-blue spandex and matching do-rag, you best turn tail and hit the McDonalds across the street.
Hogan promptly rips out a stool and chucks it at the would-be robbers. But what really puts the brakes on their plan is an inexplicable line-up of pies on the counter that he rifles at them with rapid-fire speed. More food gets tossed as Hulk does what he does best and picks them up one at a time and throws them around the dining room as his lady friend watches from under a table. Apparently this gets her in the mood later in a very uncomfortable scene at the motel.
After a rousing round of chucklehead chucking, the Hogan gets a round of applause and a hearty thank you from the waitress that sexually harassed him earlier. As entertaining as this scene is, I was expecting more moves and combos. Give me a pile-driver, a flying elbow off of the counter, a double-kick to the face. Oh well, at least there’s the last fight to look forward to, which is bound to break out the special moves and techniques…
A few of the movie’s story beats are reminiscent of Rocky III but obviously play out differently. Rocky and Hulk’s Rip are over-exposed and top-of-their-game; they are just asking to be knocked down a peg. Mr. T’s Clubber Lang and Tommy “Tiny” Lister’s Zeus are fired up, have something to prove, and are ready to dethrone the king. Both Rocky and Rip have to overcome a loved one’s severe trauma, which encourages them to fight harder than ever.
These narrative elements are necessary to endear you to the characters, raise the stakes, and simply keep things interesting. The final showdown and culminating drama should have a big payoff and deliver a satisfying conclusion for the audience.
Zeus walks his way to a teeny octagonal ring donning some kind of Shredder knock-off outfit as Hulk starts in with his hilarious stare down/huffing routine. The scene is evenly lit and sterile, unlike the dramatic lighting, contrasts, and sweaty haze of the ring in Rocky’s world. Evil businessman’s box seat is literally right next to the ring as he gesticulates and taunts Hogan like a curiously self-assured, caged monkey. It’s goofy.
The action picks up with a lot of punching and even more tossing. The diminutive ring is quickly abandoned as the match spills out into the stands where members of the crowd are no longer safe from the intermittent tossing. If you signed up as an extra for No Holds Barred, you had a better than a 50/50 chance of being thrown at somebody or something.
In between the typical royal rumbling and mild head crushing, the drama plays out as the lady friend gets held hostage and escapes while Rip’s disabled little brother gets knocked down and trampled on. Instead of running out of there and calling the cops, lady friend just wanders back to the auditorium to watch the fight. Little bro’ is ok too, ready to cheer on Rip once again.
The coup-de-gras is decent enough as Zeus ends doing a glorious flying backflop right through the mini-octagon with his legs dangling about. Evil businessman somehow electrocutes himself…he doesn’t even have the decency to be thrown around like everyone else.
It’s an inevitable conclusion devoid of the crazy, off-the-wall stunts and never-before-seen wrestling moves that one would expect from this type of movie. It’s ok but didn’t have near the flavor or consistency of that first tasty bite involving limo jumping and load dropping. The packaging and the promise of a nostalgic, fun time sell you on it though. Yellow shirt-rippers will eat it up to the end but the casual movie streamer who never fully experienced Hulkamania probably won’t get it and switch over to Rocketman or Honey Boy.
Coincidentally, No Holds Barred is streaming on Amazon Prime Video right now! Fill up a bowl of Superstars, and/or a tall glass of bourbon, and remember a simpler time of Saturday morning entertainment filled with consequence-free violence and barebones storytelling.
As longtime Ultimate Action Movie Club member, writer, contributor, etc… Robb Antequera aka The Cinema Drunkie discovered a few days ago, his write up for our UAMC review of the new Donnie Yen martial arts comedy actioner Enter the Fat Dragon had a particularly ultimate and awesome quote featured on its cover!
And sure enough, if you go out and purchase the Blu-ray copy of Enter the Fat Dragon at your local neighborhood video store – jk, you’ll probably have to order it on Amazon – you’ll find a familiar 80s/90s action movie website’s name featured on the cover declaring, in Robb’s words, that Enter the Fat Dragon is “A Hilarious, Hyper-Paced, Rock-Em Sock-Em Blast” – because it is!
First Cover Feature Quote
The quote comes from Robby’s full write-up for our review on Enter the Fat Dragon which you can read in its entirety here. The line comes from the ‘Enter the Fat Dragon Review’ section and the entire paragraphs is actually even more so over-the-top about how awesome of a movie it is:
“Man. Oh. Man. What a ride this was! A hilarious, hyper-paced, rock-em sock- em blast of a movie! A throwback to the golden days of the 80s when we got kung fu comedy classics like Wheels on Meals and My Lucky Stars, I was grinning from ear to ear by the time the credits started playing! An absolute great time! Donnie Yen does the legends justice while continuing to show us he truly is one of the greatest to ever do it!”
As the rest of the review goes into Donnie Yen’s great performance and the well-crafted narrative that blends comedic elements with some truly badass action sets and sequences.
Ultimate Love for Action Movies
This is really cool for a couple of reasons. One, it’s our first cover quote ever (unless there are more floating out there that haven’t been sent to us). And two, well, because the Ultimate Action Movie Club (aka Ultimate Action Movies) is truly meant to be a page where fans of action movies can talk about how awesome action movies are.
Case in point, Enter the Fat Dragon is a great example of a fun actioner that would be great to watch with some friends over some pizza and beer this weekend – even if you have to do it remotely!
So, if you haven’t already, and the flick captures your fancy, check out Enter the Fat Dragon. Just be sure to get a copy with Ultimate Action Movies on the cover!
Meet a new player in the underground, indie martial arts scene of ultimate action!
In this day and age, it is widely known that if you want real action, you go to the low budget, independent world of action filmmaking. A world currently dominated by top action stars such as Scott Adkins and Michael Jai White. But there is one man, and one film, looking to take a place among them in the annals of action movie supremacy…
His name is Braden White. And that film is called Crossfire.
Introducing ‘Crossfire’ (2020)
From director Taron Spencer comes Crossfire, an exciting new action movie starring martial arts wunderkind Braden White, and also stars Ginifer Ree, Dale Neihaus, Ashlynn Ree, and William Row.
Written by White, Crossfire tells the story of two siblings who are also expertly trained assassins. When a hit goes bad, they discover a link that leads to the whereabouts of their father, a legendary assassin who disappeared 15 years ago.
According to White, who’s also producing, Crossfire “will change the face of low budget action movies.” And with a special behind the scenes look at some of the fight choreography, I’m inclined to believe him:
Skin Circuit and Past Projects
So you can bet, when this movie finally drops, we are in for a show!
Here’s a few other projects starring White to get your adrenaline pumping, and be on the lookout for Skin Circuit, also written & produced by, and starring White, coming soon!
Adam Copeland enters the ring in the grand tradition of wrestlers-turned-action stars with the very solid Money Plane (2020).
For years, wrestling and action movies have gone hand in hand. Just look at some of the wrestlers who’ve made the crossover into action movies: Dwayne Johnson, Steve Austin, Roddy Piper, John Cena, Jesse Ventura, Bill Goldberg, and Mike Mizanin, as well as many others. One of the many others was Adam Copeland, also known as the Rated R Superstar himself, Edge.
With starring roles in movies like the Jamie Kennedy co-starring Buddy Cop flick Bending the Rules, and the highly underrated thriller Interrogation, as well as co-starring roles on shows like Haven and Vikings, Copeland has conjured up a pretty decent resume for himself. Now, he returns to the action genre with Money Plane, a new high concept, high stakes action/heist thriller . So, how does it rank among other wrestler starring action flicks? Let’s find out!
A professional thief with $40 million in debt and his family’s life on the line must commit one final heist – rob a futuristic airborne casino filled with the world’s most dangerous criminals.
This… was pretty damn entertaining. I enjoyed this one quite a bit. A fast pace, some decent action, and a good sense of humor really make for a fun time with this one.
For starters, the best part about this is the cast. Aside from Copeland, we also have Kelsey Grammer, Thomas Jane, Denise Richards, Al Sapienza, all 3 Lawrence brothers (Joey, Matthew, & Andrew. More on that in a second), and relative newcomers like Katrina Norman and Patrick Lamont Jr.. And they all make this the entertaining endeavor it is.
Well, not so much Richards, whose two brief scenes in the film amount to about 90 seconds of screen time, but that’s neither here nor there. This is an awesome cast who give this their all when most actors of their caliber would probably slum it, especially Grammar and Jane, who are a ton of fun in roles they probably filmed in a day or two a piece.
But the true standouts of the cast are the Lawrence brothers. Andrew, who plays a member of Copeland’s team, and to my surprise also co-wrote and directed, makes this a family affair as he casts Joey in the role of the plane’s Concierge, and Matthew in the role of “The Cowboy”. All three are great, especially Matthew, who is pretty damn funny as The Cowboy, with a ridiculously thick Texas accent and a huge, fake Sam Elliott style mustache.
Now, onto the action. It’s all pretty well done. Andrew handles the action sequences fairly nicely, which is impressive when you consider this is only his second feature, and that he was working with an obvious low budget. We get a couple of shootouts and a slew of fist fights, most of which feature Norman, who gets this movie’s MVP for action performers, as she kicks the most ass. Jane also gets a nice shootout, where he shows he still remembers all his Punisher training.
The standout action sequence goes to Copeland’s fight with the co-pilot, who gives him a knockdown, slam bang fight scene right in the cockpit of the plane. It makes me wish there was more of Copeland fighting like this in the movie.
Which leads to my issues with the movie. Why oh why would you cast one of the most exciting and talented wrestlers of all time in Edge and only give him one good fight? Seriously, he punches a guy or two and fires a couple of shots in the beginning, then it’s the big cockpit fight, and then that’s it. He’s flying the plane for the rest of the movie. He never fights again. Like damn, could we at least get him spearing somebody. I mean shit.
Also, why go through the trouble of casting Denise Richards in a role to only have her appear twice in scenes so brief that it makes Richard Grieco’s appearance in 22 Jump Street look huge by comparison? Like you could’ve used the money it took to cast her for the day she worked and distributed that money to other scenes that needed it and just hired a cheaper, no name actress to suffice. It really would’ve made no difference.
But other than that, I found this to be a fun little way to kill 82 mins. It’s well put together, funny, has some good action, and features Kelsey Grammer firing a machine gun while screaming at the top of his lungs. Sounds like a pretty cool time to me.
More actual martial arts tutorials from Scott Adkins, Ultimate Action Star!
In what is quick becoming one of the best series on Youtube, the up-and-coming action star Scott Adkins breaks down another one of his signature moves – the LEAD LEG ROUND KICK – in another great and informative tutorial.
Adkins, best known for thumping actioners Boyka: Undisputed, Accident Man and Avengement plus many, many others has quietly been putting together his own master class of sorts in martial arts kicks and techniques on his Youtube channel. Let’s check out the latest!
Based in Taekwondo which Adkins got his start in, the “lead leg round kick” is a fast and surprising move that can pack a punch, but will also leave an opponent at a loss as it’s hard to see coming. Adkins, who has spent years training as well as enjoyed quite a career in both stunt performance and choreography, is a great teacher in these videos showcasing both the movements and the theory for landing some ultimate hits.
And you can see just how devastating a well delivered lead leg round kick can be as Adkins unleashes on the unfortunate dummy in the video. It’s a really cool technique, and you can see Adkins perform the move – or something similar – in his roles as Boyka and other actioners like Triple Threat and Ninja II.
Ol’ Benny A takes his shot at the classic Heist Action genre!
I’ve been on a bit of a bank heist kick lately. Don’t ask me why. There’s just something oddly reassuring to me about these types of flicks. They’re predictable, even in their unpredictable twists and turns (with the good ones at least). But they’re also just super familiar – we’ve seen the bank heist again and again throughout action cinema.
From some of the early attempts by famous filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing, to classic cinema staples Bonnie and Clyde, and into the post-modern stylings of Ocean’s 11, we always seemed enthralled with a well-planned, yet quickly wheels-off bank heist.
Looking at this genre from an Ultimate Action Movie Club perspective, the bank heist films have always been primed for great action sequences and intense standoffs. Some of my favorite classics like Heat and Point Break are great examples, but there are plenty more.
Which brings us to the 2010 bank heist actioner The Town starring and directed by Ben Affleck. While both a critical and commercial success, I didn’t actually have much of a memory of it watching it again ten years later, but was quite happy with its ability to provide some action, a bit of story, and a solid distraction through a familiar genre.
So, in case you didn’t know, Ben Affleck is from Boston, Massachusetts. And sure, you might say, he wasn’t born there but just moved there when he was a child… but it goes deeper than that. Ben Affleck *is* Boston. They’re the same person now thanks in part to Good Will Hunting and his constant reminders in his voice and the roles he takes on. So, it shouldn’t really be of much of a surprise that Affleck was the natural fit for this modern Boston fable about bank robbers living in the quickly gentrifying slums of Charlestown.
We get Affleck and his pal Jeremy Renner going full send on their harsh Boston accents and Fightin’ Irish tattoos as we the familiar bank heist set falls into place. We have the good guy: Affleck. The bad guy: Renner. The detective on their case: John Hamm. And surprisingly well crafted love interest in Rebecca Hall as the bank clerk they stick-up in the opening.
What follows is fairly predictable but fun as the heat inevitably builds up on our hero while he falls in love and the cop gets closer by the day. And throughout it all it does everything it can to remind you just what “town” we’re in with the colorful shop-keeps and the frivolous inclusion of Fenway Stadium as the spot for the final – one last time – heist to end it all.
And unless you’re a Yankees fan or – you know – just someone who might not love the city of Boston as much as Affleck might think everyone should, the setting to its credit works just fine for the story – but it’s the tense boiler-room genre action that keeps the film going strong.
Bank Heist movies can run the gamut of how serious they might be. They can be gritty like The Italian Job or fun-loving like the Ocean’s 11 movies, and The Town certainly shoots for the former. While it’s not Heat that you’re watching, The Town has plenty of intense action and does a great job of creating some memorable shots and sequences.
The most iconic moments come from the heist disguise costumes our robbers don as that might actually be the single most important element to any heist film’s aesthetic. For example, some of the most memorable masks that I can think of we get the U.S. Presidents from Point Break and the simple, yet sleek, white hockey goalie masks from Heat. For The Town we actually get two different sets: the first being some rather hellish skull-with-dreadlock looks for the opening heist sequence, then later we get some very cool – and oddly, even more, creepy – Halloween nun ensembles that certainly do the trick.
Again, the majority of the action in a classical heist movie like The Town is going to come from these bank robbery sequences – and then the subsequent chases and showdowns that follow. It’s also somewhat ceremonious of the genre to include a heist scene at the very beginning that’s ideally supposed to be just as big and just about as good as the finale.
The Town certainly delivers the goods on this account. We get a great opening action number. Affleck isn’t a badass kung fu master or anything (or really a marksmen since he’s got his Batman-code thing going on and not actually trying to kill anybody, you know). But Renner has some fire power and their explosive tactics bring enough firepower as well.
I’d say it’s a little bit of a disappointment that even though Affleck’s hero character is kinda pitted against his “brother” of sorts in Renner, we never really get a big showdown between the two of them. And instead of Affleck and Hamm going mano-y-mano at the end with guns blazing we just get Affleck skipping town and (fittingly for his character at least) just leaving a one sentence note saying “fuck you” to Hamm instead of any fiery death.
Yet, for a modern heist actioner, I can only think of a few examples that might be this gritty or action full like Den of Thieves, without of course falling into straight up action with a heist twist like some Scott Adkins or the like. So, if you’re looking for an oddly reassuring heist genre actioner to grind to one night, give The Town a first or follow up viewing for sure!
(from left) Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) and Dom (Vin Diesel) in "F9," directed by Justin Lin.
The Long and Winding Road: Chapter 10 – The Road Ahead.
The day before the 49ers and the Chiefs duked it out in the Superbowl Universal Studios set up a concert in Miami advertising their newest movie: F9. An hours-long concert lead-up to a two and a half minute trailer seems like overkill but Universal studios (more specifically Vin Diesel) was riding high. Justin Lin came back to the Fast Saga to direct the latest outing. Long missing cast members returned. Charlize Theron would reprise her role. The whole thing seem poised to break the global box office and start the summer movie season on a high note. Then the global pandemic happened.
On March 16 AMC, Cinemark, and Regal all announced full closures of all of their movie theaters for “six to twelve weeks” to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus and to comply with different state responses to the global pandemic. There could be no summer movie season because there were no theaters to play in. The entire country stared in awe as, one-by-one, studios pulled their movies out of rotation. F9 was the first to go, opting for an April slot in 2021 – one entire year later.
We don’t know what to expect from the movie since it’s delayed release plan. We can only go off of whatever media hype the cast and crew accomplished in relation to the trailer. Since the media machine was in full steam when the virus was just ramping up we can examine the treasure trove of content. I, however, keep going back to that trailer. What I have for you is a way over-analyzed breakdown of the trailer for F9 complete with predictions, skeptical thoughts, and some contextual analysis.
Read along on the rest of our Fast Saga coverage with these articles on the other Fast & Furious installments:
Open on a farm-looking place. Dominic Toretto put the square concrete home of LA behind him and now tunes tractors instead of muscle cars. Together with Letty, his wife, the two raise his son Brian safe from the world at large. Little does he know….
Across the globe, in a supermax prison, Jacob Toretto meets Cipher. With her chic looking bowl cut she persuades Jacob to join her cause: help her destroy Dominic Toretto and bring down world governments. She’ll hint that she has some very powerful friends (Eteon!) and that she has aligned herself with their agenda. Jacob agrees, he’s ready to step out from the shadows.
Dom’s just about to go put his son to bed when he gets a call from Mr. Nobody. He says Cipher has been released from a super prison in Paris. Dominic yells at him for not telling him Cipher was in prison in the first place. Nobody chuckles something about being on a “need-to-know” basis. He then smugly sips amber ale from a Stella Artois and wistfully mentions it’s five o’clock somewhere. Little Nobody takes the phone from him. He explains: Cipher’s set loose and they need Dom and his team to go get her. Oh! And Dom, Scott Eastwood says, Jacob’s there. Letty enters the room after overhearing the entire conversation.
The two go upstairs and poorly explain to an innocent child why they have to abandon him to save the world from a cyber terrorist. Poor little Brian gets his dad’s necklace as a consolation gift and goes to bed happy. His parents arrange Little Nobody to babysit but only after Deckard Shaw won’t take their calls. His voicemail says he’s busy hunting Eteon with the Samoan Hulk. You can hear Luke Hobbs’ voice in the background calling him a candy ass. Letty and Dom smile and shrug. Oh, those two. Boys will be boys. Or something like that.
In Paris the team reunites. Tej flips a big breaker revealing a monstrous hideout in the tunnels. He says he bought them off a former member of the League of Assassins who used to drill tunnels under cities and put bombs there. Everyone looks around uncomfortably. Letty answers her phone and walks away all coy.
Roman does his thing where he struts around and compliment/insults everyone saying how he missed them. When he gets to Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) he goes uncomfortably silent. He, Ramsey, and Tej all share a strange look. They mention a roadtrip in Mexico and a tequila fueled night. Thankfully Letty interrupts them all by introducing Han! They all cry and passionately reunite.
Han meets Ramsey. She blushes at his suave behavior but he cuts her off: he only has eyes for one woman. The sadness lingers. Dom cuts the tension by pointing them back to the problem at hand: Cipher is loose in London and they need to hunt her down. Cue the big reveal – Jacob is Dom’s little brother. Gasp! But Family!
Jacob steals some expensive piece of equipment with a flowery name. Let’s call it the Marigold Explosive. This Marigold can acidly break down anything, kind of like the blood of a Xenomorph. He executes the heist while Dom explains his brother is a world-renowned assassin, master thief, and performance driver. Dom’s narration comes to a close and John Cena smiles while he holds a bizarre looking vial.
But how are they gonna find him? Roman asks. Tej and Ramsey do their tech thing. They explain, once again, why God’s Eye won’t work, thus negating an entire movie. They learn Jacob’s going to deliver the vial to Cipher at a lavish party in the Palace of Versailles. They’ll never get in, bemoans Letty. Roman jokes about how he can talk himself into anything. Again Ramsey and Tej look uncomfortable. Nobody responds. Dom knows somebody.
It’s nighttime. Dom walks up to a red Lamborghini. Dame Helen Mirren answers. She grimaces in disdain but she lets him in anyways. The two chat for a second. She lectures him about the importance of family and how her children only recently reconnected and how it’s super important. Dom stares off, unsettled. She grabs his hand and makes him look her in the eyes. Family, she says, is all that matters. He looks down to see a flowery microchip wristband allowing him into the party. Bassnectar starts playing and we smash cut to:
Bodies. Writhing. In perfectly white togas. It’s that time again! You know what it is! Montage of half-naked models dancing on platforms while shiny sports cars drive in circles. Bass bumps. Dom sneaks a quick peek but Letty yells at him over the comms. She’s staring down the barrel of a sniper rifle watching him. Tej and Roman laugh. Dom moves in.
Dom walks past a few suspicious characters. He probably has an interaction at the bar where someone mentions a past adventure. Dom continues into the Hall of Mirrors where he confronts his baby brother. Both point guns at each other. Finally Cipher shows up. She monologues about the uber-wealthy and their tone deaf partying despite the world decaying. Dom doesn’t buy it. Jacob is totally her patsy. Dom puts his plan into action.
Turns out! This whole time Roman was distracting security so Ramsey could get inside. Once inside she connects to a computer and hacks the security system. This allows Tej to piggyback on it and turn the security system against Jacob and Cipher. Armed forces show up and a shootout ensues. Jacob and Dom battle. Dom gets the upper hand and snags the vial. He runs through the Palace of Versailles with a vial of evil acid. Ramsey escapes through the front, hopping in a Lamborghini that Tej drives, Roman’s in the back. Dom has to jump out a window. He lands on Letty’s character. They all drive off thinking they’ve won.
Back at the hideout they’re celebrating. Everything goes dark. They realize Jacob purposely lost the fight so that they could track Dom to his hideout and destroy his crew. They don’t have much time to escape so the crew bails. Before Dom can escape, however, he’s taken hostage by like twenty dudes. Jacob captures Dom. The gang still has the vial though.
The gang, beaten and distraught, doesn’t know what to do. They’re all rattled. That’s when Mia Toretto walks in. Don’t worry, she quickly says, Brian’s looking after the family. She steps up as team leader. Everyone follows her orders without question. They find out Dom is being transferred by a heavily armed convoy in London. They travel there.
A high-speed chase ensues over London where the gang saves Dom. In the process they manage to flip the transfer car train a la The Dark Knight nearly crushing everyone in the process. Dom escapes and Jacob and Dom do battle across London literally bashing walls and tearing apart entire rooms. They fight on double decker buses. They tackle each other and fall seven stories to the ground. Both survive, but bloody and exhausted.
Mia intervenes before the two can kill each other. She begs Jacob to give up his life of crime and surrender. He spits out how they turned their backs on him once they went straight. He yells at Dom for talking a big game about family and how he abandoned Jacob. Dom gets in the expensive car with Mia and they drive off. Jacob and Cipher have the vial.
Now the stakes have been upped. They have to stop Cipher and Jacob. They may have to kill the two. Dom nods, struggling to accept it. Tej and Ramsey and Roman share a meal together, eating gracefully without words as if they’ve done this before. Han watches them for a second. Someone asks how he’s still alive. He smirks. Turns out Deckard isn’t so evil after all. Mia wonders aloud, if Han could survive an exploding car do you think Gisele survived her plane crash? The question is left hanging. Han smirks.
Mr. Nobody teleconferences in. He explains Cipher’s plans to… I dunno… burn open a lock and steal Dom’s gym socks to laugh at him. I dunno. They usually make up some poor excuse and move past the motivation. Suffice to say it’s bad and the whole world would suffer. He tells them they have satellites that tracked Cipher and crew to Hawaii. They’re accessing weather satellites or something. Once again, this part doesn’t usually matter. The Gang’s needed in Hawaii.
There’s a lot more that happens in the movie but at this point you get my drift. They chase Jacob offroad in Hawaii. Cipher pilots a magnet plane. Helicopters shoot missiles at Dom and friends. Jacob wants to kill his little brother. Cipher’s using Jacob. At some point the crew test drives a rocket engine strapped to a car (pushing the limits of acceptable speed), implying the crew may have to drive cars in space someday. Han soaks up all of the atmosphere just by being his cool self.
It all sounds goofy and, at times, entirely plausible but that’s the niche of this self-mythologizing franchise. It never half-asses anything. It whole-asses everything. Whatever happened in movies before you can expect them to try and one-up. Army of zombie cars? Look for bigger. Let’s watch as Dominic whips car from island to island using only a metal clamp and wire rope. Or perhaps a Jeep driving across a collapsing wooden bridge in sheer defiance of gravity might suit you better.
The Fast & Furious franchise has stunned critics and audiences alike for its ability to outdo itself in almost every way while softly recalling it’s humble origins. We’ve come a long way from the Vibe magazine article that inspired this whole outfit. In fact, a long retrospective shows how every movie for the first five movies were a surprise success against plenty of odds. Only after huge international success would it turn into a franchise and even then it took four more films to inspire multiple spinoffs. While Vin Diesel has gone on to say that his franchise only has two more movies left in it (F9 being one of them) expect another Hobbs & Shaw, a female-led spinoff, and potentially more material to be mined for the near-future.
The story of the Fast Saga is really the story of summer blockbuster filmmaking writ large. What once started in the middle range budget with practical effects, quippy one-liners, and rap-heavy soundtracks turned from domestic appeal to international focus. While Marvel studios carved up the summer money Universal copied some of their success by injecting those ideas directly into the Fast franchise. By incorporating a moralist family-oriented group of misfits and rebels into a stunt-and-effects-driven action flick Universal hit upon universality. Now the movies are for international audiences and take place all over the world. It evolved past being LA-centric or even remotely real-world-influenced. It started as a crime drama and street racing movie and turned into a heist flick before settling into its role as a spy action thriller in the broadest possible terms.
The cast makeup represents multiple ethnicities, languages, and personalities in a truly global representation. That diversity helps align the movie to more audiences than just its initial straight, white, male audience. Across the globe people of different nationalities could see themselves represented as heroes onscreen. Going even further the franchise develops predominantly white characters as antagonists, only once it escapes it’s crime drama roots. Scott Eastwood tentatively fills the shoes of the white man fitting in comfortably with other people of color; a buoyant and optimistic perspective when it comes to action movie teams.
I grew up with these movies and learned to love them all in different ways. Seeing them and writing about them has brought me an impressive level of context to share with you all and helped me evaluate them both individually and as a collective. Fast & the Furious movies are, at their worst, escapist fantasy full of meaningless plot, poorly clothed women, and car-specific action scenes. Fast & the Furious has demonstrated time and time again it aims to be so much more. Whether it’s unification of the fan base after the death of a beloved star or changing their story after fan’s urges to right their own wrongs they’ve grown. Vin Diesel sits at the heart of it all and you can tell he’s listening.
No one expected this movie series to take off like it did but with each new iteration it gained an opportunity to prove to us why it’s so much more than basic cinematic drivel. With its heart on its sleeve this series offers a little bit of everything to everyone and while some argue that waters it down I will argue that: despite its broad appeal it clings to its main theme with an iron fist and that message is – family isn’t just something you’re born with it’s something you build and care for. As the man himself, Dominic Toretto, says “You don’t turn your back on family.” We are all looking for our families. Treat each other with respect and kindness and appreciate the bombastic parts of this world. They’re juvenile, sure, but explosions can still be profound (in a lowest common denominator way) as long as you’ve got loved ones to share it with.
