It's Dolph in Action week on DStv. Paul Eksteen looks at why action fans love watching the likes of the stud from Stockholm, Dolph Lundgren.
|||BY PAUL EKSTEEN
It's Dolph in Action week on DStv. To celebrate the sheer awesomeness of the stud from Stockholm, we've been blessed with a David Attenborough mimic introducing his films like Dolph is the lesser spotted snow leopard or something. Which is kind of true. This man is an unnatural phenomenon, a finely chiseled giant with impossibly good looks and the type of voice that makes women weak in the knees. Guys too. Once upon a time a group of burglars broke into what they thought was a random, but well-to-do house and were busy helping themselves to the loot when they saw a portrait of the family who lived there.
They scampered off, leaving everything behind. It was Dolph Lundgren's house. I have no idea who Dolph Lundgren is when the cameras aren't rolling. Except for being a very big, but good looking guy. He's also a martial arts expert and was once the European champion. But he's an elderly man now, about 60 years old, and his most recent films feature him using a gun like it's a crutch. He also doesn't say much, either to the media or in his films. He's the epitome of the strong silent type
But these are just movies right? So why did the burglars run? Would they have forgone their ill-gotten gains if it was Steven Seagal's house? Or Jason Statham's? Seagal is like a martial arts grandmaster whereas Statham was an Olympic springboard diver. Yet if you compare their movies, you'd really want to avoid tangling with Statham. Unless you're my fiancee.
My point is that no matter how kick-ass they come across, action movie stars are just actors playing at superheroes. There's no way they would survive in a hail of bullets, or defeat six heavies in a bar room brawl armed with only a wisecrack and a glug of whiskey.
The key is making us believe that they could. And with that goal in mind, no action star is ever going to be sidetracked by something as trivial as acting. That’s why film producers seem to inject virtually the same plot devices into every action flick ...
The Flashback
At some point, and usually when death is knocking on the door like Sheldon, our hero will have a flashback. He will need that black-and-white montage like Uma Thurman needed that needle throught the heart in Pulp Fiction cos with all seemingly lost, this is the Lazarus moment. Suddenly all that waxing on and off makes perfect sense, suddenly the jungle hell that was 'Nam has found it's purpose. Sometimes, he'll also use it to get a little nookie. That's because beneath the tough exterior ...
He's a sensitive guy
Do you know what hurts more than being riddled with bullets? Dettol!
Having walked through a hail of bullets, having suffered the brick bats and nunchakas of outrageous misfortune and walked away with only a scratch, our hero must grimace like a kitten during it's first introduction to cold water when a woman approaches him with a cotton swab. While she closes his wounds, he takes his chance to open up. It's some sob story he uses to justify why he racked up a body count more commonly associated with a small war. Consider this foreplay. Because, as we will soon discover, the climax of every action movie is ...
A Big Bang
While the size of your gun certainly helps when you want to make a statement, it ultimately doesn't matter. That's because, in the laws of the action movie, everything must explode. This must be why the bad guys invariably hole up in some or other warehouse packed chock-a-block full of dynamite, nucleur waste, or some or other flammable agent. You'd think they would have learned by now, these villains. You'd think, with all the money they stolen, someone would have invested in a book, or maybe some data for Google. But no, sometimes they even lure our hero there for a final showdown. This is because ...
Bad guys are stupid
This assertion holds true, even when they're clever. It's also important because action heroes aren't always the brightest lot. They might be brutes who know their way around a trigger, but they're usually acting on a whim, reacting to whatever their nemesis is doing. The baddies, on the other hand, make all the early running, but are constantly letting the initiative slip. In the excellent John Wick, the Russian mob boss had two opportunities to kill Keanu Reeves without much fuss, but he dilly-dallied at the crucial moment. Why? Obviously, we'd have had no movie if he had employed his common sense instead of so many heavies. But I figure there's another reason ...
Bad guys just want to be heard
The hero and the villain meet face to face, often with the hero outnumbered and unarmed. He's dragged in because he can barely walk – they've buggered him up good and solid. And then, instead of extracating this thorn in his side and stomping it into the dust, the bad guy first needs to explain why he'll never settle for an office job. Turns out, he also had it tough. Or alternatively, he's plain mental. Why he couldn't just do the Tony Soprano and hire a shrink is beyond me because he may as well to talk to the hand. In action films ...
Talk is cheap
I've seen Dolph Lundgren make it through the first hour of a film soley by grunting and staring moodily into the distance. Action heroes haven't the time to talk, except when they're getting punched in the mouth. Oh, then they have plenty to say, alternatively shooting back wisecracks and appealing to the sanity of someone who has clearly lost it. Otherwise, they prefer to talk in voice overs, giving us an insight into what they are thinking.
What are they thinking? Nothing much. Action heroes are doers. They kick ass because the time for debating is over. The bad guys eventually learn that little lesson the hard way. But those burglars at Dolph's house knew it all along. So do we. That's why we love watching them.