Bromovies

One of the most frequent relationship dynamics is that of two dudes who don't get along at first, but they learn to work together; fight crime, make some good jokes, or escape from prison. Of course inevitably they part ways after an argument, but realize they can't accomplish their task on their own, and get back together for an epic conclusion. There are a number of sub-genres, namely Buddy Cop and the more recent annoying guy destroys a competent guy's life. Of course besides films it is also a frequent theme in video-games, especially early video-games, where the two player co-op was very common.

First there are the comedic variants of this, with classics like Planes, Trains, and Automobiles with John Candy and Steve Martin standing out as exemplary examples, but there are many others which are still good, but not quite as good. It's actually incredibly easy to identify these types of movies. Look at the poster, does it have two guys, one with a comical expression? Probably a buddy comedy movie, with the same plot twists you've seen a million times, but maybe some decent comedy. Some opt for hyperbole like the Blues Brothers, though that does not follow the standard formula, as there is no conflict between the characters, creating a very different dynamic.

As stated these are simple movies, with a simple purpose, comedy. Even movies like Clerks follow this same dynamic, with two dudes who hang out together eventually having some huge event that tears them apart, but they get together before the finale. Of course in Clerks there is no real plot, so the conclusion is not exactly action packed or truly decisive, but it still works along the same formula. This has resulted in many brilliant comedies, and many lackluster impersonations. This two man dynamic is relatively easy to right and difficult to screw up, but it is the quality of the comedy and writing that makes it a good or bad movie, so that is why there is such a variance.

Now the second very popular variant is the buddy cop movie, something which has died down in recent days, but still has some appeal as shown by recent films like The Other Guys or 21 Jump Street. Classics like Rush Hour where the main proponents of this type of film, and again it uses the easy and entertaining dynamic to create a decent film. Even something like Bad Boys was still a decent watch, because the main actors work well together. Typically these types of films also have explosive finales which area  visual treat, again helping to create the basis for a very decent film, albeit nothing truly amazing.

With many of these genres the film-makers are so constrained by convention that they can't make anything truly genre-defining or defying, because often the financiers refuse to do these kind of risky projects, as they know what works and don't know what won't. This is applicable to a number of genres, but some like Horror and Sci-Fi can still put out interesting and inventive films, whereas some others like buddy and Rom-coms really can't. Genres generally constrain instead of enhance, and in many cases categorizations don't help with the best films, like Pulp Fiction or Donnie Darko. Films are an expansive and all-encompassing media, and we need to shy away from these constrictions and embrace free-form film, especially int he lower budget market.

A Beautiful Death

Continuing on from yesterday now I'll move on to the Heroic Bloodshed genre, something which is much more prevalent in Chinese cinema than it is in the States. There could be any number of reasons for this but one of the primary ones I believe is the cultural background, with loyalty as the key focus in many stories, something which is often deemed more important in Eastern culture than Western. I'll focus on John Woo's stuff because I know it best, but it applies to most of the genre.

So action movies centering on a personal story have more impact that ones which focus on armies taking down armies, but what if one man, or two mow down an enemy army? Well in the case of The Killer this is what happens, as a regretful assassin attempts one last job to pay for his love's eye surgery. He is opposed and later helped by a renegade cop, an archetypal loose cannon cop who cares more about getting the job done than the way he does it. These characters team up to take out a horde of mafia guys right at the end, and in a typical fight with doves and huge loads of bullets the opponents are defeated, though not without a personal loss by the protagonist. Actually the movie has a real downer of an ending, something which even the awesomeness of it doesn't really diminish.

But the themes it deals with, of betrayal and regret, and loyal friends, echoes throughout most genres, and makes the violence matter. The violence is the reason the movie was made, there is something almost dance like to it, especially some of the stunts that are pulled off like in the opening scene when the eponymous character shoots a mobster and uses him as a shield to fall in and take out some more guys. It is so well choreographed that we ignore reality for a while to watch the eloquent art. In general films of these types are less about the human struggle and more about the wider issues around it, and about the observation of death, and how even something so tragic can be so beautiful.

Another of Woo's films, perhaps his most famous ends on a much higher note, that is Hard Boiled. The last half an hour is essentially Die Hard but with much larger numbers and conflicts, and the protagonist is not alone inside the building. It is an effect fight scene, but loses some of the personal story that would make it a more relatable movie. Sure it's a nice looking movie with cool scenes, but it just doesn't resonate as well as some others like the above-mentioned The Killer. The focus is again on the action, this time at a slight detriment to the plot and characterization, with the main character as a Dirty Harry cop, the same as so many others from the genre. But though it may be predictable these movies continue to do well at the box office, and in audience's views.

Why do audiences enjoy seeing such violence, such terrible acts? Part is the desensitization due to the unspoken agreement that violence is okay but sex is not, that started right around when the Hayes code was finished. I don't know who or how or why they decided this but it has been that way forever in recent cinema, and will stay that way in any foreseeable future. Another part of it is the monkey-sphere, we don't care about the number of people that die because there are too many, we only care about those that the director intended us to, at least in most cases.

But ignoring the philosophical questions of why we appreciate others deaths lets look at some western equivalents, or at the least similar films. The style of Wire-fu and extremely choreographed fight scenes came into popularity due to the Matrix, and the sequels could never quite recreate the same feel, due in part to the same things as the Die Hard sequels. But the Matrix was heavily inspired by Hong Kong cinema, though it was actually significantly less bloody, kind of ignoring the whole bloodshed part of heroic bloodshed. The Matrix did something different with the characters though, making the protagonist a regular guy before it all started, creating a very different dynamic, and making the entry into the real world much more real for the audience, as they were as clueless as Neo.

Another reason that the Matrix worked so well was that Neo was not superman not yet, I mean in Reloaded a character actually commented that he was going 'superman' which is why he became less of a character and more of a caricature, unrelatable and merely a plot tool due to his immense power. In the first film he was just John McClaine, a guy who was good with guns and fighting skills, but nothing special to right at the end, where he pulled a Jesus, and when your main character becomes Jesus it really is time to end the series. So with Neo relatable people flocked to the theaters and a  whole new sub-genre was formed in the West, though it really was just stolen from the East. The same cool style of fighting is seen in other movies like Blade, or Underworld, movies where aesthetics overtakes substance.

The bloodshed part of the genre is actually taken somewhat by Tarantino, though he goes about it in a very different way than any other director. While he has not made a pure action flick yet, the Kill Bill movies come fairly close in delivering the same kind of action, though with swords instead of guns, thus emulating a different genre, though with obvious influences from John Woo. His mexican standoffs as well owe some to Woo, and other directors from the genre. There are certain scenes in Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction that have overt references, but later films like the Basterds have some as well.

So now I've looked at two sub-genres and I'm in no way done, because action movies cover a huge field, and show a lot more depth than meets the eye. I think I'll look at invincible heroes movies next, because they provide an interesting contrast to what I've already talked about, and are the frequent targets of criticism, and form the stereotypical action movie cliches.

Die Hard

Action films, they've become synonymous with mindless cinema which seeks nothing more than to deliver some explosions, with plot as an optional bonus. I have to say this actually really pisses me off, because action films can deliver themes just as well as any other genre, they simply have a different approach to it, with maybe a little too much focus on aesthetics. But I'm not going to pour through action films looking for deeper meanings, or something more than the entertainment that I actually go to the movies for, I'm just going to look at the various sub-genres of the thing, and what I like and dislike about them.

First and foremost I'm going to mention Die Hard, the best Christmas movie of all time. The reason I do this first is that it defined the genre from then on, with many films seeking to emulating and failing to capture what made the original so great. Even its sequels never lived up to the original, and that's because they missed the most fundamental thing about it. It's like seeing something that is popular, than trying to remake it with a different setting, it doesn't work if you don't understand why it's good, and how it was made, a copy and paste just results in a poor mans imitation. The key to the original Die Hard was scale, it was just one man against the world.

The world here of course is not the actual world, in fact it is pretty much just 12 terrorists, with a great leader in Alan Rickman. This is why it differed from other movies like much of what Seagal and Stallone put out. Even laughably good movies like Commando feature one guy mowing down a huge number of expendable goons, without names or personalities, they are merely there to die. Every person in Die Hard had a name, and a reason for dying. IT was a personal struggle on a scale that was entirely reasonable to the audience, I mean compared to the other heroes 12 guys was nothing, but it was a real struggle to the real person of John McClaine. Relatable is the key word here. We can't relate to superman, we can relate to Batman.

So what made Die Hard effective was the realism, not in the explosions or really the activities of the terrorists, but of the main character, of the scope, it meant every death meant something, one more of an increasingly difficult list. The other thing is that audiences love an underdog, with John outnumbered and outgunned, but with good old American determination he was able to take out an entire group of foreigners. There's a bit more to it than that, but the home team does so love to win, especially in a situation like that. This is one of the reasons that Live Free or Die Hard failed, ignoring the PG-13 version and watching the R cut, because it was on a scale that just wasn't relatable, I mean sure crashing a car into a helicopter is cool, but it just doesn't work on a human level, that's a superhuman.

There's a reason that the Spider-man is one of the most popular superheroes, because he has regular problems and so the audience empathizes with him. Empathy is extremely important in these kinds of situations. By most popular I mean highest grossing films, with his 3 in the top 4, only topped by the Dark Knight, which is somewhat different than the traditional superhero film. But back to the failings of Die hard 4, it was no longer a personal story, even though McClaine's daughter was on the line, we didn't care as much because it seemed more artificial. Explosions do not make a film, which is key to understanding the difference between good action films and bad. Die Hard had explosions, 4 was about the explosions, a very key difference. Not that you can't have the action as the reason the film is made, but there is a way to do that, and that is with the heroic bloodshed genre where the incredibly artistic violence is the focus and what gives the film its strength, for themes about loyalty and truth. But I'll get into that later.