My name is Ed, and I’m an action-movie junkie.
It feels good to get that off my chest. Of course, it’s a risk; people will naturally assume I’m a moron and, along with other action fans (read: men), unable to appreciate the finer aspects of moviemaking.
Not true. I’ve seen and mostly enjoyed all the films nominated for best picture at tonight’s Academy Awards. I can discuss “Brokeback Mountain,” “Capote” and the rest without so much as a smirk.
It’s just that car chases, explosions, gunfights, roundhouse kicks and absurd stunts feed a need for fantasy that other movie fans (read: women) get from romantic comedies. Douglas Brode, author of “Boys and Toys,” assures us that we are simply relishing the same spirit that Homer brought us in “The Odyssey” and the Grimm Brothers in their fairy tales.
“This genre speaks to something essential not only in the child but also in the child who exists in every adult,” Brode writes.
Yeah, that’s it. There is something emotionally deep and vaguely intellectual about loving “Air Force One,” “Ronin,” “Heat” and “The Bourne Supremacy.” Hey, it’s not like I’m watching Sylvester Stallone, Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme movies.
Such high aesthetic standards usually have put me off action TV shows. The fundamental differences between TV and movies make action ill-suited to the small screen. The commercial interruptions and the near-compulsive need to create cliffhanger situations and complicated back stories are key problems.
Then there is – how to put this delicately – the need to include something in the TV show, such as a relationship, to
draw in female viewers not quite so enamored of or satisfied with simply watching stuff blow up.
As good as it is, Fox’s “24,” the most successful action show on TV now, demonstrates these pitfalls. If you miss an episode, you have to satisfy yourself with a Web update. Every commercial break arrives at a perilous moment, and each episode ends with Jack Bauer poised at the brink of oblivion. Thanks goodness for the DVR. (Fox will do it again Monday night with a two- hour installment of the show at 7 p.m. on KDVR-Channel 31.)
CBS is taking another shot at the genre, tempting action-movie addicts with “The Unit,” its new series, debuting Tuesday (8 p.m., KCNC-Channel 4) that focuses on a secret counterterrorism military unit modeled after the Delta Force.
Temptation’s name, in this instance, is David Mamet.
The famously profane and brilliant playwright, screenwriter and director is making his first full-fledged foray into television. Based on three episodes, he may well have a hit on his hands.
Mamet’s minimalism breaks the show out of the usual TV action mold, particularly in the pilot. The show makes a virtue of the terse dialogue for which Mamet is so well known, and the lack of elaborate sets seems to match his rhythm. It also helps having Dennis Haysbert – the late President Palmer in “24” – in the tough-guy role of unit leader Jonas Blane.
Mamet came to the idea of a TV series when he wrote and directed “Spartan,” the 2004 film starring Val Kilmer as a secret operative trying to find the president’s kidnapped daughter. Like that movie, the new series is based on the memoir “Inside Delta Force,” by Eric Haney. Along with Mamet and Shawn Ryan (“The Shield”), Haney is an executive producer on the show.
But as good as the effort is, contemporary action TV shows and movies are mired in a seriousness that reflects both pop culture and modern politics. When Iraq is on the verge of civil war and Americans live in fear of another 9/11, it’s hard to lighten up much in movies and TV shows about terrorism.
That makes escaping into the fantasy awfully complicated: It’s tough to watch Bruce Willis in “Tears of the Sun” without thinking, “Gee, this seems like an awfully simplistic depiction of the political divisions of contemporary Africa.”
It makes the Cold War, despite the backyard bomb shelters and schoolroom duck-and-cover drills, seem like a laugh fest.
When my parents allowed me to see “From Russia With Love” at age 10 – my first James Bond movie – it was breathtaking to see the struggle on the Orient Express. But equally amusing – and titillating – were the double entendres and the sexy Daniela Bianchi as Tatiana Romanova. These people had a sense of humor.
But the TV show that spoiled me for most action shows that followed was “The Wild, Wild West.” The tough-as-nails Robert Conrad was in plenty of TV shows afterward, but nothing ever topped “TWWW” in my book.
As Secret Service agent James West, he was forever encountering an array of preposterous villains, foremost of whom was the diminutive Dr. Miguelito Loveless. West, not exactly a towering presence himself, always prevailed with the aid of boot knives, tiny explosives, grappling guns and other gizmos invented by sidekick Artemus Gordon (Ross Martin). As a loyal viewer, you always felt you were in on the joke.
So action-flick fan that I am, there is a sobering chill to the modern fare, a reminder that our fantasy is just a bit too close to our reality.
Staff writer Edward P. Smith can be reached at 303-820-1767 or esmith@denverpost.com.
