For every forgettable blockbuster that has come and gone, there's been a steady stream
of stellar under-the-radar action flicks.
What they lack in terms of scale and big-budget effects, they make up for with their share
of bone-shattering brawls, white knuckle chases, and bloody bombast.
A few years back, writer/director Ted Geoghegan made a name for himself among the genre set
with the atmospheric haunted house film We Are Still Here.
Though the film's no-budget production limited what Geoghegan could ultimately accomplish,
there was enough style on display to get excited about what the filmmaker would do next.
Surprisingly, instead of horror, Geoghegan jumped to gory action in Mohawk.
Mohawk unfolds in the last days of the War of 1812, and finds a young Mohawk woman and
her lovers squaring off against a violent band of American soldiers.
Mohawk might flag a bit in dialogue-heavy scenes, but when Geoghegan leaves words out
of the mix, this underseen actioner has as much energy and vision as any blockbuster.
If you've got an Amazon Prime subscription, then you're probably aware of the streaming
service's new action series Hanna.
What you might not be aware of is that the show is based on a 2011 film of the same name.
That film ended up doing moderately well at the global box office, but it feels like it's
been all but forgotten by audiences in the years since.
Like the series, the film version of Hanna follows a teenage girl who has a penchant
for putting down bad guys with a graceful brutality.
All the while, she's hunted by a secretive intelligence operative a mirthfully menacing
Cate Blanchett.
Hanna is a taut, boldly stylized pseudo-detective action fantasy that delivers a weighty payload
in terms of both pulse-pounding set pieces and character driven drama.
It's high time this action-packed gem got rediscovered.
"I just missed your heart."
For many American moviegoers, exposure to the work of Japanese extreme auteur Takashi
Miike begins and ends with his dark 1999 masterwork Audition.
Understandable as it may be, you're doing yourself a disservice by ignoring his other
films.
Among Miike's sprawling output, you'll find the work of a visionary filmmaker with a flair
for genre, a penchant for gore, and plenty of eye-popping action.
You'll get plenty of all of that in Miike's 2010 samurai stunner 13 Assassins.
Set in the waning days of Feudal Japan, the film's setup promises a harrowing showdown
between the title assassins and the shogun's ruthless brother, whose upcoming promotion
threatens to bring chaos to the otherwise peaceful Japanese landscape.
Miike takes his time getting to that showdown, meticulously building toward the fateful finale
with a screenplay that allows audiences to get good and comfy with the anti-heroes and
villains of the piece.
When Miike finally blows the lid off 13 Assassins, he does so with a bloody, brutal savagery
all but unseen in American cinema.
Wheelman follows a freshly paroled getaway driver played by Frank Grillo who finds himself
double-crossed and on the run.
Fittingly for a movie following a character played by long-time character actor Grillo,
the film is very much the sort of pulpy crime flick that plays to his strengths.
Writer/director Jeremy Rush gives his star ample room to talk tough, act tough, and drive
hard.
Rush amplifies the film's inherent machismo by keeping his camera confined almost entirely
within a single car.
It's a bold, stylish move that pays off in spades, giving a fresh perspective to the
sort of car-crashing, fist fighting, and machine gunning we've seen a million times over.
"What's your name, man?"
"I don't wanna talk."
"What?"
"Chitchat.
I don't chitchat unless it's about the job."
One day, the world at large will catch up to the genius of writer/director Joe Cornish.
When it does, they'll likely look back on 2011's Attack The Block and wonder how it
ever became a box office bomb.
Cornish's film delivers the action-packed stoner comedy/alien invasion/horror flick
the world never knew it needed.
Sadly, the world still seems oblivious to this sharply written, exquisitely executed
genre mashup, despite the jaw-dropping action scenes and killer creature design.
Not to mention what should have been star-making turns from future Doctor Who star Jodie Whitaker,
and later Star Wars star John Boyega.
Do yourself a favor and check out this hidden gem.
Though the bloodshed has finally stopped, the simmering tensions that drove Irish Catholics
and Protestants headlong into the carnage of "The Troubles" remains a part of life in
Northern Ireland.
In Belfast circa 1971, the setting of '71, the divisive fires that drove the madness
still burned with the raging heat of bombed out cars and gunpowder.
'71 opens with a kindly new recruit joining a British military regiment in the war-torn
streets of Belfast.
The film pivots sharply when an angry mob ends up separating the man from his retreating
regiment, leaving him lost, alone, and injured in a situation where he's perceived as enemy
to one and all.
From there, the film plunges viewers into a breathless, nightlong race for survival
through an unforgiving landscape where vengeance is righteous no matter the cost.
'71 is that rarest of action films that dares to examine both the human cost of the bloody
conflict and the cycle of hate that fueled it.
"You should be ashamed of yourselves!
These boys are young enough to be your sons!"
In case you missed out on Haywire in theaters, the film follows a tough-as-nails black ops
agent called Mallory who finds herself hunted by international mercenaries after being double-crossed
on a clandestine mission.
With plenty of grit, brawn, and brains, Mallory quickly turns the tides on her betrayers,
setting up a hunted-becomes-the-hunter revenge tale for the ages.
Though Haywire marked director Steven Soderbergh's first full-blown action flick, you'd never
be able to tell by how effortlessly he executes the film's intricate set pieces.
Each escalating act comes with a style and whimsy most action movies never even aspire
to.
That Soderbergh cast legit MMA star Gina Carano in the lead role only serves to legitimize
each vicious escalation even as the film unapologetically begins to earn its title.
It all makes Haywire an overlooked diamond among Soderbergh's impeccable filmography.
If you'd have told us a few years back that we'd be listing a certified fresh, Tom Cruise-fronted
sci-fi epic among our "underrated action movies" picks, we probably would've told you you were
completely insane.
Yet here we are, half a decade after its release, still wondering how so many people slept on
this intelligent, action-packed banger.
Edge of Tomorrow, which follows a soldier continuously killed during a deadly alien
assault only to be dropped right back into the action, is worth remembering.
This Groundhog Day-esque action film is a classic, one that matches epic human drama
against an equally epic scope.
It's also a film with an insanely cool sci-fi concept with mind boggling special effects
and set pieces that make repeat viewings endlessly rewarding.
If you haven't seen it, go watch it.
If you have seen it, see it again.
“I would go with the sense of manifest destiny, the ranks, the rags to riches rapid rise through
the ranks a born to deliver us...
The people… well they love that sort of thing."
Few genres are as well primed to build big time action into a narrative as science fiction.
While Hollywood has given us its share of supersized sci-fi bombast over the years,
audiences have proven themselves equally open to experiencing more concept-driven science
fiction fare.
While Leigh Whannell's clever, camp-tinged techno thriller Upgrade sits firmly in the
latter category, this unpredictable tale wholly embraces its big-budget ambition.
It's the sort of savvy, small-scale science fiction that deserved a much broader audience.
If you're among those who missed Upgrade in theaters, it follows a technophobic everyman
who blazes a path of bloody vengeance after a mugging leaves him paralyzed and his wife
dead.
He's aided in that endeavor by STEM, a computer chips that allows him to walk, as well as
dole out plenty of violence on his attackers.
From start to finish, Whannell spins a wholly original, action-packed sci-fi tale from clear
influences, all while having way more fun with its haughty-yet-silly concept than most
action movies would dare.
"You are now in full control, Grey."
Let's take a moment to talk about Jeremy Saulnier's harrowing survival drama Green Room, a film
that couldn't find its audience even with a glowing review from Quentin Tarantino.
Oddly, that may simply be the result of one too many people pegging Saulnier's punk-tinged
chiller as a horror film.
While the story itself is endlessly horrific, Green Room might've found its audience if
viewers had been expecting a first-rate action flick instead.
That's not to say there aren't ghouls aplenty in Green Room.
There are.
They just happen to be of the very human Neo-Nazi persuasion.
Their prey, a down-on-their-luck hardcore band, are equally human.
When they inadvertently witness a murder while on tour, the band's instinct is to hightail
it out of town.
Their Nazi counterparts have other plans, which gets even worse when their sneering
leader shows up and essentially condemns the band to death.
From that moment on, Green Room breathlessly propels itself forward with the filth and
the fury of a punk rock thrasher, indulging in unflinchingly tense showdowns and grueling
acts of violence every step of the way.
Saulnier delivers an insightful, surprisingly timely action thriller that'll leave your
brain racing and your heart pumping overtime.
In case you hadn't noticed, Netflix has been churning out movies at a feverish rate over
the past several years.
Of course, with their under-the-radar release strategy and general lack of proper promotion,
it's entirely likely you've missed out on more of those releases than you thought.
We'd lay even odds that the blisteringly brutal gangster drama The Night Comes For Us is among
the films you missed.
If that's the case, it's an oversight that action fans will want to rectify immediately,
because this blood-soaked crime saga packs a punch you won't be able to shake.
At the center of that saga is a former Triad enforcer named Ito who, while slaughtering
an entire village for his bosses, stays the execution of a young girl.
In doing so, he sets off a bloody chain of events that puts the Triad on their trail.
Matters get insanely violent from that moment on, with a ceaseless wave of Triad henchman
armed with cool names, cool weapons, and cooler than cool attitudes taking on Ito and a few
loyal members of his old crew.
Bones are broken.
Limbs are severed.
Bodies are set aflame or blown to bits.
Through all the grueling, meticulously orchestrated action, the film also manages to capture a
deeply human story of redemption.
For action fans of a certain age, the late '80s remain a fertile time period for a particular
sort of absurdly predictable and way over the top action flick.
There's no doubt that genre maven Adam Wingard is one of those fans, and his stylized, horror-tinged
thriller The Guest is all the proof you'll ever need.
For the uninitiated, being predictable and over-the-top aren't really hindrances to this
sort of film.
In fact, the mixture of seriousness and absurdity is all part of the fun.
Wingard and screenwriter Simon Barrett have about as much fun with that approach in The
Guest as any filmmakers have ever had.
Leading the charge for the film's giddily over-the-top vibe is Dan Stevens, who delivers
a fascinatingly unhinged performance as a mysterious soldier who befriends an unsuspecting
family.
He's ostensibly there to pay respects to their son, who supposedly died in combat while serving
alongside Stevens' character.
Without spoiling any of the dizzying madness, we'll just say that the man isn't who he claims
to be.
As bodies start piling up around town, The Guest twists and turns from eerie stolen identity
drama into a surreal, neo-noir horror show rife with all the genre affectations one could
ever hope for.
"You want the elite?"
"I'll take all of them.
“All the handguns?”
No everything.
All your guns."
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