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10 Essentials of the Action Movie Genre
For your action movie to work it has to have all these elements.
Rapid Pacing
The only reason to see an action movie is, well, the action. You don’t go to one for introspection or to have your heart warmed, so when there is no violence and no stunt work currently underway the screen-writer should be setting something up. The plot of an action movie is just the framework for the explosions and fake bloodshed. It doesn’t mean that the framework has to be of low quality, which is what many Hollywood screen-writers seem to think, it’s like the cookie that holds the chocolate chips, it helps make the whole thing better even if the chips are the important part.
Guns
Guns can transform the biggest wimp into a danger, a force. The are an equalizer among men. There is also a great variety of them, and as with all popular technology, it can draw out the tech-geek in many of us. The speed with which they can dispatch the bad guys, the damage they can inflict even when they do not kill, and the fact that they are noisy make them good for stories that depend on adrenaline and fast, low-thought stories. You see a character carrying a gun you know this person means business, is serious and dangerous, it changes how you see them and it changes the tone of the scene.
Cool But Realistic Gun-Play
If it’s too fantastic (like in the 2008 movie Wanted) then it takes away from what guns provide, namely the danger-aspect. It has to feel like real life for it to provide what action-fans want. It has to have an edge where the rules feel like those of real life. Every time something that cannot happen in real life happens in a movie it pushes the audience further away, makes them less involved.
The Hero Men Want To Be
Meaning good-looking, tough, and fearless. The main protagonist needs to say the kinds of things that ordinary guys wish they had the presence of mind to say in emergencies, to not be intimidated by women, and not back down when faced with difficult circumstances. He needs to be physically fit, which implies discipline, preferably with military experience, which implies experience with combat. Regardless of race or culture or age-group, all men have a common vision of who they wish they were and this person has been exemplified by various actors: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Jason Statham, and more recently, John Cena.
Fist-Fights
It’s old timey and doesn’t happen in real life as often as it used to, but it’s a tradition for the genre. At some point the good guy has meet a bad guy in hand to hand, partly to show he doesn’t need a gun to be tough, and partly because they eat up running time so that the writers don’t have to write more dialogue or story.
Car-Chases
Preferably with muscle-cars through crowded city streets. Very masculine. In addition to inserting a bit of everyday technology, something everybody is familiar with, this bringing us more into the story, it’s a vicarious adrenaline rush. Speed and constantly changing scenery and danger at every turn, this all makes for the “thrill” movie-goers seek.
Explosions
The reason we like fireworks is that explosions are not everyday occurrences, they are loud and visually dramatic. Movie explosions serve the same purpose as fireworks, something loud and pretty to look at, but they also provide a way for the screenwriter to close a scene, to advance the story, and for the director to put in the trailer that will instantly get the attention of potential audiences.
Realism
Meaning that the watcher doesn’t need a whole to of imagination to be able to see himself in the role of the hero. It can’t feel like the screenwriter is manipulating the story towards a crowd-pleasing end, even though he is. Pulling off a successful action movie is like pulling off the perfect illusion, you distract the audience from the fact that the circumstances are completely contrived by getting them to involve themselves in the story emotionally so completely that they forget about things like logic.
A Bad Bad Guy
You have to want to see this character get killed and you have to feel that the good guy is in danger from him. Those are the constants of the genre and essential for the air of suspense that renders the finale satisfying. Your bad guy has to unsettle, disturb, be believable and yet have nothing redeeming about him whatsoever. The audience has to be convinced that there is no possibility for rehabilitation, and that he would be dangerous if left alive, the story has to be written in such a fashion that there is no reasonable option for the hero but to take the villain’s life.
A Story with an Underdog
Again, this plays to the whole issue of suspense. More people identify with somebody who has the odds stacked against him, where his enemies are more powerful. His struggles and setbacks become representations of their own. It is easier for them to be afraid of for him, to take pleasure in his victories, and finally to feel exhilarated when he triumphs over the arrogant evildoers. There really is no other way to make a hero heroic, the man with all of the advantages is supposed to win, so if he does the story all becomes emotionally predictable and devoid of drama.
