1. Fight Club
Director David Fincher's film Fight Club will always been a cult film as it captures the zeitgeist of hoards of men feeling emasculated by the changing domain of the workforce, and the equalising of society as well as the prominence of P.C. culture. This standout film stars Brad Pitt and Edward Norton at their best, and if the plotline had to be summed up with one definitive maxim, it would be pain is power and life. Feeling trapped by the mundaine world, an unnamed-as he is so unimportant in greater society- narrator seeks refuge in an underworld club of fighting with no rules. It is as clsoe to a paramilitary organisation as you can get without actually being one, and this scary yet exciting thought is the driving force throughout the movie. Why do these men risk so much to recreationally smash each other to bits? The impetus to be somebody, even if its in the dark and is realised only through violence and the spilling of your own blood is what leads the growing gang. Together they join to fight and in doing so they unabashedly posture as unevolved, animalistic arbiters of a society that needs a shake up; some drastic change.Get ready for an adrenaline filled film that will wow with its cast, storyline and correlating grimy cinematography.
2. Raging Bull
When people think of method acting theyt first think of Raging Bull, the film which led Robert De Niro to train as a boxer to reach professional level, and then gain sixty pounds to play the biopics boxer Jake LaMotta in his later years. For a film that is has so much focus on physicality, it encompasses so much from brotherhood to social bundaries, family, domestic violence, and of course looming over all of these, the question of what is masculinity. There is, if we are to take LaMotta as a prime example of what can go scarily wrong, a savagery at the heart of manhood that when allowed to flourish becomes ineffably and dangerously strong. For De Niro as LaMotta, it begins leaking into every compartment of his life and almost becomes its own seperate identity, no longer part of him and totally out of his control.In fact, it controls him. Early in life Jake is given a chance to become something and rise out of his lower-class surroundings through professional boxing. He has, in this sense, been farmed. He has been produced to be this way, hasn't he? What is so interminably great about Scorcese's film is we don't get a conclusive answer on this or much else asides from the
certainty of his main character's doom.Scorsese accompanies the percussive blows with an awful sense of realism, made even moe impressive by the fact it is in black and white which we are eld to beleive is less easy to empathise with or draw us in with realism. It does here.
3. The Matrix
This is a sci-fi that is a determinably different type of movie than we had seen before. With some surprisingly low-key performances considering the topic, it tells the story of one man who is chosen as "the one" who must win the war between robots (or intelligent machines as they are known) and man.The Matrix tunnels into the world of A.I. and asks what does the virtual world mean to us as it gains significance in our lives and exponentially grows. In other words, will it overtake our world? The film is choreographed superbly with dexterous, sinuous camera techniques such as the bullet-time (speedy) photography it created. It is a one-of-a-kind blend of sci-fi, martial arts and the anime-style which so many critics have noticed it draws upon. Laurence Fishburne and Keanu Reeves cast charcters they will be remembered as forever in this first of the series.
4. Rocky
Silver Stallone wrote and directed the film that made him a household name, Rocky. A 1970s classic, the fiml tells the ultimate underdog tale of a small-time fighter who is given the chance to win the heavyweight championship against all odds. It is more than brawns against bigger brawns, it is a modern parable, or even fairytale as it has been often described, of might versus virtue and unrelenting will. Despite his loss of the match, he is the winner when in comes to the latter, thereby able to proclaim the overarching feat in his favour, which he does with the call out to his girlfriend Adrian at the finale. It may be called a moern day fairytale but chimerical rise to the top it is not, Rocky Balboa must slog it out to the end instead.If you haven't yet seen the film, you will know its theme music which has entered the pop culture conscious as the underdog anthem.
5.Taken
Liam Neeson is Taken. The 2008 flick casts Neeson as a father doggedly tracking his kidnapped father. He just so happens to be a former C.I.A. operative, which helps. Nobody stands in this Dad's way, or else faces the Neeson A.K.A. Byran Mills' wrath. It has all the swiftness a good action delivers, with little intervals. The phone exchange between Neeson's character and the kidnappers has given us the classic action quote 'I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.'
6. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
The skill of the cast is only matched by the stunning cinematography, set out before the audience like a tapestry, each scene more artistically detailed, fine-tuned and visually opulent than the last. The title borrows from a Chinese idiom, referring to a hidden talent, a person of great importance lost in a crowd.It launched the career oF Ang Lee (director) in the western world, and gave its audience a cohesively merged version of Chinese tradition and Western/Hollywood style all-out action. To top it off, it set a new box office record for foreign language films.
7. Gladiator
Russell Crowe is an incorruptable general deadset against Joaquin Phoenix's Commodus, heir to the Roman throne as emperor following hs elderly father's death. With Crowe and director Ridley Scott, Maximus is turned into a Roman myth of righteous battling against the flailing system, and serves the audience not only scene after scene of fighting action but a serving of history. Visceral gladiator fights are plentiful, and given all the human drama you can imagine. Phoenix's role as Commodus is standout as the morally dissident, incestuous earthworm evil villain. We can only hope he and Oliver Reed sat down and discussed villainy together..cue film nerd moment. Vengence quote on hand-'My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife.And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.'
8. Million Dollar Baby
If Clint Eastwood had stopped making movies after Million Dollar Baby (not that he should have by any means) this would have been a very apt sound out as it has a resolution that seems to look further past the story itself, into something bigger than Eastwood's films have looked at time and time again. The fight, who it includes or more importantly discludes, code of honour and sense of belonging are all themes Eastwood has returned to many a time, and explores most often with some sort of 'fight' whether it be old West gunslinging, one-on-onefisticuffs, gang war or professional fighting such as this. In the case, Maggie (Hilary Swank) is not only an outsider becomes of her trailer-trash background, but because she is a woman who wants to train with the old-fashioned Frankie, who will only train with men. Her dogged fight even ater she is lanced by a cheating fighter is far more evocative than a basic adrenaline fight film, reaching into whether you can fight until the end, including fighting to end your own life if it is your will. Every element of the film's heavy pathos is transklated with a reference to something fight related, or corporal. Maggie is nicknamed Mo Chuisle (Irish for my darling, or my blood) by Eastwood's Frankie.
9. Way of the Dragon
Way of the Dragon was Bruce Lee's directorial debut in the earky 1970s, 1972 to be exact, and is a perfect display of the martial arts king and his unsurpassable talent as a result of his total control of the picture. Fellow fighter Chuck Norris also stars, so if you are looking for a special effects-free display of fighting talent then look no further.
10. On the Waterfront
One of the best performances ever caught on celluloid. The Marlon Brando exclamation 'I could have been a contender' has entered the English lexicon as a summary expression of misspent youth.Brando is his best when playing men with a preference for clipped, almost monosyllabic speech; brutes caught in the own shell and unable to express something that breaks through only in some form of tragedy. Take Terry Malloy, a dockworker and former boxer, who is thwarted by both his brother and his own inability to stand up. That is, until he resolutely defies the mob-run docks union. In this decision, and with his encounters with Eva Saint Marie's character Edie, we are witness to his lyrical lament he has struggled to express. The underacting Brando exhibits; playing with Edie's glove for example, is what suggests there is something more to Terry, something fragile, more lyrical and sensitive than the shell will suggest.
Honorary Mention: Face/Off
It is not only a thriller starring John Travlta and Nicholas Cage, but it also downright hilarious even if it is unintentionally. A lot of it makes little sense, but in this sense its outrageousness
will win you over. What seals its fun factor is the cartoon violence John Woo utilises to full effect; windows smash right next to them, they are constantly in point blank range of shots and they beat each other to a pulp but yet they bounce back again and again. A believable and perfected face transplant is central to the plot, so if that doesn't inform you what kind of film you're let in for, then nothing will. Neither of these men could possible (or at least they don't look it) fit enough to acrobatically duck, flip and jump as much as they do in this film, and that's why it scores so many points, particularly with middle-aged men. The director's action style has become so identifiable due to films like this it has been caleld 'gun fu' for its use of martial arts style fighting but with the addition of modern, western weapons like guns.