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A Couple of Big Dudes

A Couple of Big Dudes

When I think of action movies I think of 80s buff dudes running around beating up “enemies.” There is something cathartic about these movies and the way that they give every viewer a sense of “hell yeah!”

Caleb Madden
September 25, 2023

Good morning Consumers. This is Please Consume, the film newsletter that loves you more than Ben Affleck loves being from Boston.

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Caleb kicks off Action Hero Week.
The Nun II holds stong in a down box office week.
All the latest news and notes from this weekend.

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With the release of Expend4bles we wanted to look back at the franchise's leading men, talk about their greatest hits, and go around the horn for another mission with our favorite action heroes, past and present!

Predator (1987)

Written by Caleb Madden

When I think of action movies I think of 80s buff dudes running around beating up “enemies.” There is something cathartic about these movies and the way that they give every viewer a sense of “hell yeah!”

However, today’s pick is a clever inversion of this 80s action hero trope: Predator.

A Couple of Big Dudes

I’m sure that most readers have at least heard of Predator, one of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s early break out roles. On its surface, this film is the Platonic ideal of an 80s action movie. Case in point, the opening scene is of a helicopter, full of the most jacked and grizzled army operators you’ve ever seen, landing on a beach with the aforementioned Arnie at the center of the crew.

This team of elite operators is tasked with going deep into the jungle of an unnamed South American country to retrieve some government muckety muck. I mean, doesn’t that sound like the most badass movie premise of all time? At the start of the film, you are hyped to watch 90 minutes of the coolest stuff you’ve ever seen. Plus, all of that capped off with the greatest handshake of all time.

Uh Oh

This setup is where I think the genius of this movie lies. Soon after our team of macho action heroes enter the woods, we learn that not everything is as it seems and, what’s worse, they are not alone.

Enter the Predator. We don’t learn much about who, what, or why the predator is, but we do know that it is a ruthless killing machine. The back half of Predator is some of the most gruesome and glorious murdering ever put to screen. All of these massive, best-of-the-best, badass guys are running around without a clue about what is killing them or how to stop it.

Clever Girl

All of this is why I think Predator works at all. At the peak of action movie hype, just 3 years after we see Arnie in The Terminator, comes this little movie that completely turns the audience's expectations on their heads. The macho action hero is supposed to be invincible; Arnie just played a robot from the future that is impossible to kill. Yet, in today’s clip, you see true terror in his eyes because the predator renders all his skills and abilities useless. Amazing!

Is this a perfect movie? Certainly not! Unfortunately, I think Predator wants to have it both ways. This movie wants the action hero to be vulnerable but still win. It’s not like Arnie outsmarts the predator in some clever way. Instead, he accidentally learns something that gives him the upper hand, which I think really hurts this movie for me. However, it is still a fascinating piece of film that captures a cultural moment really well.