I just watched another delightful blockbuster in the genre I like to affectionately call “Ordinary Husband-and-Father Reluctantly Answers The Call Of A Merciless Vigilante Spree To Rescue Family and American Values”. Man has a troubled relationship with wife and child – yet in a series of implausible events is forced into a situation requiring lots of slow-motion automatic weapon fire, neck-breaking of bad guys, and explosions. 113 minutes later wife and child are returned safely to the arms of Alpha Male, sobbing with relief as – somehow – the whole horrid and grisly affair solves all their problems.
These movies seem to be getting more grisly and more bizarrely vengeful. And may I add I’m seeing a lot less shirtless time for the lead male – which has heretofore been my primary reason for watching them. What was that one where Jason Statham ends up half-nude, kickboxing on his back in a giant oil slick for ten minutes? Or how about an early one with Denzel Washington – for some unclear reason required to slowly strip down to his boxer shorts in the street while in a standoff with a gun-toting thug? Now that’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout. I couldn’t MAKE up stuff that good.
I say good ol’ brainless, teste-ridden action films have their place, and they need to work to keep it.