Action movies rely on conventions that move the plot forward. Like a ball-in-a-maze puzzle, characters face forces and obstacles both in and out of their control. A guy wants to drive his date to a fancy restaurant, but his car gets repossessed. He can’t afford to pay back the car and the meal, so he gets a job at the restaurant to save up for the future date without her knowing it. She starts to suspect that he is cheating on him, but rather than come clean, he jeopardizes the relationship instead with excuses and white lies. Action presents problems and solutions along with its causes and effects. Suspense, indecision, and inciting incidents carry an action movie. What gives an action movie its marching orders is its premise, an incentive that keeps the ball rolling. Sometimes that ball of action becomes an oddball.

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

8 Last Action Hero (1993)

     Columbia Pictures

Last Action Hero is more of a spoof on the genre, so Arnold Schwarzenegger gets a pass, literally. A kid goes to a premiere at the movie theater after the theater owner gives him a golden ticket like Willy Wonka, which happens to be Houdini’s magical golden ticket. Said ticket allows his favorite action movie characters to exist outside of their fictional world and inside the real world. Someone watches too many action movies.

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

7 Death Wish (1974)

     Paramount Pictures

Frontier justice runs in the family for Charles Bronson as Paul Kersey in Death Wish. The architect by day turns into a vigilante by night when his daughter is sexually assaulted, leaving her in a catatonic, despondent mental state, and his wife dies due to a home invasion. He is shaken by the ordeal, but remains resolute after he defends himself from a mugger. Kersey later receives a gift from a client who took him to his gun club, where he admired Kersey’s marksmanship. Kersey was a conscientious objector and combat medic, but grew up never touching a gun after his father was shot by mistake during a father-son hunting trip. The newfound trigger-happy man takes to the streets, emboldened by killing the killers.

6 John Wick (2014)

     Summit Entertainment

Man’s best friend is a sacred bond. Nothing comes between a man and his dog, unless you’re a contract killer like John Wick. A beagle named Daisy was the arranged gift for Wick from his terminally ill and recently passed wife. The dog helped Wick cope with her death and was the last connection he had to her. After being goaded by thugs at the gas station to sell his Ford Mustang to them, they burglarize his home, steal his car, and kill his dog in the night. Before the dog dies, she crawled to Wick for comfort. Every dog has its day, but today was a dog day for revenge.

5 Super (2010)

     IFC Midnight

Rainn Wilson plays a cook in Super who steps out of the kitchen when he learns that his addict wife has left him for a strip club owner and drug dealer. His motivation stems from keeping his marriage, helping a police officer stop a robbery, and most of all, the TV superhero Holy Avenger (inspired by Bibleman) who arrives in a divine vision from God. He tells him to don a knock-off Daredevil and Deadpool costume to save his wife and fight crime. Any sensible man would call the cops before even thinking about dressing up as a Jo-Ann Fabrics Juggernaut.

4 Point Break (1991)

     20th Century Fox

A gang of bank robbers happens to be a gang of surfers called the Ex-Presidents, led by Patrick Swayze. FBI agent Keanu Reeves deduces the connection by assimilating into the surfer posse. The peace that comes from the ocean clashes with the flash in the pan of bank robbing. Point Break is a surf n’ turf action anomaly.

3 Crank (2006)

     Lionsgate

Crank features Jason Statham as hitman Chev Chelios. He gets hired to kill a mafia boss, but the crime syndicate he worked for conspires to kill Chev to avoid revenge from the mafia. They inject him with a synthetic poison, causing a decrease in adrenaline and blood flow. Chev is forced to keep his adrenaline going to stay alive until he hunts down the criminals for the cure. Driving through a mall, holding a hospital hostage to jumpstart his heart with a defibrillator, having sex in public, this movie is a live-action Grand Theft Auto.

2 Snakes on a Plane (2006)

     New Line Cinema

Three words: snakes on crack. Another three words: time is tissue. Murder wasn’t enough trouble for FBI agent Samuel L. Jackson in Snakes on a Plane. He is escorting a witness to testify against a crime boss, but the latter plants a cage on a timer full of venomous snakes set to open during the flight in an attempt to bring down the plane. Since they are flying from Hawaii, a disguised henchman sprays leis with a pheromone, causing the snakes to attack unprovoked. The premise got one thing right: snakes are more dangerous, and hilarious, than bombs.

1 Face/Off (1997)

A case of mistaken identity isn’t the half of it. John Travolta acts like Nicolas Cage and Nicolas Cage acts like John Travolta in Face/Off. FBI agent Travolta has homicidal sociopath Cage in custody, but Cage gets put into a coma before he can share a bomb’s undisclosed location. Rather than interrogating his accomplice brother about where the bomb is, Travolta undergoes a face transplant that also gives him the voice and appearance of Cage. Hijinks ensue when the criminal and the cop take over each other’s lives. The kings of overacting met their match with a wild and crazy premise.