Action Movies

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Action Movies

Do you like gladiator movies? War movies? Gangster movies? Kung fu movies? Swordfight movies? Alien invasion movies?

This is a community for any movie with a punch, a kick, a stab, a shot or an explosion, or preferably all of the above and plenty of 'em.

Everything from Armour of God to Zulu, from Above the Law to Zatoichi.

Feel free to post:

Rules

In addition to piefed.social's instance rules.

  1. Let's be nice to each other
  2. Let's keep it legal (e.g. licensed streaming)
  3. Let's stay on topic

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[Full Movie] Laser Mission (1989) (lemmy.ca)
submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by klu9@lemmy.ca to c/action_movies@piefed.social
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a.k.a Soldier of Fortune

Tagline

The Future of the world rests on just one man!

Elevator pitch

I... can't even imagine. The "James Bond Holiday Special"?

Summary

Freelance secret agent has to retrieve a kidnapped laser scientist before the bad guys use him and a stolen diamond to develop a superweapon.

Trailer

Personnel

  • Director: Beau Davis
  • Writers: Phillip Guteridge, David A. Frank

Cast

Info

Opinion

This, and Legacy of Rage, were the only movies starring Brandon Lee I still hadn't seen. So when I saw it available on (legit) free streaming, I went for it.

I don't think it's unfair to say it's terrible: the story, the editing, and oh my god the accents! Whether it's so bad it's good, or so bad it's just bad is up to you. Personally, I found it entertaining enough, and Brandon Lee irrepressibly charming enough, to stick through it. (The trailer is Lee being all "grim serious hero", but for much of the film he's winkingly delivering one-liners on a par with Connery or Schwarzenegger.)

I refer to it as the James Bond Holiday Special, because, like the Star Wars Holiday Special, it's incoherent, at times inexplicable, and probably the result of people doing way too much coke.

If you want quality drama and a sensible plot, this ain't it. If you want to see a guy sidekick a baddie into a guillotine, this is your jam!

Here are two reviews, one on each side of the debate:

A Little Bit of Politics...

A whole different issue, though, is the political context of its production. About 10 minutes in, it dawned on me this might be another Red Scorpion.

If you don't know, Red Scorpion, featuring future Brandon Lee co-star Dolph Lundgren, is a 1989 action movie about a hero who fights against assorted Communist baddies in a fictional Portuguese-speaking country in southwestern Africa, that was shot primarily in South Africa and then-South-African-occupied Namibia. Laser Mission ticks all the same boxes.

And Red Scorpion, despite being a "US" movie, turned out to have been produced in part using money secretly funneled from a propaganda wing of South Africa's apartheid regime (thanks to Jack Abramoff of the MPA, later the central figure in multiple Washington corruption scandals).

The fictional southwestern African country was a thin veil for Angola, where South Africa (and, indirectly, the US) was involved in a war against the Communist government there (supported by Soviet, East German and Cuban advisers and troops), which in turn supported liberation movements in Namibia and South Africa.

Whereas Red Scorpion stays relentlessly on message about the need to defeat communism in Africa, meaning the need to support the apartheid regime, Laser Mission doesn't bang on much about the poltics of the situation, and the central casting Soviet baddie does have another agenda. But still...

Movie

All full movie links I post are for free, no account required, licensed (AFAIK, IANAL) streaming VOD in English (or original language with English subtitles) and work at time of writing in my location, Mexico. Availability and language options may be different in your location. Asterisk by the one I watched.

Legal stream finders

Screenshots

Laser Mission As you can see, I still need to improve my screenshooting skills without triggering Tubi's interface.

Laser Mission Tubi's interface disappears but FreeMovies+ in a web browser has all that stuff visible all the time. (On a Roku, FreeMovies+ doesn't do this, it gives you proper full screen.)

Laser MIssion "¡Soy el capitán Brownface!"

Laser Mission

#actionmovies, #legitfreemovies, #brandonlee, #ernestborgnine, #bmoviebonanza

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Crackerjack (1994) (lemmy.ca)
submitted 6 days ago by klu9@lemmy.ca to c/action_movies@piefed.social
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Tagline 1

A $50 million heist
A ski resort held hostage
A cop with nothing to lose

Tagline 2

Jack take a vacation? Not on his life.

Elevator pitch

Die Hard at a ski resort (but without any skiing, that shit's expensive!)

Summary

Troubled loose cannon cop Jack Wild (yes, really) is persuaded by his brother and sister-in-law to take a break from it all and accompany them on a ski trip... only to find a mobster at the resort. And then a team of baddies take over the place to get the mobster's diamonds.

Trailer

Personnel

Cast

Info

Opinion

When I say this is Die Hard at a ski resort, boy, do I mean it!

Die Hard checklist

  • Unmarried cop on vacation: check!
  • Family member/s on site for higher stakes: check!
  • Assorted Euro baddies taking over a buildingful of hostages: check!
  • Led by a respected, international actor playing a well-dressed, well-spoken East German killer: check!
  • Cop talks to himself sarcastically about how well his vacation is going: check!
  • Cop disbelieved when reporting the hostage crisis to the authorities over the radio: check!
  • Cop takes out baddies one by one: check!
  • Cop and lead baddie exchange snappy repartee via stolen walkie-talkie: check!
  • Baddie threatens to kill hostage unless hero gives himself up: check!
  • Baddies already prepared for the inevitable response from the cavalry: check!
  • Bye bye, cavalry: check!
  • Baddie identifies the cop and cop's family member/s: check!
  • Baddies have a plan to kill all the hostages and make it look like they're dead, too: check!
  • Baddie reveals his motive is not what he made it seem: check!

Just about the only thing they didn't include was comic relief or a Christmas theme. And the snow was right there, fer crying out loud!

But given just how many Die Hard rip-offs there have been, and how bad most of them are, Crackerjack comes off as one of the better ones, especially given its low budget ($4 million Canadian, which is, what, a buck fiddy in real money? ;). Plummer's accent is not in Rickman's league, Kinski doesn't get to make us care much about her, and it lacks the little comic touches of its role model.

On the other hand, things move along at a fair pace (once the trouble starts), and when it comes to the hand-to-hand combat, it feels genuinely punishing, with Griffith pulling off some sweet moves. (I thought he was an actor!)

Spawned two more movies: in 2, Jack Wild is played by a different actor. And 3 has no other connection to the other two apart from the title. Always a sign of quality! :D

Movie

All movie links are for free (no account required), legal & licensed (AFAIK) streaming VOD in English (or original language with English subtitles) and work at time of writing in my location, Mexico. Availability and language options may be different in your location. Asterisk by the one I watched.

Screenshots

Crackerjack 1994

Crackerjack 1994

Crackerjack 1994

Crackerjack 1994