Sunday, May 06, 2007
13 Great Movie Action Scenes
So I watched Children of Men this weekend, and in addition to being a good all-around movie (though so dark that it'd be hard to watch it again), it has a great sequence near the end where Clive Owen has to get into a building during a full-scale battle (with tanks and rocket launchers in addition to automatic weapons) between government and rebel forces, neither of which would mind him being dead. The whole thing is very well executed, simultaneously chaotic and coherent, exciting and excruciating, and it got me thinking about my favorite movie action sequences. Here are 13 of them, with no real attempt to rank them.
1. The gun battle after the bank robbery in Heat. Great sound and cinematography, real squad-level tactics, and an amazing kinetic feel.
2. The bus/train wreck in The Fugitive. Harrison Ford's last movie before he entered the Mr. Frownyface Grump portion of his career, in which I don't think he's made a single good movie. Ford leaping out of a crashed bus and fleeing a derailing train while wearing shackles is a great set piece.
3. The Wesley/Inigo duel in The Princess Bride. Clever, funny, and thrilling all at once, plus compulsively quotable. "I am not lefthanded either!"
4. The chase at the end of The Road Warrior. About 20 minutes of a massive car/truck/motorcycle/helicopter chase.
5. The final gunfight in The Wild Bunch. Four outlaws commandeer a machine gun (plus some grenades) and take on an entire Mexican army to get revenge for a dead friend, killing dozens before they're overwhelmed. I think Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid would have ended the same way if Sam Peckinpah had directed it.
6. The Liam Neeson/Tim Roth swordfight in Rob Roy. It's rare for the villain to come off as well in the climactic fight as Roth does here, and Neeson's final dispatching of him is really brutal.
7. The Battle of Helm's Deep in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Almost entirely CGI, so it may seem a little cheap to have it here, but it was well executed. The Battle of Pellenor Fields in The Return of the King was also very nicely done.
8. The saloon shootout in Unforgiven. The movie does an amazing job of constraining the violence and building the foreboding right up until the end, when it all finally breaks out all at once with Clint Eastwood killing at least a half dozen men in the space of about fifteen seconds.
9. The D-Day landing in Saving Private Ryan. Another long, grueling, successfully rendered battle. I found the rest of the movie to be something of a letdown after it.
10. The swordfight with the black knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Okay, it's not really a great action scene, but it's hilarious in its deliberate low-budget grossness, and of course the quotability is off the charts. "All right, we'll call it a draw."
11. The three-way duel (thruel?) in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. This movie took flak for being incoherent and loud and overlong from people who claimed they liked the first one, conveniently ignoring that the first one was exactly the same way. This scene is totally over-choreographed, but it's still tons of good fun.
12. The lightsaber fight in The Empire Strikes Back. The two-on-one fight in The Phantom Menace was better staged as a pure action scene, but damned if I'm going to pick the scene from the vastly inferior movie.
13. The tennis racket/ski pole fight at the beginning of Roxanne. Remember when Steve Martin was funny? And appeared in decent movies?
I've already thought of honorable mentions too: the train-station shootout in The Untouchables and the wrong-way tunnel car chase in Ronin. Anyone else?
1. The gun battle after the bank robbery in Heat. Great sound and cinematography, real squad-level tactics, and an amazing kinetic feel.
2. The bus/train wreck in The Fugitive. Harrison Ford's last movie before he entered the Mr. Frownyface Grump portion of his career, in which I don't think he's made a single good movie. Ford leaping out of a crashed bus and fleeing a derailing train while wearing shackles is a great set piece.
3. The Wesley/Inigo duel in The Princess Bride. Clever, funny, and thrilling all at once, plus compulsively quotable. "I am not lefthanded either!"
4. The chase at the end of The Road Warrior. About 20 minutes of a massive car/truck/motorcycle/helicopter chase.
5. The final gunfight in The Wild Bunch. Four outlaws commandeer a machine gun (plus some grenades) and take on an entire Mexican army to get revenge for a dead friend, killing dozens before they're overwhelmed. I think Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid would have ended the same way if Sam Peckinpah had directed it.
6. The Liam Neeson/Tim Roth swordfight in Rob Roy. It's rare for the villain to come off as well in the climactic fight as Roth does here, and Neeson's final dispatching of him is really brutal.
7. The Battle of Helm's Deep in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Almost entirely CGI, so it may seem a little cheap to have it here, but it was well executed. The Battle of Pellenor Fields in The Return of the King was also very nicely done.
8. The saloon shootout in Unforgiven. The movie does an amazing job of constraining the violence and building the foreboding right up until the end, when it all finally breaks out all at once with Clint Eastwood killing at least a half dozen men in the space of about fifteen seconds.
9. The D-Day landing in Saving Private Ryan. Another long, grueling, successfully rendered battle. I found the rest of the movie to be something of a letdown after it.
10. The swordfight with the black knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Okay, it's not really a great action scene, but it's hilarious in its deliberate low-budget grossness, and of course the quotability is off the charts. "All right, we'll call it a draw."
11. The three-way duel (thruel?) in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. This movie took flak for being incoherent and loud and overlong from people who claimed they liked the first one, conveniently ignoring that the first one was exactly the same way. This scene is totally over-choreographed, but it's still tons of good fun.
12. The lightsaber fight in The Empire Strikes Back. The two-on-one fight in The Phantom Menace was better staged as a pure action scene, but damned if I'm going to pick the scene from the vastly inferior movie.
13. The tennis racket/ski pole fight at the beginning of Roxanne. Remember when Steve Martin was funny? And appeared in decent movies?
I've already thought of honorable mentions too: the train-station shootout in The Untouchables and the wrong-way tunnel car chase in Ronin. Anyone else?
Labels: movies, not poetry
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1. The car chase scene in "The French Connection" (This was the first one I thought of too).
2. The gunfight at the end of "The Magnificent Seven." (Or, for comparison, the battle scene at the end of "The Seven Samurai.")
3. The battle scene at the end of "Khartoum."
4. The battle scene in the Kenneth Branagh "Henry V."
5. The climactic battle scene in Kurosawa's film "Ran," stunning in the fact that it takes place almost entirely off-camera, with only the movements and gestures and expressions of a few observers to indicate the abject carnage happening on the battlefield.
6. Roy Scheider's car chase in "The Seven Ups" (a sequel, of sorts, to "The French Connection").
7. The final shootout in "The Getaway" (the original one with Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw).
8. Final mass swordfight in "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (featuring the incomparable one-on-one sword duel between Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone).
9. The airplane strafing scene in "North by Northwest." (A little light on real action, but high in suspense and drama.)
10. The shootout and escape from the house through police encirclement in "Bonnie and Clyde."
11. The final, stunningly choreographed battle scene in "Spartacus."
12. The scene near the beginning of "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" where Jude Law in a 1930's-era airplane battles giant robots stomping through the streets of Manhattan.
13. Any of the great naval battle sequences in "Horatio Hornblower."
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2. The gunfight at the end of "The Magnificent Seven." (Or, for comparison, the battle scene at the end of "The Seven Samurai.")
3. The battle scene at the end of "Khartoum."
4. The battle scene in the Kenneth Branagh "Henry V."
5. The climactic battle scene in Kurosawa's film "Ran," stunning in the fact that it takes place almost entirely off-camera, with only the movements and gestures and expressions of a few observers to indicate the abject carnage happening on the battlefield.
6. Roy Scheider's car chase in "The Seven Ups" (a sequel, of sorts, to "The French Connection").
7. The final shootout in "The Getaway" (the original one with Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw).
8. Final mass swordfight in "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (featuring the incomparable one-on-one sword duel between Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone).
9. The airplane strafing scene in "North by Northwest." (A little light on real action, but high in suspense and drama.)
10. The shootout and escape from the house through police encirclement in "Bonnie and Clyde."
11. The final, stunningly choreographed battle scene in "Spartacus."
12. The scene near the beginning of "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" where Jude Law in a 1930's-era airplane battles giant robots stomping through the streets of Manhattan.
13. Any of the great naval battle sequences in "Horatio Hornblower."
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