The Best and Worst of Dumb Action War Movies

by Rebecca Carter

You could say that there's a lot of action films that borrow from the war film genre, without ever actually being war films themselves:  They borrow Navy SEALs and aircraft carriers and war movie villains like terrorists.  That doesn't necessarily make a good proportion of the big dumb action movies also war movies, it just makes them big dumb action movies with elements of a war film within them.  When I think of war movies, I think of Black Hawk Down, not Die Hard.

Stil, there's a number of big dumb action movies that have enough elements from the military or soldiering within, that they, in some small way, could potentially be counted as a war film, and hence are probably worthy of this one-time list, acknowledging the best and worst of them.

Be warned, this list mostly consists of films that were pitched in the executive meeting room as "Die Hard on a...." ...plane?....in the White House?....on a jet?....on a Naval Destroyer?  

Yes to all of the above.  Unfortunately.

1.  Red Dawn (1984)

The Worst!

Bad Guy:  Invading Russians and Cubans

Absurdity Level:  10 out of 10

Russians and Cubans invade the American mainland, and a group of high-school football players manage to escape into the mountains where they begin to wage a very effective guerrilla campaign against the Russian soldiers.  Aside from the ridiculousness of an invasion occurring in Colorado, rather than, say, the coast of America, this film pre-supposes that these scared lonely teenagers all had an inner-Delta Force member just waiting to be released under the right conditions.  The American boys prove themselves to be heroic and virile, decimating the Russian military.  It's not so much simply a bad war film, as a sort of Regan-era fantasy that says a lot about the paranoia and views that a lot of Americans had during this period of time.  This film is every bad political caricature and patriotic fantasy brought to life.  A film about real Americans trying to survive a Soviet invasion could have been incredible and dark and dramatic - this though is not that film.  Dumb.  Dumb.  Dumb.

2.  Rambo II (1985) & Rambo III (1988) & John Rambo (2008)

The Worst!

Bad Guys:  Vietnamese Army (part 2), Soviets in Afghanistan (part 3), Burmese Army (part 4)

War Movie Connection:  Each film has a Green Beret face off against a military enemy of the USA.

Absurdity Level:  10 out of 10

First Blood, the start of the Rambo franchise, was a bit silly, but it was also dark and focused on character - the film was about something, namely the struggle returning soldiers have dealing with PTSD.  You can call it the first war movie to deal with PTSD.

And then parts 2-4 were released.  Where all interest in character goes out the window and Rambo simply becomes an effective killing machine, in turn, taking out the Vietcong, the Soviets, and the Burmese army.  By the end of the most recent film, Rambo exists only as an icon of Reagan-era America, the crying, sensitive vet at the end of the first film nothing but a forgotten memory.  If nothing else, one can say that Rambo sure tried his hardest to bring some heat to the Cold War.

3.  Delta Force (1986)

The Worst!

Bad Guy:  Middle Eastern Terrorists

War Movie Connection:  Delta Force!

Absurdity Level: 10 out of 10

There are a lot of great movies about U.S. Special Forces.  This is not one of those movies.  Without seemingly much of a connection to the real-life Delta Force unit, Chuck Norris and a bunch of horrible other actors take on Middle Eastern terrorists in a film that simply aspires - and fails - to be Rambo.  For this film, to have made it to Rambo-level quality would have been a large jump - and Rambo isn't even a good movie franchise!  There's not much else to say.  This is the type of film where they fire a bazooka and then say some silly clever line.  A feature length cartoon with real actors.

4.  Air Force One (1997)

The Best!

Bad Guy:  Russian Terrorists

War Movie Connection: It's Russia vs. the USA!

Absurdity Level:  7 out of 10

As action films go, you can do a lot worse than a film directed by Wolfgang Peterson and starring Harrison Ford (who gets to play the President, no less!)  Sure, the idea that Air Force One could be captured and that the President would fight them off 1x1 after his Secret Service details are killed off is all extraordinary absurd.  But, in the action film genre, it's still a step up from Steven Seagal / Van Damme territory.

5.  Under Siege (1992)

The Worst!

Bad Guy:  Disgruntled CIA operative Tommy Lee Jones

​War Movie Connection:  Naval destroyer is captured, and the protagonist is a Navy SEAL.

Absurdity Level:  10 out of 10

Under Siege, the high water mark in Steven Seagal's career, nonetheless represents the bottom of the barrel in regards to action war movies.  Here's the set-up:  Terrorists take over a U.S. battleship, creating Die Hard at sea with the Navy.  Unknown to the terrorists though is that the ship's cook Casey Ryback (Steven Seagal) is actually a war hero Navy SEAL.  This silly plot is not helped by Seagal's one note character (whom he plays in every film) or the over the top performance from Tommy Lee Jones.  

6.  Executive Decision (1996)

The Worst!

Bad Guy:  Middle Eastern Terrorists

War Movie Connection:  The leads are all Special Forces commandos attempting to take back the hijacked plane.

Absurdity Level:  8 out of 10

There's little remotely interesting or memorable about this by the numbers action movie:  Terrorists take over a plane, a Special Forces unit is moved into the plane from the air, before the film quickly devolves into "Die Hard on a plane."

7.  Broken Arrow (1996)

The Worst!

Bad Guy: U.S. Air Force Pilot John Travolta

War Movie Connection: Lead Roles are Two Air Force Pilots, Plot Involves a Captured Stealth Bomber, Military Attempts to Retrieve Captured Nuclear Weapon

Absurdity Level:  10 out of 10

Slater and Travolta are pilots for a stealth bomber which is carrying a live nuclear warhead for a military exercise.  Travolta though, tired of the whole slow progression through the military ranks thing, somehow has connections to an international terrorist organization whom he's sold it to - all that he has left to do is acquire the nuclear weapon.  Travolta does this by purposefully crashing the bomber in the desert, where his henchmen are waiting.  There's only one thing to stop him:  Christian Slater!  (Yes, that does seem funny to write!)

This is John Woo's second American film.   Silliness abound but there's little to soak it up and make it palatable:  There are the standard fist fights while standing over a live nuke, the terrorists who fire machine guns that don't kill anyone but only kick up the ground next to Slater's running feet, and the standard military Special Forces response which is inadequate.  Ho-hum and yawn.  (Worst moment in the film:  A nuclear bomb is set to detonate, and it actually has the little digital clock that reads out the final seconds until detonation - real life nuclear weapons would not have little digital clocks!)

8.  The Rock (1996)

The Best!

Bad Guy:  U.S. Marine Force Recon

War Movie Connection:  The bad guys are Marines.

Absurdity Level: 9 out of 10

The Rock is downright silly.  A platoon of Marines, angry at their government for promises not kept, decide to take over Alcatraz and use this platform as a position to send missiles filled with a deadly chemical nerve agent all over the city of San Francisco (enter Nicolas Cage's FBI Agent Goodfellow) who then necessarily teams up with the one man to have escaped from Alcatraz (who just happens to have been imprisoned very nearby).  Now Enter Sean Connery.  Connery and Cage and Navy SEALs attempt to take back Alcatraz in this intense action film.  Silliness abounds, but Connery and Cage make it fun, just not the slightest bit real.

9.  The Sum of All Fears (2002)

The Best!

Bad Guy:  Neo Nazis With a Nuclear Weapon 

War Movie Connection:  Nuclear Attack on USA

Absurdity Level:  10 out of 10

The Sum of All Fears is a continuation of the Jack Ryan franchise (and the sole contributing film from Ben Affleck) and ranks definitively as an upper tier action film (along with Patriot Games or Air Force One).  The absurdity of this film though is that Neo Nazis have the sophistication to actually use and field the nuclear weapon which they've managed to acquire.  This film has a midpoint surprise though (SPOILER WARNING):  Instead of Jack Ryan saving the day at the film's end and stopping the nuclear bomb from exploding, the bomb is detonated inside the United States halfway through the film, changing the course of the entire story.  It's a surprise that I certainly didn't see coming and one that keeps the film interesting.

10.  White House Down (2013)

The Worst!

Bad Guy: Disgruntled Secret Service Agent and Hired Mercenaries

War Movie Connection:  The President 

Absurdity Level: 10 out of 10

The year 2013 brought us not one, but TWO, movies about the White House being attacked.  Neither of them are very good, and both were likely pitched as, "Die Hard in the White House."

11.  Olympus Has Fallen (2013)

The Worst!

Bad Guy: North Korean Invasion

War Movie Connection:  Military Attack by North Korea

Absurdity Level: 10 out of 10

What to say about this film.  In it, North Korea's military (which, real analysts suspect is barely able to find enough fuel for its tanks to drive down the parade route) somehow manages to find the sophistication to launch an attack on the White House.  Oh yes, there's also a Secret Service agent who does things his own way that saves the day.  

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rebecca Carter is one of the dissertation writers on the research paper writing service UKessays. Besides, she is fond of traveling. In this case, she has visited a lot of countries all around the world. It should be noted that photography is her other passion. Some years ago she was providing some bloggers with wonderful pictures.