I'm gonna go with "High Noon", Gary Cooper has to face a gang hell-bent on killing him, has every opportunity to toss the badge when the spineless townspeople won't help him, each one with a lamer excuse than the last. He stays and fights anyway. Director Zimmerman films this in real-time with incredible creativity and little budget. Laying a camera ground level to see the approaching train, (the camera was wrecked by the train but they managed to save the footage). How he uses a pan-back from Coopers face to the shot finally coming to rest high above the scene showing the empty town and enhancing the feeling of desperation. The movie won 4 Oscars and deserved every one, it's clear Hitchcock himself learned from Zimmerman's techniques. In short, a masterpiece.
Muse
Lifer
- Jul 11, 2001
- 38,308
- 8,627
- 136
Yeah, if you haven't see it, do see it, a bona fide classic.
And yes, for me, Sean Connery is the only Bond.
Matt Damon in the Bourne series is a very satisfying bad-ass character.
Die Hard is classic, too.
I like The Departed. It hits my funny bone!
The first two Lethal Weapon movies are fun.
Robocop is one of my tough guy favorites.
You might try Bad Lieutenant. From Cinemania '97:
Bad Lieutenant
US (1992): Drama
Roger Ebert Review: 4.0 stars out of 4
98 min, Rated NC-17, Color, Available on videocassette and laserdisc
BAD LIEUTENANT tells the story of a man who is not comfortable inside his body or soul. He walks around filled with need and dread. He is in the last stages of cocaine addiction, gulping booze to level off the drug high. His life is such a loveless hell that he buys sex just for the sensation of someone touching him, and his attention drifts even then, because there are so many demons pursuing him. Harvey Keitel plays this man with such uncompromised honesty that the performance can only be called courageous; not many actors would want to be seen in this light.
The lieutenant has no illusions about himself. He is bad and knows he is bad, and he abuses the power of his position in every way he can. Interrupting a grocery store stickup, he sends the beat cop away and then steals the money from the thieves. He sells drug dealers their immunity by taking drugs from them. In the film's most harrowing scene, he stops two teenage girls who are driving their parents' car without permission. He threatens them with arrest, and then engages in what can only be described as an act of verbal rape.
Remember the Ray Liotta character in the last sequence of Scorsese's GOODFELLAS (1990), when he is strung out on cocaine and paranoid that the cops are following him? His life speeds up, his thinking is frantic, he can run but he can't hide. The Keitel character in BAD LIEUTENANT is like that other character, many more agonizing months down the road. Life cannot go on like this much longer.
We learn a few things about him. He still lives in a comfortable middle-class home, with a wife and three children who have long since made their adjustment to his madness. There is no longer a semblance of marriage. He comes in at dawn and collapses on the couch, to be wakened by the TV cartoons, which cut through his hangover. He stumbles out into the world again, to do more evil. When he drives the kids to school, his impatience is palpable; he cannot wait to drop them off and get a fix.
The movie does not give the lieutenant a name, because the human aspects of individual personality no longer matter at this stage; he is a bad cop, and those two words, expressing his moral state and his leverage in society, say everything that is still important about him.
A nun is raped. He visits the hospital to see her. She knows who attacked her, but will not name them, because she forgives them. The lieutenant is stunned. He cannot imagine this level of absolution. If a woman can forgive such a crime, is redemption possible even for him?
The film dips at times into madness. In a church, he hallucinates that Jesus Christ has appeared to him. He no longer knows for sure what the boundaries of reality are. His temporary remedies—drugs and hookers—have stopped working. All that remain are self-loathing, guilt, deep physical disquiet, and the hope of salvation.
BAD LIEUTENANT was directed by Abel Ferrara, a gritty New Yorker who has come up through the exploitation ranks (MS. 45, 1981, FEAR CITY, 1984) to low-budget but ambitious films like CHINA GIRL (1987), KING OF NEW YORK (1990) and CAT CHASER (1989). This film lacks the polish of a more sophisticated director, but would have suffered from it. The film and the character live close to the streets. The screenplay is by Ferrara and Zoe Lund, who can be seen onscreen as a hooker, and played the victim in MS. 45. They are not interested in plot in the usual sense. There is no case to solve, no crime to stop, no bad guys except for the hero.
Keitel starred in Martin Scorsese's first film and has spent the last 25 years taking more chances with scripts and directors than any other major actor. He has the nerve to tackle roles like this, that other actors, even those with street images, would shy away from. He bares everything here—his body, yes, but also his weaknesses, his hungers. It is a performance given without reservation.
The film has the NC-17 rating, for adults only, and that is appropriate. This is not a film for younger people. But it is not a "dirty movie," and in fact takes spirituality and morality more seriously than most films do. And in the bad lieutenant, Keitel has given us one of the great screen performances in recent years.
- - - -
Haven't seen Zardoz. Here's what Pauline Kael has to say about it in Cinemania:
Zardoz
UK (1974): Science Fiction
Pauline Kael Review
105 min, Rated R, Color
Sean Connery in a loincloth as the only virile man in an elitist commune of the future, dominated by hyper-intellectual immortal women. John Boorman, who wrote, produced, and directed this lushly photographed piece of twaddle, appears to be worried about mankind's losing its fighting strength. With ideas skimmed off the top of various systems of thought, ZARDOZ is a glittering cultural trash pile, and probably the most gloriously fatuous movie since THE OSCAR--THOUGH the passages between laughs droop. With Charlotte Rampling, whose gimlet eyes and sensual hauteur inspire Connery to found a new race, and Sara Kestelman as May. Cinematography by Geoffrey Unsworth. 20th Century-Fox.
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IHateMyJob2004
Lifer
- Sep 29, 2004
- 18,656
- 67
- 91
Any 80 ears action movie? Go through all of Schwwartenegers movies including and prior to T2 (other than comcedies)
MongGrel
Lifer
- Dec 3, 2013
- 38,466
- 3,067
- 121
I liked Killing them Softly but i wouldn't classify it as a tough guy movie.
I was less impressed with Drive than those on IMDB.
Taxi Driver is a classic.
Yep :thumbsup:
Maybe Last Man Standing or Harry Brown
John Connor
Lifer
- Nov 30, 2012
- 22,757
- 617
- 121
Everything had been pretty much mentioned so I'll name a few oldies.
Cliffhanger, Raw Deal, Total Recall, Platoon, The Rock. I may think of more latter.
Cliffhanger, Raw Deal, Total Recall, Platoon, The Rock. I may think of more latter.
Fenixgoon
Lifer
- Jun 30, 2003
- 32,048
- 10,822
- 136
homebrew2ny
Senior member
- Jan 3, 2013
- 610
- 61
- 91
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