Daniel Rutledge’s short but sweet reviews of films formerly found on NEON can be seen here. Use the titles of each action hit to discover their new streaming homes!
12 Strong (2018)
Fairly bog-standard jingoistic US propaganda about American supersoldiers laying waste to swathes of inferior brown men in a faraway part of the world…but if you can put that aside, on a lizard brain level this is a bit of fun. It’s got a solid cast of men and the way they shoot the other men is filmed in a way that is enjoyable to watch.
Above the Law (1988)
Steven Seagal’s first movie was a real shot in the arm for action fans in the late 80s and remains thoroughly enjoyable for action fans of the early 2020s. He set himself apart from the genre’s other stars back then with a devilishly sinister mean streak, a penchant for graphically snapping bad guy’s bones and an inability to run like a man. Oh and his ponytail, of course—that was truly iconic.
Ambulance (2022)
Michael Bay’s return to his proper action movie roots in 2022 was just as ridiculous and over the top as anyone could have hoped for. It’s a romp that serves up a bank robbery, plenty of shootouts and a couple of crims hijacking an ambulance and speeding it around LA for a few hours. Jake Gyllenhaal is wonderful in the lead and does a great job of making this watchable even when there’s no action happening.
Bad Boys II (2003)
If you want a fix of classic Bayhem action you can’t go past the brainless fun of this 2003 sequel. It’s packed with so much shooting, explosions and expertly crafted real destruction it makes you rue the day CGI was invented. The scene with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence shooting the shit out of a bunch of Ku Klux Klan bozos is particularly cathartic too.
The Batman (2022)
Perhaps trying to out-dark the Dark Knight trilogy, this standalone 2022 Batman film has a lot to love about it, especially its action. Despite its ambition, it’s ultimately very much a case of style over substance; but that stylism is particularly entertaining and it includes the most brutal Batman fist-meets-skull business along with what is quite possibly the coolest Batmobile sequence ever filmed.
Castle Falls (2021)
Scott Adkins versus Dolph Lundgren in a building is a very promising setup, and while this 2021 film doesn’t properly deliver on that promise, it still boasts some kick arse action. There are gym fights, prison fights, rooftop fights, gun fights and more, all of which are put together well, with some nice tension-building scenes to boot. Everything else in the film is very average, but what does that matter? Scott Adkins rules.
The Dark Knight (2008)
Christopher Nolan’s best Batman film is one of the finest action films of the 2000s, working as both a fantastic superhero movie as well as a great, dark crime saga. The opening bank heist sets the tone brilliantly, creating awesome tension and hammering home how different this is from the campy Batman your dad enjoyed in the old days. Then it just never lets up, with Heath Ledger delivering one of the all time great performances.
Faster (2010)
Dwayne Johnson almost became a great modern action movie icon but instead has just made a whole bunch of exceedingly average, mildly entertaining bits of trash. Faster isn’t great, but it is a great glimpse at what we could have had if The Rock had gone harder edged. In it he’s mostly silent, always angry and fun to watch dishing out virtuous vengeance. The opening 10 minutes in particular kick arse.
The Fugitive (1993)
Harrison Ford versus Tommy Lee Jones and the one-armed man is about as good as thrillers get, complete with several awesome, thrilling action sequences. This is such a well-made movie that really does stand the test of time. It’s smart in ways I wish more modern blockbusters were, like how it uses spectacle to genuinely build its characters rather than just provide thrills. Well worth a rewatch if you haven’t for a while.
Gladiator (2000)
Sword and sandal movies don’t come better than Ridley Scott’s 2000 multi Oscar-winner. It’s a classical tale of redemption and revenge with Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix both knocking it out of the park. The gladiatorial battle sequences are masterfully created, but we get a wonderful wide range of amazing action from one vs one fights right on up to epic army vs army battles. One of Scott’s greatest movies and to this day Crowe’s best performance.
Haywire (2011)
This stripped-back genre effort from Steven Soderbergh is notable for its wickedly cool fight scenes and for catapulting Gina Carano from her MMA career to a film career, a decade before she derailed it with dumb social media posts and an anti-vax approach to COVID regulations. Regardless of what Carano became, she is fantastic to watch kicking all kinds of arse in the wonderfully filmed hand-to-hand combat in this.
Last Man Standing (1996)
Walter Hill fuses film noir stylism with classic western tropes in this remake of Yojimbo with awesomely over the top gunplay clearly influenced by John Woo. It’s also a great Bruce Willis vehicle for when he was in his absolute prime, rolling into town and blowing away untold waves of mobsters while setting them against each other all for his own gain. An underrated 90s gem.
The Matrix Resurrections (2021)
Almost always, legasequels are absolute garbage that make me angry at the world, but every now and then you get a Cobra Kai or a Top Gun: Maverick and everything feels alright again. Lana Wachowski’s latest Matrix movie doesn’t quite recapture the magic of the original, but it has plenty of cool new ideas, loads of heart and action sequences interesting enough to make it a success.
Nobody (2020)
This gleefully violent action comedy strikes a masterful tone and consistently delivers thrills for its lean 92 minute runtime. A deliciously over the top fist fight on a bus early on is a clear highlight, but there is a lot more to love after that. It gets very, very goofy by the final gun battle in a way some won’t like, but if you get onboard with it you’ll laugh your arse off right to the end. I sure did.
The Northman (2022)
Vikings are eternally cool, but Viking movies are often pretty crap. Not so with this one. Robert Eggers’ 2022 arthouse revenge thriller features plenty of terrific action with loads of lovely bloodshed. This pulls the trick of working as a primal experience all about honour and retribution, but also working on a deeper level with loads of literary allusions and deeply rooted spiritual meanings.
Patriot Games (1992)
Many of us are suckers for Harrison Ford pulling serious faces and yelling dramatic things and there’s plenty of that in this version of Jack Ryan he gave us. Having him face off against Sean Bean in a 90s Tom Clancy adaptation in which his family is endangered by terrorists makes this about as daddish as movies get, so it’s perfect for when you’re into dadding it up as much as possible.
Payback (1999)
As much of a cretin as Mad Mel Gibson turned into, there’s no denying how great he was on screen in his prime and this is an underrated example. He’s so good as this charming antihero, this loveable asshole, out for vengeance and cash after being wronged and left for dead by his co-criminal cohorts. It’s got a wonderful, rough, dirty feel to it, there’s loads of casual brutality and Mel is just so on form.
The Rookie (1990)
If you can get past the maddeningly dumb humour, there is a lot to love about this 1990 cop caper in which Clint Eastwood and Charlie Sheen murder a whole bunch of crims while cracking wise. There’s also a glorious amount of destruction with loads of cars and a few planes getting smashed, a building getting blown up and Sheen smashing up an entire bar along with every patron in it before setting the place on fire.
Romeo Must Die (2000)
Jet Li, Aaliyah and DMX star in this 2000 spin on Romeo and Juliet, depicting the Montagues and the Capulets as two warring gang families—one African-American, the other Chinese. It’s a fun watch and an interesting time capsule of its era, but of course it’s at its best when Jet Li is kicking arse, his moves choreographed by the great Corey Yuen.
Sicario (2015)
Denis Villeneuve’s 2015 thriller is a gritty, stylish and hugely impactful exercise in suspense that often explodes into violent fury with stars Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro and Josh Brolin all delivering fantastic performances. It features several thrilling sequences, with the lead-up to a shootout at the Mexico/US border in particular being the one of the best examples of tension building you’ll find on NEON.
Sin City (2005)
Groundbreaking when it was released for its faithful visual recreation of the Frank Miller comics it’s adapted from through stunning visual effects, this 2005 Robert Rodriguez film holds up surprisingly well and still delivers plenty of thrills. It’s super pulpy neo-noir fun with wickedly dark humour, a great use of anthology storytelling, an enjoyably bleak outlook on humanity, it oozes raw sexiness and packs in loads of lovely ultraviolence.
Snatch (2000)
It may be more comedy than action, but Guy Ritchie’s best ever film has great action chops and is always a pleasure to rewatch. There’s so much to love about this, but I can never get over how Alan Ford delivers such an incredible performance he outshines both Brad Pitt and Benicio del Toro when they were in their absolute prime. As Brick Top, he delivers some of the greatest hard bastard lines ever.
Sniper: Rogue Mission (2022)
I love how lovingly this franchise celebrates long-range, high calibre kills. The main sniper is Chad Michael Collins, who seems better suited to Hallmark Christmas movies, but when he pulls the trigger from ages away and makes the bad guys squirt blood out of fresh holes, it’s mint. In this ninth Sniper movie (!) he does that to corrupt federal agents slash sex traffickers and they really, really deserve it, the bastards.
Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)
If you’re in the mood for family-friendly, kiddy style action on NEON, this is about as good as it gets. Everyone loves Spider-Man and this is three Spider-Man movies for the price of one. You get Spider-Men Tom Holland, Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire, as well as various villains from the franchise’s last couple of decades all battling each other through the multiverse in an enormously successful work of fan service.
Tango and Cash (1989)
Super fun and fairly ridiculous late ’80s flick featuring Kurt Russell with an elite mullet alongside a tidy Sylvester Stallone sporting spectacles. The pair ferociously try to out-cop each other in an awesome and vaguely flirty dick measuring contest. They get wrongfully imprisoned together, escape together and ultimately attack a mob boss’s compound and kill all his dudes together. It has solid humour and a great supporting cast featuring the likes of Jack Palance, Teri Hatcher and Brion James.
Terminator 2 (1992)
Arguably the number one greatest action film ever made, they simply don’t come better than this. James Cameron’s masterpiece uses Arnold Schwarzenegger as well as he’s ever been used, delivers loads of exhilarating set pieces, innovative effects and sci-fi ideas, all stitched together with iconic characters and a supremely kick arse story. Thanks to my VHS-fuelled 90s, this is my personally most rewatched movie of all time.
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
Perhaps the finest example of a ‘legasequel’ yet, this 2022 follow-up to the 1986 classic is as good as modern blockbuster action flicks get. If you’re lucky enough to have a nice big TV at home, popping this on will send you soaring high above the clouds with Tom Cruise into the danger zone for some truly incredible airborne action.
Wanted (2007)
Angelina Jolie can be great when she does silly B-grade action like this one that is mainly memorable for bullets that curve through the air and can get baddies around corners and stuff. It’s extremely dumb in a way that will greatly amuse those in the mood for it, with solid supporting performances from Morgan Freeman and James McAvoy along with plenty of CGI-blood and brains being sprayed over the walls.
