:eek: That was Benny “The Jet” Urquidez? Man, I’m going to have to go rent that and rewatch it!
Grosse Pointe Blank does have awesome and brutal fight scenes. I believe trained professionals really could have a fight like that, and both get beaten to a bloody pulp in the process. There’s not so much a winner as the guy who lost the least. God, I love that movie.
Seconded.
Robby
What did ya think of Grey lady down.
Declan
I don’t know if you’d call it an action movie, but the early Russell Crowe movie Romper Stomper, about Melbourne skinheads, has very realistic street fight sequences, with a bunch of half-scared, half-hyped guys snarling and brawling and lashing at each other in an adrenaline frenzy which ends with them scuffling exhausted on the ground in seconds. I’ve had the misfortune to be mixed up in exactly one pub carpark brawl, and that’s pretty much what happened before the cops showed up.
The best medieval sword fight I’ve ever seen on film was the one between Robin Hood and the Sherriff of Nottingham near the end of ‘Robin and Marion’ - no “flashing blade” mock heroics, just two weary men hacking away at each other with huge broadswords.
I see there are several votes for ‘Das Boot’ (and quite right too) and I’d like to add a wonderful story of the same battle from the other side - ‘The Cruel Sea’.
Oh, and another vote for ‘Master and Commander’.
And you know what happened to them? They died.
I saw it when it opened in the theater when I was about 10 years old, so I can’t comment much on it. The only scene I can really remember is the one where they can’t get one of the internal hatches shut, so one sailor has to strand himself in the flooding section of the boat to get the hatch shut. He then drowns. That scene haunted me for years.
After seeing this movie at such a young age, I can’t believe I actually joined the sub force!
In general, though, I don’t think films of this era strove for whole lot of accuracy. Maybe I’ll watch it again someday and see how it holds up after nearly 30 years.
Monk-y couldn’t fry - Monk-y DIED!
As promised, I just watched the relevant scenes in Crimson Tide. Here’s what happens:
First, sonar detects an unknown sub. They dive & turn away to evade.
While they’re diving, they get the EAM that the Russian rebels are fueling their missiles, and that they are to launch 10 missiles at them. They do all the confirmation with 4 officers that the orders are authentic, and tell Weapons Officer Aragorn (son of Arathorn) to set SQ1. It will take 14 minutes to prepare to launch.
They’re still diving. As they pass 550 ft, the radio room reports that VLF contact is lost. Captain orders that they extend the ELF antenna. They play this as pretty standard procedure, Denzel isn’t involved at all.
Sonar reports that the sub is an Akula. Previous exposition has indicated the rebels have 4 Akulas.
Radio starts receiving an EAM on ELF, but they’re too deep to receive the message. Denzel asks Gene to go shallower to receive it, Gene won’t - says with the Akula around, it’s too dangerous. He’s going to wait till the missiles are ready, go up to launch depth, and launch. Denzel requests that they float the radio buoy, Gene says OK. So at this point, the squabble is still very minor - an officer suggests one course of action, his superior decides on something else, he makes another suggestion that is accepted. Though this wasn’t in the dialog, here’s one way to read it:
Denzel: We know from the ELF they’re trying to send us another EAM. We should move shallower to receive it.
Gene: Too dangerous. We’ll go up to launch depth when we’re ready. If we get another EAM there, we’ll deal with it then.
Denzel: Then we should extend the buoy. If we do get another EAM cancelling the launch, we won’t have to come to launch depth at all, which decreases the chances the Akula will find us.
Gene: OK.
Again - that’s not in the movie, but those are the motivations I read into the scene.
They start to extend the buoy, the winch jams, makes lots of sound. The Akula finds them, fires 2 torpedoes. While the torpedoes are in the water, another EAM starts to come in over the buoy. Both torps miss, but one explodes fairly close and breaks the buoy cable, and somehow breaks all the radios as well (all other damage at this point is very light). From this point to the end of the movie, all the radios are broken. Denzel goes to Gene with the interrupted message, Gene doesn’t give a shit, Denzel refuses to concur on any more orders to launch missiles until they can find out what the interrupted EAM was, big shouting match, COB sides with Denzel because the Capt. can’t relieve the XO for refusing to concur, Gene gets confined to quarters.
Denzel starts back up to periscope depth, Akula finds them, another fight, they kill Akula but Akula almost kills them, lots more damage, Lt. Tony Soprano organizes the other officers to get the Capt out of arrest, lots of running back and forth between armed sailors on each side. Finally at the end they fix the radio and find out the launch is cancelled.
So I’d say apart from the first near miss doing no damage except breaking every radio on the boat, the internal movie logic through this sequence is pretty consistent. It’s basis in reality has already been addressed by robby above.
In what way can Flight 93 be considered an action movie 
As the OP defined it, an action movie has a lot of, you know, action. There was a lot of tension, but very little action before the end.
I’ll probably be shouted down myself, but I thought Sean Bean’s new movie Outlaw was pretty realistic, in both terms of the fighting not going entirely the heroes’ way and especially character reactions. It may have been improved by a few explosions and car chases.
Point Blank(not to be confused with GrosseP.B.)
Charge of the Light Brigade(The 1960s version)
Mostly ,Saving P.R.
Stalingrad(German movie)
Contact
But for total authenticity ,Elephant ,the original Ken Clarke T.V movie set in Ulster, not the tribute set in a U.S. school.
I think i’ll vote for Band of brothers i know it is a miniseries but i think it seemed very realistic in it’s portrayal of combat.
I thought the same of Hamburger Hill. (me neither)
I thought 16 Blocks with Bruce Willis was a pretty realistic cop movie. Probably the closest to something you’d see on Cops.
I don’t think anyone’s mentioned Glory yet. I saw it for the first time last night. Yeah, I know, I’m a little behind. Can any Civil War historians vouch for the accuracy of the battle scenes? The last one especially looked pretty convincing to me, but I dunno. If they’re accurate, then, damn that was a horrific way to fight a war.
I heard, (Yes, that means I do not really know 
), that Glory was extremely accurate. The nitpickers were down to nitpicking things like handing out the rifles and reading off the serial numbers. Apparently those rifles at that time did not yet have serial numbers on them.
I think that speaks volumes for the accuracy of Glory, I can of course be wrong.
Jim
Yes, some, but not enough to disqualify it as a “realistic action movie.”
And do up your tunic.