Top 10: Violent Movie Sports #2
Feb. 8, 2008
Now that the football season is over (congrats to the NY Giants BTW) it's gonna be a long 7 months before the regular season return of many people's favorite smashmouth sport. To help you get through those lean, dark times I'm gonna give you some great movie sports that bring violence to the screen like a hooker brings STD's to a bachelor party.
A number of this week's entries aren't horror films per se, but anyone who has seen these brutal throwdowns will admit that the level of blood letting, head banging, carnage inducing mayhem at play is enough to charm any horror fan's heart.
So kick back, pop open a brew, and get your S.O. to wear a sports jersey and nothing else. It's time to watch some muthaf*ckers get Jacked Up!
James Caan is fantastic as the best Rollerballer of all time, a dude who is fully ready to give the finger to corporate interference in his beloved game. What's truly a joy is that while the game starts off as ultraviolent, it turns into an all out bloodbath by the end of the movie as the Powers That Be slowly strip away all of the rules in an attempt to kill off Caan for his stubborn refusal to retire. Big mistake.
I'm no fan of NASCAR personally, but if you make a cross country road race and let the drivers weapon up their cars and kill people for extra points, well I'd be glued to the television. Maybe the competition in Death Race 2000 is a little too violent for a real sport, but damn it's fun to watch. It also features an ending that gives the most explicit example of a common theme in these movies - the ability of sport to overcome the entrenched power mongering of a corrupt system. But y'know, in an entertaining way.
Arnie busting heads and taking names. Once again we've got the base subject of a man being hunted by other men, but nobody does this kind of kill or be killed situation with the style that Schwarzenegger does. Add to that the best host of a sporting event ever in Richard Dawson and this unrelenting death match satisfies on just about every level.
Take a bunch of school kids, put 'em on an island, and make them fight until only one remains. Keep things interesting by giving them a host of effective, and not so effective, weapons. Plus they are all fitted with an explosive collar so after three days, if no winner has been declared, BOOM! Oh yeah.
The sport so f*cking cool it has spawned an actual league based on it. Called only "The Game" in the movie, we watch Juggers travel over barren wastes to play in various towns and earn one hard ass living. What's the object? Put a dog's skull on a stake. Think that sounds easy, watch the movie. Then get back to me. Just keep in mind to win this game you have to get past the likes of Rutger Hauer, Vincent D'Onofrio, Delroy Lindo and Joan Chen. Good luck.
7:51AM on 02/11/2008