Movies

I get what you are complaining about, but hear me out. John Wick (1) has the best plot premise of any action film ever made. It is a premise that transcends all barriers. Man loses the love of his life. Crew defiles his home, kill his wifes parting gift, which happens to be the most adorable puppy ever, and steal his pride and joy that also happens to be his last remaining healthy way to channel his anger and aggression. By the time he wakes up from the beat down, everyone in the movie theatre, regardless of gender, political beliefs, and to some extent religious beliefs, is on board with John murdering everyone. If they don't agree, they at least understand and withhold their protests.

It is so perfect that it is likely the genesis of the explosion in popularity.

EDIT: I am expecting a rise in The Punisher style movies, thanks to the positive reception to the UHC CEO murder.

Can you name an action movie from before the 21st century that wasn't also about revenge?

I think every 70's kung fu flick I watched had that plot.

This is the only plot line that will get any oxygen from a fascist society that is losing its ability to tell stories about realistic villains because to make them realistic is to make them dangerously indistinguishable from real life CEOs, politicians and the ultrawealthy in general.

What you are observing is the symptoms of a society on the verge of plunging into nihilism because the political center has agreed to take everything with substance off the table so as not to offend conservative snowflakes who mass murderers like the late Brian Thomson of United Healthcare hide behind while they condemn countless of us to death or lives of extreme suffering.

A descent into authoritarianism only can happen after people have had their imaginations filled with villains who are even worse, which in practice always means reducing villains in storytelling to one dimensional agents of evil who desire to do evil because they are evil and ugly and that is just how it is.

Yep it's gotten real obvious lately with the copy and paste formula of angry middle-aged ex-secret-agent/assassin being forced to revenge upon the evildoers that just won't let him live in peace. That or the hot lady who used to be a secret spy assassin who wants to live peacefully but is forced to unleash karate revenge. Just a bunch of pointless rehashing with rotating cast.

Panos Cosmatos broke that mold with his revenge movie though, that's a good exception. (Mandy)

I mean there's only a tiny handful of motivations that are ever used for action movies

• revenge against an evil act
• prevention of an evil act
• saving a hostage

Are there any others?

The environment sets the tone. And lashing out against unjust and unreasonable oppression is pretty fucking on point considering everything, everywhere, all at once.

• Twilight of the Warriors
• Road House
• Bullet Train
• The Raid

It's definitely a trend right now, and I'd mostly attribute it entirely to John Wick. Wick was somewhat ground breaking because they handed director duties to a former stuntman / action coordinator and the entire plot only existed to flex the stunts and gun work. Now every studio wants to put a stunt guy calling the shots and we keep ending up with thin stories and directors trying to one up each other in concentrated action.

I don't think the "endless henchmen" movies are going away, they're almost becoming a subgenre themselves. But I agree I'd like to see more creativity on the story side.

Taken was the almost the exact opposite though, an action movie starring someone who couldn't execute stunts and director with little action experience.

Baby Driver. Definitely an action movie with very little killing, let alone revenge killing.

You need to expand your horizons. Here's a list of action movies released this year that are not about revenge killing: Deadpool & Wolverine, The Fall Guy, Civil War, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Twisters, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, Bad Boys: Ride or Die, Wolfs, Rebel Ridge, The Three Musketeers Part II, Jackpot!, Canary Black, Land of Bad, Sixty Minutes, One More Shot, Chief of Station, Damsel, Weekend in Taipei, Bad Hombres, The Killer's Game

Disclaimer: I haven't watched most of these so I can't vouch for the quality of the films in this list

I actually feel like Die Hard is less of revenge kills and more a cop doing their job, if you get me right

We live in a post John wick society

I don't think it's fair to call Taken a revenge film. It's pretty clearly a rescue film. There's a ton of violence all the way through, sure, but the premise is getting his daughter home.

You may enjoy this rant on the subject.;-)

Some of these are remakes because this genre goes back to the early days of movies. Thinking of movies like that one from Bruce Willis called Death Wish which is one of those Charles Bronson movies which is practically all that guy was known for in the 20th century.

How else would you do a story like this and get the audience to applaud for the main character?

Haha go watch a Charles Bronson film first.

Btw marvel movies don't always have revenges.