Action movies at face value seem like the easiest genre to get right. Yet year in and year out, we see that is not the case. From the studios misguided idea that PG 13 movies do better (despite the action movies with the most life after theatrical release being R rated fare like Die Hard and The Warriors), to the absolutely awful trend of the shaky cam that was shat onto the world with Paul Greengrass coming aboard The Bourne Supremacy, and the over reliance on tacky CGI to the work instead of hard hitting practical effects.
The PG-13 angle doesn’t fall completely onto the studios, seeing as the MPAA is quite insane and almost nonsensical in the ratings it throws out. The Crazies remake has almost no graphic violence even though blood is spilled, yet gets a PG13 because the violence doled out is against humans. But The Lord of The Rings movies get PG13s because the violence is against fantastical creatures and the violence is dry. The system allows violence to be shown, but the harder the violence hits, the more likely it will need to be cut down. For movies they know won’t have as huge an audience, they’ll let some crazy shit slide. That’s why The Evil Dead remake has a scene of a demon getting face fucked by a chainsaw in full view. But you’ll never see Thor crush someones skull open like a melon, because more people are gonna see that and someones gotta look after the childrens.
The shaky cam bullshit is just film makers following a trend that allows them to get away with doing less impressive fight choreography to save some time. So for those who yearn for the days of John McClane picking glass out of his bloody feet, the pickings are slim in this country. But luckily, international film making is more easily accessible than ever before. And there is some great stuff being done over seas.
One of the most iconic movies of the last 15 years is a Korean action film,
Oldboy. It isn’t the biggest balls to the wall action movie ever, but it has one of the iconic fights in cinema history. A single take fight set in a hallway as our protagonist takes on a swarm of thugs. It has captured the imagination of film fans world wide and stands in stark contrast to the incomprehensible garbage that is released every year. The Asian marketplace has always been a haven for action fans, and the times haven’t done much to change that. From classics such as The Man From Nowhere to The Good, The Bad, and The Weird, Asia has been doing the lords work. Despite that, they haven’t had much of an impact over here. But from the barren cinematic depths of Indonesia, Action movies may have just found a new savior. And he is Welsh.
Gareth Evans made some waves in 2009 when he made a run of the mill Kung Fu movie titled Merantau. What set this apart wasn’t the story, but the kinetic yet fluid way he shot the action. It helped that he was using the almost unseen on film fighting style called Silat, and his star was Silat master Iko Uwais. But maybe it was a fluke. Plenty of DTV action movies over here accidentally have good action scenes. So he needed to prove himself. And he came to the table hard with the ground breaking 2011 action movie, The Raid. Completely economic in its storytelling, it tells the simple tale of a cop (Rama as played by Iko Uwais) accompanying fellow cops going into a building used for criminal activities to try to drag his brother out from the world he fell into. It’s almost wall to wall action and it is all brilliantly staged, shot and choreographed. It truly felt like the language of action cinema was changing right in front of our eyes. After a brief foray into horror with a short segment in V/H/S 2 entitled Safe Haven, Gareth set to work on making a sequel to his action classic. How does one replicate the success of what was seen as a seminal part of action cinema? Gareth had an answer. Do something completely different. After a massive 100 day shooting schedule, Gareth revealed The Raid 2: Berandal to the world in 2014. And to say that the reaction was positive is quite the understatement.
Instead of following the minimal narrative of The Raids video game esque format of fighting through levels till the boss, The Raid 2 decides to go completely dense with it’s story. Following Rama’s journey into prison to go undercover to root out police corruption, he is sucked into a gang war that has more at stake than the control of Indonesia’s underworld. Rama’s very soul is on the line. The movie is choked full with characters and motivations that need to followed, leading to a need to pay attention at every aspect of the experience and not just the violence. It helps that the story is worth a damn.
Rama is infused with a lot more character in this one. Whereas in the original he was a typical good guy badass looking to protect his family, this one sees Rama taken to the breaking point. Being forced to go undercover to root out police corruption to keep his family safe, Rama has to go to prison in a gamble to get close to a crime lords son and get in with them. Forced into hell on Earth, Rama has to fight what seems like the entire prison to keep the son, Uco, safe. And it pushes him into some brutal territory. Brutal far beyond what he did in the last one. He has to maim people to survive. And after a while, it starts to take a toll on his mind. After getting out of prison and getting in with Ucos father, we see he can’t completely shake off the experiences he felt in the pen. With each skirmish, Rama is getting nastier. But the war in his soul is visible on his face. He doesn’t like it, but he’ll die if he stops. Evans made a very ballsy move in making an action movie that features unprecedented action and violence, yet has the theme run through it that violence is poisonous. He almost rubs it in our faces that you shouldn’t be enjoying this. It’s way more thoughtful than a movie like this should be.
The narrative wouldn’t be so interesting if Rama was the only interesting one in a movie with such a large cast, and Evans doesn’t disappoint in that regard. For the most part, he employs the Walter Hill style of character building. Give people a defining trait and a great moment or two. This movie has the hobo assassin with a machete, to the deaf female assassin who uses claw hammers, to the baseball bat wielding manaic, and finally the curved knife wielding Silat master. These are all broadly drawn characters that are brought to life by the actors employed, and by the iconic nature of their traits. We can tell Hammer Girl and Baseball bat guy are related and have seen and done some awful things in their lives, all the while acting like they are still children. The hobo only cares for his family and would rather live a life of isolation, violence and depravity so they can be taken care of. And the Silat master is clearly a parallel to Rama. Uco is the one who gets drawn more clearly, essentially the second lead of the movie. A spoiled little brat who has a high opinion of himself, he could have come off as an irritating cliche. But Evans does the smart thing. Uco isn’t completely useless. He holds his own in prison. When trying to be taken advantage of, he figures it out without being told. It’s only his blind ambition that brings him down. Evans makes a huge leap in terms of story telling that solidifies himself as the young director to watch out for. So while he stepped up the game in the story, he couldn’t possibly top the action of the original, could he?
Gareth more than topped the originals action, he burned it to the ground and pissed on it’s ashes. With a much bigger budget and a production schedule to allow him time to plan more elaborate set pieces, Evans threw the gauntlet down on movies with budgets 10 times the size of his. From an opening fight scene in a bathroom stall, to a prison riot, all the way down to the brilliantly staged finale that is in itself almost a short story with twists and turns. Gareth and his longtime DP Matt Flannery collaborated to completely redefine how action is shot. Using handheld cameras to enhance the brutality on display, he manages to keep the camera moving without ever being unclear. The action is always front and center, every blow being felt and every drop of blood being captured. John Woo was praised for making his action scenes like ballets, Evans takes that to the next level. The camera dances while Uwais and the other master fighters do their thing. It is truly astonishing to behold and this may very well be ground zero for a new age of action. 
While he redefined close quarters combat, his new budget gave him the ability to shoot a car chase. And we know Evans isn’t content with doing the norm, he went big with the chase. And not Nolan in Gotham big. Unique and innovative is the name of the game. Involving one SUV that has a 4 man fight going on inside of it while being chased by a bunch of other cars and a motorcycle, Evans did something unthinkable. He filmed it with practical effects. Cars chasing cars on the real streets. It all comes to a head in the jaw dropping single take that goes from car to car to car with no digital trickery. Men hanging off cars and passing a camera back and forth while a fight is taking place, doing 40 MPH. It’s unbelievable. Evans managed to also add a car chase that is now in the top 5 of all time.
For those that are bored by action movies nowadays, Evans is a god send. A few years ago he may not have much impact, but in such an interconnected world, every film maker knows him. The world is not blind to him. So while he has no plans to come stateside, his influence is going to be felt. When an aging icon like Sylvester Stallone name drops your movie as an influence for his next movie, it’s going to be hard to ignore. Now, only time will tell. The movie only came out this year, so the next year or so may not see the influence. But it’s those late 2015 and beyond movies to look forward to. Action scenes can’t be saved by Zack Snyder alone. He’s tried. It’s now Gareth Evans’ turn, and he is more than able for the task.
- Tom Lorenzo
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