Well, not a lot of other countries have the right amount of syllables for “BLANK, fuck yeah!” the way we do.
Would you call Glory a patriotic film? Or Lincoln? They’re clearly meant to make Americans feel good about a moment of our past that we can feel proud of - the 54th Massachusetts and the passage of the 15th Amendment, respectively - but in both cases the “bad guys” are other Americans. (I suspect the scene in Glory where the white Union soldier, who had previously gotten into a fight with one of the black soldiers, started the cheering for the 54th when they moved out for the climactic assault on Battery Wagner was specifically meant to assuage the feelings of white viewers.)
I wouldn’t call the discussion of Canadian patriotism a hijack to this thread, but it does seem like a fruitful source for a separate thread about the way other countries experience and express patriotism.
True, I don’t want to hijack this thread. But, that informs my answer to the OP: I’m having trouble thinking of a patriotic Canadian action film, as described in the OP, that would have broad appeal across our linguistic and ethnic divides. That’s my answer to the OP.
As to the two films you mention, I’ve not seen either, but by description, it sounds as if they take the viewpoint that the actions they have described have made the United States a better, more equal country, which is presumably meant as a point of unifying patriotic pride, achieved through military means. I’m drawing a blank for a Canadian equivalent.
Canada is a country rich in understated patriotism. But few action movies made here emphasize Canada. However, many Canadians work in the US. Our fifth column is responsible for well-known characters like Dudley Dooright, Johnny Canuck, Bob and Doug Mackenzie, Winnie the Pooh, The Marvellous Masked Meech Middling Mediation Man, Captain Chilliwack and The Victoriaville Hoser/Hoseur.
Oh, no, I don’t think you’re hijacking the thread at all; just that the discussion of Canadian and Australian and Luxembougeois patriotism sounds like the seed of an interesting, broader thread about expressions of national pride.
But some Southerners would shake their fist at the TV yelling about the inaccurate portrayal of the War of Northern Aggression.
Do some British people see James Bond as “patriotic” or “nationalist” in a way that other audiences might not? I see the movies more as a mix of sex and gadgetry with a car chase thrown in, but maybe in the UK, some people may see it as a movie about a British bloke kicking some foreign arse.
The timing was significant. After the war the US was the epitome of this new thing called “cool,” and the American version was disturbing to many people in the UK. When Bill Haley and the Comets toured Britain the kids in the audience tore the seats out of the floor. Derek Bentley was hanged less for his actual crime and more out of fear of American juvenile delinquency infecting Britain.
Saving it all was Ian Flemming, reasserting British cultural supremacy. Every bit on top of the word as it had been at the height of the Victorian Era, but shed of the sexual hesitancy. James Bond held down the fort with deadly sophistication, until the Beatles arrived to fully remind the human race that England was the greatest people on earth, even if James had to listen to them wearing ear muffs.