What Makes A good.... Action film?

mr-modern-life

mr-modern-life

We are in the process of starting our second film and whilst I never work by committe, I'd like to do a small piece of market research....

So my question is simple. For you, the lovely and knowledgable audience at indieTalk, what do YOU look for in an action movie be it Indie or Studio? And what movies do you feel achieve this?


For me:

Good script, sensible and realistic action, good charecters, a short running time and a good pace.

So Last Boy Scout, Top Gun, Lethal Weapon, Rapid Fire, Commando for me hits these basic criteria (okay yes the Commando script is poor but is works within the decade it was made and the people it was made with/for)
 
For me it's the same I need from any movie - three dimensional characters, who run through a believable plot and whose dialogue is realistic -- so for me Commando is a wash, I'm allergic to gratuitous dialogue for the sake of having a cool line.

I really need to feel that the protagonist is a real person, who has an inner life and that although they step into a world of violence, they find their ability to be in that world problematic.

Oh, and no innocent children to be saved!

So my benchmark is always the first Lethal Weapon movie, where Rigg's central question was whether to kill himself or not -- now that's a classy action film.

To a lesser degree the first Beverly Hills Cop movie achieves the same.
 
Good action movies are few and far between, as so many fall into the so bad it's good category.

As mentioned Lethal Weapon... the chemistry between the two leads is just spot on. Continuing with Shane Black I'd say Kiss Kiss Bang Bang had that same chemistry. It's got to have believable, interesting and likeable characters who, as cliched as it sounds do end up saving the day despite going through more shit than any regular man could handle. It's good to be over the top in action films. Not to the point where you think, pshhh that would never happen but more in the 'oh my god as if that just happened' sense.
 
I've been thinking about this over the last twenty four hours.

I think in a nutshell, this is the key.

Where action films fail is when the writer assumes that the thing that makes the action exciting is the amount of gun play and blood.

When in fact the thing that makes an action film exciting is the combination of the stakes and the risk.

So, it's more about the degree of potential risk to the protagonist than it is about the amount of gun fire.

If you go back to the Dirty Harry movies, there wasn't massive amounts of gun play -- there was more time spent where the antagonist and protagonist were playing cat and mouse with each other.

The other thing that makes it work are the stakes for the protagonist -- what will happen if they fail?

So, if the bus load of children is going to be blown to pieces if the protagonist doesn't fight his way through the warehouse in the next ten minutes, then that is one thing --- but if one of the children is his daughter, well that's something else.

So, the bottom line is that the protagonist has to face overwhelming odds and have a personal investment in the outcome.

When you think about this, it means you can have an action sequence where only three shots are fired, that is more exciting than one where a thousand are.

The term "action" movie is therefore misleading. It's not about the action, it's about the stakes and personal risk. If you keep both of those high and escalate them throughout the movie, then you'll have something special.
 
For action, I suggest watching 24 season 3-4. It's incredible.

-Lots of parallel action for suspense
-Lots of color and movement
-Misdirection, twists and turns in the plot
-On characters, I go either way. I love the Bond movies, with a suave, skilled agent in the lead... but I also (and more often) like movies where the hero is an unwilling, unskilled one, and has to figure it out as they go (Matrix, superhero origin movies).
-A big payoff. You need that las gut wrenching explosion/gun-battle/car chase to top everything off. It HAS to have a VISUAL PAYOFF.
 
My favorite action movies are: Die Hard, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The French Connection and Bullitt. And I think I know why. The villains are complete ass holes and the heros are completely obsessive about beating them. The hero wants nothing more than to foil the plan of the villain and as an audience member, I want nothing more than to see that happen too. A bad villain makes a "who cares" action movie. So, action is good, plot is important, but the characters are key for me. I want to love to hate the bad guy. It also helps when the good guys are somewhat of a cocky prick and barely on the verge of being bad guys themselves, but they have a conscience.

Please don't make your movie about the renegade cop on the verge of being fired or just having been fired by the force. And don't have people explain things that are completely obvious. For instance, if the bad guy is in a hot air balloon and is getting away, don't have a character say "He's getting away in that hot air balloon."

Also, I think the action movies I like are more fun because the heros have to live in reality. Like when Indiana Jones is stuck on the wrong side of the pit without his whip, he jumps but doesn't quite make it. He doesn't have very good ups apparently and I like that about him. When he gets hit, it looks like it hurts. When John McClain runs through glass, it hurts. So, I guess I also like to see the good guy get hurt alot.

That's my ramblings. Hope they help.
 
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