Perhaps the vaguest of our three articles this month exploring the world of 90’s thriller films, one of my favourite worlds of film. This article will look at those thriller films that have a chief action element to them, some even to the extent that people would be more likely to describe them as such over describing them as a thriller. Anyway pedantic’s aside, it will allow for us to talk about some terrific and very enjoyable films starting in 1993 with the first of two Wolfgang Peterson entries for the article.

In the Line of Fire (Dir. Wolfgang Peterson, 1993)

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High concepts are a thing that will keep reoccurring as we discuss the films in these articles, with many of them (especially in the ‘...from hell’ crop more or less building their entire plots around them). But amongst all of them perhaps none are as thrilling and dramatically well conceived as In the Line of Fire. The pitch must have been sensational; a former secret service agent who failed to save Kennedy on the day of his assassination personally requests despite his age to be the personal bodyguard for the current president, all in the aim to stop an ingenious assassin hell-bent on eliminating POTUS. Then you add into the equation a director as excellent as Wolfgang Peterson, who manages to create an especially taut and well crafted action thriller, with heaps of drama at the heart of it as our lead agent Frank Horrigan struggles with his age and his past as he faces down Mitch Leary, the incredible assassin he is up against. The film has a lot going for it in regards to its crew, however it’s in its cast where the film really solidifies itself as a genuinely excellent piece of cinema. The film casts Clint Eastwood in the role of Frank Horrigan, very much playing off the same utilisation of Unforgiven, bringing a whole wealth of history into the film before a single line is spoken. As with Unforgiven, Eastwood develops a wearier and aged rendition of his stoic and iconic persona, whilst removing certain elements of the grief to allow for a lighter and more enjoyable thriller film this time around. The film received three Oscar nominations, winning none. Two more than deserved nominations for its screenplay and for its editing, aswell as its most deserved nomination and perhaps the most shocking lack of a win, for John Malkovich’s performance as Mitch Leary, our astute and diabolically intelligent assassin. Peterson constructs a film that is at once a more than serviceable thriller, whilst also giving us an intriguing mystery, aswell as a deceivingly brutal action feature. A very rewatchable and frankly marvellous film to kick of our article this week.

Blown Away (Dir. Stephen Hopkins, 1994)

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The bones of a pretty solid thriller are all there in the case of Blown Away, however there are unfortunately a plethora of things going against it. The first of our two Jeff Bridges starring bomb based movies, both featuring enough slo-motion footage of Bridges running and screaming names to make a short film of its own, Blown Away is definitely the lesser of the two. What was envisioned as a surprise hit, a relatively simple thriller with chances for an array of extreme and shocking explosions and pyrotechnics, unfortunately flounders under the weight of its many flaws and bizarre amount of plot complications. The film has three credited writers to the story and two writers credited on the final screenplay, I can’t comment whether or not this is the sole reasoning for the amount of different tones and plot elements within this one film, however it would be one place to turn to. At every moment it just seems that Blown Away is getting in the way of itself. Our lead is as aforementioned Bridges, who plays Jimmy Dove, a bomb disposal expert brought back into the field after retirement (to marry Suzy Amis) following the murder of one of his colleagues through a specifically triggered explosion, most likely envisioned for himself or for the goal of taunting him. Bridges is pretty great as always and always manages to keep the human tension going, whilst really driving home the immense stakes of the entire situation. However perhaps the films biggest legacy nowadays is not for its multiple very solid and still entertaining  action set-pieces, but instead rather due to perhaps its biggest flaw, Tommy Lee Jones in the role of Irish bomber Gaerity. Jones is an incredible actor, but here it is very clear that either him or the director got the wrong end of a very sh*tty stick. Firstly Jones’ accent is the stuff of outrageous imitations and is truly one of the worst I’ve ever heard. However many seem to pin the failure upon just the accent, but for me it’s everything else also; it’s the outrageous dancing for celebration, it’s the borderline hilarious repeated usage of U2 music (is that the only Irish music they could find?) and it’s the overall vibe of the character as this Joker-esque figure. When in reality I feel that the way in which other characters talk about him is with a manner of a cold calculation, rather than insane joy. It’s worth the watch for Jones and the rest of the film is fine, but it’s certainly no excellent piece of work.

Air Force One (Dir. Wolfgang Peterson, 1997)

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Another sensationally crafted action-thriller film from Wolfgang Peterson, Air Force One follows the hijacking of the most secure plane in the world by radical Russian terrorists in an effort to free a brutalist dictator that the president has just managed to imprison. There is the often discussed sub-genre of “Die hard on a...”, and yes one could very easily describe this film as Die Hard on a plane. However what makes this film extra special is that our John Mclaine here is the president of the united states, and through the subtle exposition of Andrew Marlowe’s scripts and the epic performance of Harrison Ford – we believe this wholeheartedly as the conceit to the film. Ford is absolutely sensational as President James Marhsall, offering us one of the finer fictional movie presidents we’ve ever had. The set pieces of action in this film are some of the best of Peterson’s career, with the initial hijacking being the clear standout and still nail-biting upon an umpteenth watch. In the air we have our villain in Gary Oldman as Ivan koprshunov, there are glimpses of the sarcasm and dryness of a Hans Gruber, but Ivan is a far more brutal and considering villain. One of the great aspects to the film that is simply pulls no punches when it comes to its deaths and violence, further making the stakes as tense as possible. As odd as it sounds, it really is very refreshing to have a villain that you believe will kill whoever is needed to be killed, as so many times I feel that a villain’s threat is diluted by a soft-core script.

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This film too boasts along with its two leads one of the most stacked supporting casts of names in an action film that one can recall; Glen Close, Xander Berkley, William H. Macy, Dean Stockwell and Phillip Baker Hall round out the cabinet and crew, all of this leads to an immense addition of credibility and heft to the acting in the film, where the stakes are raised immeasurably by the talent discussing the matters at hand. Perhaps the greatest advantage of this sort of cast is that it makes every scene as thrilling as possible, with no sigh upon a cut away from Ford or Oldman.  Air Force One also manages to depict the intrinsic politics of the situation very well, with Ford managing to perfectly emulate the inner turmoil that Marshall must face down in this situation. All in all I have to say that Andrew W. Marlowe’s script is just as well-crafted as the film itself and Peterson’s direction of it. The film’s only possible issue lies in its final twenty minutes when despite our main villain being vanquished, we still have to land the plane, or at least get off the thing. Although this sequence is in itself very thrilling and well done, it also feels quite superfluous. It also plagued by the film’s major problem, some truly atrocious and wholly unnecessary CGI. I don’t know whether the budget was kept tight or whether the technology simply wasn’t there, however a replacement with practical effects would have served this film to no end. With the film we get however, every wide shot of the plane removes stakes with a complete lack of tangibility and realism. This is a real shame when you compare this to the epic use of practical effects in Peterson’s Das Boot, and his seamless blending of both practical and CGI effects in The Perfect Storm. A shame, but it doesn’t do too much major work in making this sensational thriller any less wholly terrific.

Breakdown ( Dir. Jonathon Mostow , 1998)

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In the purest sense Breakdown is a fundamentally simple action-thriller, its premise is concise and not a single frame is wasted on back-stories, or exposition – the entire 90 minutes of the films running time is devoted to one of the tighter and more efficient films on this list. The startlingly simple tale is all the more terrifying because of just that, its simplicity. “A man searches for his missing wife after his car breaks down in the middle of the desert”; the logline of Jonathon Mostow’s masterful thriller is brief and gets to the point, not unlike the film itself. Mostow at every turn chooses the road less taken and manages to keep his film riding along at an unbridled pace until its absolutely roaring and effortlessly climatic finale. The action is effective and brutally realistic and the performances really do build the stakes and tension, and the deep human emotion, surrounding the story that we are seeing. At the heart of the film is Kurt Russell, perfectly starting off as a pretty privileged individual, before over the course of the film, falling apart in front of our very eyes, as the rising struggle of his wife’s disappearance grows and grows. By the time that Russell finally takes matters into his own hands, it’s a revelatory and exciting turn, but Russell’s best work for me is in the earlier sections of the film, where his frantic and disturbed Jeff Taylor comes head to head with all manner of obstacle, in the relatively simple endeavour of trying to find where his wife may be. Kathleen Quinlan, as Russell’s wife does disappear for the majority of the film, but does however in the opening manage to really convey a sense of romance and love, and immense familiarity between the married couple, making of course the stakes all the more intensified as the plot gets into gear. In one of his final roles J.T Walsh appears as the villainous, yet again simple, criminal Red Barr. Walsh’s most terrifying aspect to his character in the film is just the sheer efficiency that his kidnap and ransom (and sometimes murder) scheme has taken over the years. Walsh doesn’t break a sweat and it makes Russell’s struggle even more scary. The film really does work the hell out of it’s simple premise, developed from an errant thought of Mostow’s on a long car journey with his wife. And cutting the cr*p, “It could happen to you” may very well be one of the most frightening taglines that any film has received ever. Especially after the film we just sat through.

The Negotiator (Dir. F. Gary Gray, 1998)

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When it comes to high concept you’ve got to give a well-deserved mention to the 1998 high stakes action thriller The Negotiator, where a remarkably skilled police negotiator played by Samuel L Jackson puts himself in a hostage taking position in an attempt to buy time to clear his name after he is caught up in a web of corruption within his police force. The film pivots on a back and forth between Jackson’s Danny Roman and Kevin Spacey’s Chris Sabian, the outsider that Roman has demanded to be the only person he’ll talk to. Spacey and Jackson have a great rapport and the film simply brims with tension, even if certain reveals are far more obvious than others. Gray develops a situation and packs with just about as much power he can, filling the film with dynamic characters and repeated sequences of intense action, spaced by dialogue based deliberations even more tense than the moments of action. A murderers row of talent fill out an ensemble of character actors who we all have enjoyed immensely before, making the possibility of one of them being the traitor setting up Roman all the more difficult to figure out as we deal with the mystery at the heart of the film. A certain flaw with the feature is that its mid-way exposition dump of information regarding the mystery is a little convoluted and hard to follow. It really is the case that the greatest strengths of Kevin Fox and James DeMonaco’s script lies within the heated dialogue exchanges and character arcs, rather than in the doling out of information. It could also be said that the film would supremely benefit from a 20 minute reduction taking it from its rather lengthy and possibly unjustified 2hr 20min running time to a much tighter and slimmer 2 hours, perhaps forcing the writers to more effectively deal with the delivery of information with the pending time constraints. The Negotiator however overall really is a sublime action-thriller that I don’t think people talk about enough these days, perhaps it’s the Spacey factor, but he is almost undeniably excellent in the film – which is a naturally and very understandably infuriating phenomena for many.

Arlington Road (Dir. Mark Pellington, 1998)

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Without a doubt one of the best films on this list and in my eyes, certainly one of the most underrated. This domestic terrorism based thriller posits a ‘from hell’ scenario and takes us to the absolute peak of a paranoia drama from the 70’s, perverting and distilling the most high octane mannerisms of the common action thriller and bringing them absolute sensationally into the world of the psychological thriller; Arlington Road is a thriller for the ages. Jeff Bridges, in his second terrorist based entry in this article, plays a professor specialising in terrorism who slowly grows to believe that his neighbours Tim Robbins and Joan Cussack may very well have their own nefarious goals that align with his speciality of teaching. Bridges is genuinely sensational as the intense drama and deeply disturbing truths are revealed in the film one by one, building to one the finest and most mind-blowing climaxes of the decade. I sincerely for any of you who haven’t seen this film that you don’t look up anymore and go watch it immediately, for upon its initial release the trailer for the film rather famously revealed far too much of the films wonderful surprise filled plot. Robbins is astute and deliberate, and all the more excellent for these choices, but he is nowhere near as brilliant as Joan Cussack, who so extraordinarily delivers the most horrifying epitome of the perfect housewife, only to further instil it with deep unsettling dread and horror. Hope Davis is wonderful too as Bridges new girlfriend, who falls prey to the films genuinely terrifying jump scare moment that I don’t understand isn’t up there with the best of all time in more people’s opinions. Arlington Road is a true thriller, and although the action element only appears later in the film and may very well be a little bit of a cheat on my end to allow me to talk about it here, the film is undoubtedly one of the most thrilling films of the decade and by far one of the best on this list.

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Above offering my opinion on certain films and documenting for myself my critical opinion of them, these articles serve more so as lists of recommendations and this article sure has its fair share of terrific recommendations. I hope you return or watch for the first time some of these marvellous films and that they put you on the edge of your seat as they always have with myself.

-        -  Thomas Carruthers