5 Action Movies To Help You Celebrate Independence Day
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By Kellvin Chavez on
July 03, 2009
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When it comes to the 4th of July, The Simpsons said it best: what better way to celebrate the independence of our nation than by blowing up a small part of it? Independence Day is this weekend and plenty of people will be doing just that. Many of the rest of us will be watching other people do it at fireworks displays across the country.
But what if you can’t do those to things – fireworks are illegal in your state, your afraid of blowing your hand off, you can’t make it to a fireworks display or it gets rained out? Or what if you can do all those things but you just need more?
For those of you who love movies and just can’t get enough of the rockets’ red glare and bombs bursting in air, I’ve put together this little list of kick-ass action movies that are like the cinematic equivalent of blowing shit up in honor of America’s freedom.
RAMBO
Not all the movies on this list are necessarily good in a traditional sense; the important thing is that they exhibit a certain special over the top, balls to the wall quality, and Sly Stallone’s RAMBO – not the original FIRST BLOOD, the 2008 sequel – has that quality in spades. But in a way it’s actually a terrible movie. The script, the performances, and even some of the editing and cinematography are all laughably bad. RAMBO is capable of doing exactly one thing right, but it does that one thing so insanely well that it becomes awesome. It’s a film with a simple message: when faced with some life’s most difficult problems - genocide, civil war, kidnapping, even pedophilia - the most effective solution is violence. To be more specific, sometimes it becomes absolutely necessary to liquefy hundreds of evil Burmese soldiers with a truck-mounted .50 caliber machine gun. That’s basically what this movie is about; a hulking old man reducing dozens of southeast Asians to gooey red heaps of ex-humanity with the help of some barely developed and stereotypical mercenary caricatures. It's about people being rent asunder with knives, machetes, arrows, grenades, bare hands, and thousands of highly accelerated pieces of hot lead. It pretty much stops there, that's as deep as it gets despite misguided stabs at pathos and subtle political/religious commentary. It's really just a gleefully over the top and absurdly violent piece of 80's action cinema sucked through a wormhole and deposited on present day movie screens for your viewing delight. You don't question it, you don't analyze it, you just enjoy it in all its hilarious glory.
BAD BOYS 2
To put it diplomatically, Michael Bay is a divisive figure in film fandom. To be a little more blunt, some people freaking hate him while others (perhaps Bay included) think he’s god’s gift to popcorn moviemaking. As always, the reality is somewhere in between. He makes big, dumb, ridiculously excessive, ADHD-driven spectacle movies, and some of them are terrible. But at his best Bay makes the excessiveness work, even turns it into an advantage, resulting in films that are ridiculously big and over the top in an irresistibly fun way. BAD BOYS II is a prime example of this side of Bay; it’s not a great movie or a smart movie, but it’s crazy and fun in the right ways that it just works. And in a way excess is what this list is all about. It’s also about stuff blowing up, and that’s one thing we can all agree Bay is good at – this movie has exploding cars, exploding boats, exploding toys, exploding people, rockets, landmines, and a lot of expended bullets. Basically if it exists Bay has probably blown it up, wrecked it, or shot it. The movie is also surprisingly gory, truly earning its R rating.
TERMINATOR 2
After the disappointment of Terminator Salvation earlier this summer, it’s important to look back and remember how incredibly awesome this franchise used to be. This holiday weekend is the perfect time to do that since TERMINATOR 2, the peak of the series, is packed with explosive mayhem. Nothing is more American than two robots spending two hours trying to destroy each other… okay that might not actually be true, but just go with me here. I think breathtaking setpieces like the LA River chase, the Cyberdine HQ shootout, and climactic chase and battle are reason enough to watch this movie anytime, let alone on a holiday that is borne out of bloody conflict and has a theme of explosions. Do I need to make much more of a case? Just watch it.
DIE HARD
Granted, this movie takes place on Christmas, but it works just as well for the 4th of July. I mean, who better to embody the spirit of America and Independence Day than embattled everyman cop John McClane? Our founding fathers fought the Revolutionary War to liberate this country from British tyranny; McClane fought a one-man war to liberate the Nakatomi Building from Hans Gruber and his cadre of international terrorists/thieves. It’s a perfect metaphor. Alan Rickman is even British, which ties it all together (even if his character, Gruber, is German). DIE HARD may not have as big a body count or quite as many insane gunfights as a couple of the other movies on this list, but it still delivers these things in an incredibly satisfying way. And when it comes to explosions, it certainly captures the idea of cinematic fireworks, especially with its famous rooftop explosion scene. What more really needs to be said about this movie? It’s an American action classic and a great way to celebrate the 4th.
HARD BOILED
Director John Woo’s films are frequently referred to as ballets of violence, which is an incredibly apt description. But another good way you could put it is that they’re like watching the most exciting and technically impressive fireworks displays ever, and HARD BOILED is arguably his crowning achievement, making it the true embodiment of what this list is all about. It’s actually the film that inspired the whole idea, and to be perfectly honest nothing else really comes close to it. This film is a wall-to-wall cornucopia of pyrotechnics; guns blasting, squibs firing, stuff exploding, people flying through the air. But the film isn’t good just because the effects and stunt teams had a field day, it’s brilliantly choreographed and shot to achieve maximum excitement and style. It’s truly an action fan’s fever dream come to life. I don’t want to get too political, but it’s amusingly appropriate yet kind of sad that the film that best embodies the spirit of a 4th of July fireworks display is a Chinese export. It’s just that nobody did or does hyperkinetic action quite like the Hong Kong film industry in its 80s/90s heyday, and few if any filmmakers in Hong Kong did it as well as John Woo did in this landmark action movie.
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