Random, but quality
Got an itch to watch some old school action this weekend? Are you a 90s kid who is feeling nostalgic? Don’t want to go for the obvious choices like Terminator 2 or Demolition Man? The 90s are arguably the best decade for a more variety of action films as the 80s saw Stallone and Schwarzenegger take the big screen by storm killing a population of bad guys in many different situations. The 90s capitalized on their iconography, plus there were many movies that tried to break out similar kinds of action stars.
In an effort to bring more attention to movies that aren’t talked about as much as other 90s action classics, we’re going to give you five hard-hitting, bone-crunching, gun-blasting films from that era that we’d recommend you check out this weekend, should the mood strike. There isn’t a unifying factor or any particular rhyme or reason for these picks. Just some random goodies to bring to your attention. You may even see some overlap in films we’ve highlighted before in past videos.
Drop Zone
Wesley Snipes never quite got to escape the 90s as an action star except for the Blade franchise and a ton of straight-to-video movies. But when you don’t go for Demolition Man or Passenger 57, a good Wesley Snipes action movie that doesn’t seem to be talked about is Drop Zone. When the movie came out, it wasn’t exactly a flop, but it also wasn’t exactly a blockbuster. It was a moderate success for Wesley that actually saw a later uptick in business, thanks to the home video market.
It’s a skydiving-themed action film where Snipes plays a federal agent investigating a group of criminals who killed his brother. There’s a good insight to the world of skydiving and features an equally underrated Yancy Butler as Snipes’ entry into this extreme sport world. Gary Busey followed up his villainous turn in Under Siege with a villainous turn in this film. It’s a pretty refreshing action film and features one of Hans Zimmer’s most kick-ass action scores during a perilous skydiving sequence that was actually used for some movie trailers.
Best of the Best II
The first Best of the Best film was more of a sports movie, character drama, but the sequel was an awesome progression with the characters into an all-out action territory. This movie also amps up Phillip Rhee’s action star presence so much that I’m surprised he didn’t get more movies after this. In this entry, Tommy Lee and Alex Grady get pulled into investigating an illegal underground fighting circuit that got their friend Travis killed. I actually prefer this to the original. The fighting got more raw and the violence got more graphic. The Colosseum is one of the better underground fighting settings as it’s presented as human cockfighting entertainment for the super-rich in Las Vegas. Tommy Lee’s pursuit to defeat the intimidating Brakus is like a good martial arts version of Rocky’s journey to defeat Drago in Rocky IV.
The Big Hit
Amazingly, Mark Wahlberg followed up his acclaimed performance in Boogie Nights with this perfectly silly, cartoonish, action comedy. Cartoonish is probably the best word I could use to describe it because The Big Hit has such an over-the-top kind of humor that it could have been a Naked Gun-type parody with a bit more polish. Wahlberg and Lou Diamond Phillips are obviously having a ball in this “kidnapping-gone-wrong” action film. There are a bunch of sitcom-like situations thrown in (complete with Married with Children‘s Christina Applegate and Elliot Gould hot off his appearance on Friends), which are then infused with some high-octane, but equally over-the-top fun action sequences.
Breakdown
Ok, this one is kind of pushing it as it’s not really an action movie. It’s more of a thriller with some action in it. However, this might be a strange case of a suspenseful comfort film for me. It’s an intense mystery that I just enjoy watching and I can be engaged without getting stressed. It’s a perfectly-paced, stripped-down, simplistic tale of an out-of-towner getting targeted by a small band of thieves for some extortion. It’s a good paranoia film that turns into a “what would I do?” kind of watch, but you just enjoy watching Kurt Russell’s performance and it gets so satisfying when he starts to take charge of the situation. There isn’t a ton of action, but it’s a movie that draws you in and when everything gets said and done, in the final showdown, you’re rewarded with some vehicular carnage. Definitely check this one out!
Executive Decision
Boom! Another Kurt Russell movie! This one is worth a revisit since it seemed to have gotten overshadowed by movies like Passenger 57 or Air Force One as kind of a Die Hard-on-a-plane. However, I submit to you that it’s probably the best of those movies because it’s full of interesting subversions. Firstly, the movie may be mostly known for killing off Steven Seagal early on in the film (Seagal may have been on the decline at this time, but he was still quite a big name). But there are some really intriguing elements that deal with this political hijacking of an airplane. On a recent revisit, I was actually surprised by how little action is in this movie. It’s more about the suspense. The extraction team sent to save the passengers are stowed away on the hijacked flight and have to sneak around trying to disarm a deadly explosive device. It’s from the writers of Predator and this is another entry that proves that they’re good at building tension. Give it a revisit!
So there are this week’s picks! We didn’t go too obscure and for underrated films, we played it pretty safe…for now. If you enjoyed this, stay tuned for more!
The comment section exists to allow readers to discuss the article constructively and respectfully, focused on the topic at hand.
What’s Not Allowed