So I’m poking around on Prime and Netflix for something to watch, and I somehow ended up on the “action” section. None of them starred people I’d heard of, and almost all were about someone taking revenge for “his wife and kids being kidnapped:killed by criminals.” I get that it’s an old plot, but are there really no other motives for going on an unstoppable rampage for vengeance?
In the John Wick movies the bad guys shot his dog. That would trigger an unstoppable rampage in me.
I probably would as well.
On Netflix, in Australia anyway, you at least have the opportunity to watch one of the better revenge movies - Riders of Justice. Now that I have brought it to mind do I watch it again now or save it for Christmas?
I think that the answer might just be that they just don’t make action movies of the type referenced often ( or anymore? ) … and if they do, they just don’t end up on Netflix.
Prime has some… but you really have to know what your looking for first and then search for it. That said, be careful because some movies get re-released under different names… and you could end up watching something you’ve seen before and didn’t like.
( It’s an old trick that bad vineyards use:
“Hey Boss… the Springtime Chardonnay isn’t selling too well.”
“Just steam off the label and slap on those Autumn Hayride Chardonnay labels.”
“But it’s old wine, Boss.”
“Just tell them it’s aged in French Oak. Works every time.” )
There is a word for it: Fridging
What is “Fridging” in Fiction Writing?.
Originally it meant the oddly specific trope of the hero finding their female love interest dead in a refrigerator. But it has come to mean a female character existing purely for the purpose of being horribly murdered and giving the hero a reason to wreak terrible vengeance.
As others pointed out John Wick subverted the trope by having the female love interest die of natural causes before the story starts, then have the bad guy kill the heros dog
There are also the supposedly “empowering” revenge films where the audience has to endure half a movie filled with violence, humiliation, and worse toward a woman who eventually recovers and pours vengeance upon her tormentors. Kill Bill is the only one of this sort that I can stomach, since the brutal parts are swiftly detailed and the bulk of the film(s) is about her getting even.
Rant: Hollywood is formulaic. Try something else.
Apologies for the obnoxiousness.
I hate this trope and avoid movies such as this like the plague.
Truffaut’s homage to Hitchcock, The Bride Wore Black, is still okay even if you believe that revenge dramas are mostly dreck.
It’s better when the protagonist is the deranged person seeking revenge, rather than the totally justified hero. Michael Mann’s Last of the Mohicans, or a faithful adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Master of Balantree
In the manga/anime Naruto the titular hero is motivated by a desire for acceptance. It’s a long process.
I think the classic example is Taken, starring Liam Neeson, and featuring a well-known speech by the protagonist.
I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for ransom I can tell you I don’t have money, but what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you, but if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you and I will kill you.
The other unique thing about the John Wick films is that other than the spoilered incident, there are no innocent victims in any of the movies. Everyone killed in all four of the films, good or bad - and the number is well into the three digits - is a willing member of the criminal underworld.
Wow, that one’s from a long time ago. I remember seeing it in the theater because I’m a big Jeanne Moreau fan.
Death Wish (1974) followed this basic premise. It was innovative at the time and earned considerable critical attention. The LA Times said it was, "“a despicable motion picture… It is nasty and demagogic stuff, an appeal to brute emotions and against reason.” The Washington Post characterized it as “simplistic to the point of stasis. Scarcely a single sensible insight into urban violence occurs; the killings just plod [along] one after another as Bronson stalks New York’s crime-ridden streets.” Gene Siskel said the setup, “Makes no attempt at credibility; its goal is to present a syllogism that argues for vengeance, and to present it so swiftly that one doesn’t have time to consider its absurdity”.
It was a popular and groundbreaking film. Among the films strongly influenced by its setup were Death Wish 2, Death Wish 3, Death Wish 4, and Death Wish 5, as well as the remake Death Wish (2018). And countless other movies and TV shows.
Is it right to take the law into your own hands and become a vigilante? A profound question covered in film with depth and sensitivity nowhere.
The film adaptation of Watchmen came close with the way it depicts the sort of people who’d be inclined to put on costumes and beat people up as neurotic weirdos at best and criminally insane megalomaniacs at worst, though it didn’t quite capture how truly insane Rorschach is or how Ozymandias’ plan is doomed to fail.
Well, if we’re allowed to go way back, the one revenge flick I can wholeheartedly recommend is Kind Hearts and Coronets 
So. Do you think he got away with it???
Exactly. And Hollywood can’t even blame the formula. (A bad formula doesn’t prevent a movie from being good.) Hollywood’s problem is they think a good formula is sufficient to make a good movie.
I think so. He left his confession in the cell when he was released, but the prison governor would oblige him by retrieving it without snooping