Some friends and I sat down to watch Army of Darkness last night, (the new Boomstick edition, natch), and I was struck by the fact that if you wanted to take a course in Tough Guy Action Hero, this movie would be a great place to start. Bruce Campbell is so far over the top as Ash that he redefines toughness altogether, albeit in a campy kinda way.
Which got me thinking. Let’s say you had to learn to be tough. Really tough. Movie tough. Who would you emulate?
Who are the toughest characters ever to be featured on film?
My choices so far:
Arnold in Commando, Terminator I, and Predator.
Bogart in The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca
Eastwood in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Unforgiven
Bruce Campbell in Army of Darkness
I want a list of movies that will, once watched, make me tough as nails, hardbitten, hardboiled, emotionless, dangerous and enigmatic. What’ve you got?
The crowning example of badassness- nothing phased this guy. Shotguns, Arnold laying a beatdown, huge crashes, huge explosions, liquid nitrogen…the list goes on. I am speaking of course, of: Robert Patrick as…the T1000!
Second place, and first if all the entrants have to be human is Eric Bana as Mark “Chopper” Read from Chopper.
Another badass, but he went out without too much of a fight is the biker guy (We all call him the Dark Biker of the Apocalypse) from Raising Arizona
Also Tom Sizemore as Sergeant Horvath in Saving Private Ryan. “Just knocked the wind out of me…”
Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden in “Fight Club.”
And Edward Norton has a few badass scenes in the same movie, but he’s not really on the level the way Pitt is.
“I think I know who you mean… about 5’10”, rides a Harley, dresses like a rock star?"
For some reason, that line (uttered by Nathan Arizona) has always been one of my favorite tough-guy lines – it’s an accurate description, and he’s totally unimpressed by this really scary guy.
The part of Leonard Smalls was played by Randall “Tex” Cobb, who definitely made the right choice in pursuing an acting career rather than making all those other poor heavyweights keep hurting him so badly.
John Cassevetes - The Dirty Dozen Lee Marvin - The Dirty Dozen
Ahhh Hell… the whole cast of the Dirty Dozen
Temuera Morrison - Once Were Warriors Steve McQueen - Hell Is For Heroes Kurt Russell - The Thing (or any of his movies with John Carpenter) Charles Bronson - Hard Times Robert Mitchum - Farewell, My Lovely James Caan - Rollerball Robert DeNiro - Raging Bull Joe Strummer - Straight to Hell
That would be Aragorn, son of Arathorn, rightful heir to the throne of Gondor. And, yes, Tolkien did make it quite clear that his ass was, indeed, bad.
Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep. Particularly the scene where the youth slugs Philip Marlowe. Watch how Marlowe is clearly staggered by the punch, then teaches the kid a thing or two. Great physical acting.
I remember a review of Titanic – the critic was comparing male archtypes past and present.
He said if Big Bob had been cast in Decaprio’s role, he would have gotten the girl, but it would have involved throwing the tux-wearing fiance overboard.
I agree with all of these, but in Predator I think there was an even harder tough guy. I think it was Poncho, who – when he senses the alien is right behind them on the bridge – stops, turns around, slashes across his own chest with a Bowie knife, and tries to take on the Predator mano a mano. Of course he was dispatched in short order, but still.
Tough guys don’t need to be male. Alien and the sequels had Ripley; Aliens also had (Vasquez?), the female commando who was unable to escape and blew herself up in an attempt to kill the alien.