I’m a sucker for the better French action films: La Femme Nikita, The Professional (shot in English, but as Gallic as Provence), The Brotherhood of the Wolf…
Now sure, part of the reason is that these are the better films that make it out of the French-speaking world; I’m sure there are plenty of crappy French action flicks that no-one bothers to subtitle and market to us Anglophones; but it’s not as though I’m comparing them to, say, the execerable Robot Jox or other bottom-of-the-barrel efforts shat out of the lowest-hanging sphincters in Hollywood; I’m thinking of the mainstream Hollywood actioneers that I grew up with, and have fed into the contemporary idea of what an action movie is.
But there is a difference, I think, and it’s one that comes from thinking about one of the best Hollywood action movies I’ve enjoyed in the last decade: Ronin. Ronin isn’t a French movie, but it shares some of the sensibilities of the French action movies I enjoy—a certain deliberate motion about the characters, a feeling of the movie as being as much a character study as an action film.
Character makes a big difference.
Again, there are exceptions: going back in history to the 60s Hollywood action movies, particular war movies like The Dirty Dozen or The Great Escape there’s more effort put into sketching out characters.
