5 Kick-Ass Action Movies That Are Pure Propaganda
These days, we don't go for propaganda via posters or showy military parades. No, if you want the populace subdued, you'd better dress up your message with some high-wire kung fu and guys running in slow motion from fireballs.
Some fine examples of thought control via the kick-ass action movie:
On Deadly Ground
The Plot
Steven Seagal IS Forrest Taft, an ex-CIA badass who puts out oil-well fires for a living. How does he put them out? He blows them the fuck up, that's how! But, when his Big Oil employer (Michael Caine) kills Forrest's best friend so that the company can keep letting faulty equipment start deadly oil fires and so they can rip off the local Eskimos in some complicated way, Forrest becomes slightly curious. So, his boss tries to blow him up too.
One Eskimo spirit journey later (he fights a fucking bear) ...
The Message
Big Oil is Bad. Let's Kill the Fuckers.
Think of it as An Inconvenient Truth II: This Time It's Personal. Of course, Seagal is so ahead of his time that he had the idea more than a decade before Al Gore decided that a slideshow about global warming would be a cool thing to put in a movie. Seriously, the movie ends with our hero giving a 3.5-minute speech (we timed it) about the need for alternative-energy sources.
Significant Quote
"How many of you out there have heard of alternative engines? Engines that can run on anything from alcohol to garbage or water. Or carburetors that can get hundreds of miles to the gallon. Or electric or magnetic engines, that can practically run forever. You don't know about them because if they were to come into use, they'd put the oil companies out of business... Big Business is primarily responsible for destroying the water we drink, the air we breathe and the food we eat. They have no care for the world they destroy, only for the money they make in the process." -Forrest Taft
Bonus Message
Eskimos rock, even if we can't tell them apart from the Chinese.
Yeah, But Do They Still Blow Some Shit Up?
Motherfucker, they blow shit up in the first scene. And, the explosions just keep getting bigger from there. For somebody who cares so much about the environment, this Taft guy sure burns a lot of fossil fuels. Add in some solid fight scenes, excellent shoot-outs and enough blood to fill the dolphin tank at Sea World and kill all the fucking dolphins, and you've got one hell of a crazy, dumb action flick.
Any and all articles about Hollywood action movies serving as propaganda FAIL if they don't include Rocky IV.
ReplyI especially like the part where he rolls down the power window in his humvee.
ReplyI hate reading something, that is written as if it was 100% fact, when i KNOW that it is not. This guy hasn't got a clue about the Turks!
ReplyAs far as "Shooter" for Wahlburg's character "Swagger" is pretty accurate.
ReplySwagger is Marine Crops Gunnery Sergeant, putting him around 10 to 12 years of services.
As for Swagger's "swag" and training. Supposedly Oswald who was just a Infantry Rifleman was able to assassinate Kennedy with an old Italian surplus Carcano.
Swagger is also a Marine Scout-Sniper. Scout-Sniper is a Secondary MOS to the primary MOS Infantry or Recon.
It's apparent due to his actions that Swagger was most likely Recon before entering Scout-Sniper School. (He would have enter STA
So we know that Swagger attended Dive School, SERE, SOTG, Airborne School, along with any other courses or schools he chose...and there are plenty.
We know he attend Scout Sniper School, so we can add applicable courses and schools under Swagger's belt.
It is also telling that because Swagger and his spotter were preforming a single team operation in support of a PMC, that Swagger was mostly certainly attached to a SOC or SO unit (Special Operations Capable / Special Operations), which tell us that Swagger chose to attend SF schools while attached to a MEF during his time with Recon.
It really pays to know what you're talking about.
47th samurai is the best book ever.
Love the way that in Seagal's speech about alternative engines he refers to engines that run on water or magnets...ie:obviously bogus perpetual-motion, snake oil type ideas that have been roaming the internet and the back pages of magazines for decades. And super-special carburetors sound like bollox to me as well.
ReplyAnd before you berate me for not doing enough RESEARCH to find out the TRUTH about FACTS, take a turbocharged engine, for example. A turbocharger is designed to cram as much air as is feasible into an engine, works by salvaging waste energy from the exhaust and is a hell of a lot more effective than a carburetor. Turbochargers have been around for a long time, are a mature, developed technology (ie: in no way being suppressed by oil companies) but do not give your car 100s of mpg. They do make it more efficient but...well...my point is, STeven has made himself look like somewhat of a fool here.
Right. I've typed too much, now I look like some sort of fanatic.
It's not the amount of typing that gave you away: it's putting words like "facts" and "truth" in all-caps. That just scream fanatic.
wtf... where's star-ship troopers?
ReplyI think Starship troopers was more a satire. I mean I laughed at it when I was a kid.
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No Green Zone on this list?
ReplyI was amazed it was not on this list myself. Green Zone was completely Left propaganda, though I do question the merit of occupying Afghanistan and Iraq.
Wait, wait, wait. Die Harder is the second best Die Hard movie?! Die Hard with a Vengeance clearly kicks the s**t out of the second one, and if your favorite in the series isn't the first one I will be truly disappointed in you as a fellow "dumb action movies are awesome" aficionado...
ReplySo true, my friend, so true. Die Harder was okay but it was kind of just a stale carbon copy version of the first one (it's like they said "Let's take this script and put it in an airport instead of a tower." Also, Samuel L and Jeremy Irons were in 3, which is so friggin cool. I think even 4 is better than 2.
WOLVERINES!!!!
ReplyAll the videos in this article are disabled
ReplyI'm so sick of these action movies where some lone guy tears straight through impossibly superior forces because he's so f*****g magical. Even when there's some sense of support, he gets sent in alone because only he is up to the task of making no sense. Then sometimes they catch on to the idea that maybe soldiers don't fight alone, so they send in a team of like, 5 guys. 10 at the most. They act as human shields until the hero gets to finish it alone, just as he always should have.
ReplyI wish I could blame someone convenient like America (or France, because I blame France *for* America), but I'm pretty sure that just about everyones responsible for this absurd view of heroism.
Waaaaahhhh. What a dumb thing to get mad about.
No one with any sense watches these type of movies expecting reality. In fact, the whole point is to watch something that supersedes reality. I want the hero to be beyond this world (and yet almost believable). These are not documentaries and they're not meant to be.
No "V for Vendetta?" Really?
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesNah, that was a propaganda movie with action.
Go read the Comic the movie is based off of.
No, do not read the comic. It is awful. Despite what you'll hear from virtually EVERYONE else, the movie is better.
It took me a minute to get past the line "Motherfucker, they blow s**t up in the first scene." Good one.
ReplyJust to clarify, Red Dawn takes place in Colorado, which is very much not in the Midwest. That is all.
ReplyReally? I always thought it was. What is it a part of then?
The Wild, Wild West.
Cracks me up. Russians AND Cubans. Incidentally, William Smith played the Russian commander and adlibbed his lines because he spoke Russian. used to overfly Russia on eavesdropping flights during the Korean War.
ReplyWilliam Smith was awesome. Why he never made it as a huge action star always puzzled me. In the second Orang-Utan movie that Eastwood made, he cast Smith as the antagonist because he was basically the only guy in Hollywood who looked as though he could kick Clint's ass.
I loved the Valley of Wolves series - Its pretty cool seeing a decent action film from the other perspective.
ReplyAnd, the punchline, at number 0... 300! Come in and get the prize!
Reply Hide All See All 7 RepliesSynopsis:
- The leader of a western country gets warned by some weird middle-eastern people are going to lay the smackdown on him.
- He moves to go to war, but is blocked by his own country's congress - I mean, senate
- He tries to motion for war with a higher authority, like... One that rules all the United Nations of Greece or something. But those guys are just some inbred pedophiles, and they tell him his war is illegal. They're in the pay, too.
- Because he has no support, he goes to war anyway with a tiny group doomed to be destroyed.
- They kick ass
- Some degenerate dick who should be on their side turns on them. They get pelted in public opion - Ahem- I mean, literally pelted with arrows.
- The good guys gear up to beat those. It meant they actually can! Woohoo!
Do they blow stuff up? You bet they do, invoking anachronistic grenades to do it, to boot!
Bonus points for all the "sticking phallic symbols into middle-eastern guys". Makes you think about Abu-Ghraib
You're not clever for pointing out that a spear or a sword might be a phallic symbol. What else is it going to be shaped like anyway, a sandwich?
It's also based off a real war that happened during ancient times... With a bit of Hollywood crap thrown in.
More like an absolute storm of Hollywood crap thrown in. Sparta wore the heaviest armour of the day, brought 3000 men with the Athenian 7000+, had two elected kings and wasn't particularly prone to kowtowing to priests. The betrayal involved a footpath allowing the Persians to get around the roadblock some 10000 greeks had built in their path. Historically speaking, that movies is absolute crap. (Also, not particularly propagandic, since the US isn't Greek, isn't at war with Iran, and from a technological and numerical perspective would be the Persians in the movie in the first place.
Of course, remembering most of that would make the movie a lot less Frank Miller, and remembering the rest would prevent you from looking like an idiot in Cracked's comments section, so take it as you will.
Plus, the comic it's based on came out in 1998. And that director's next movie was "Watchmen"... not exactly right-wing friendly, politically speaking. Not to mention the direct jab at Bush at the end.
Meh, 300 made a mockery of Thermopylae and all the fascinating politics that came before it, the movie also completely left out Cleomenses who was verry important in forming the Delian league and who was the one who had the Persian envoys thrown down a well
Yes, just a "bit" of hollywood crap. Just a "bit".
Also all the bad guys must be darkskinned (even though Persians had fairer skin than Greeks)
Is there anyone who honestly can't tell Red Dawn is propaganda?
Reply