
John Wick, Tom Cruise, and Nobody - has a new form of action hero taken charge of our cinema screens?
This article first appeared in Film Stories issue 38 in November 2022.
Action movies are often a form of wish fulfilment, and their heroic leads tend to follow distinguishable trends. As society changes, so does the need that cinematic entertainment fulfils. Some have argued that the 'action hero' is dead and that we have no modem equivalent. Maybe instead the reality is hidden before our eyes and the modem action hero is dictated by an unspoken public desire: to see irrefutable and unambiguous competence.
With a concept no more complicated than 'retired and feared assassin returns because they made him, dammit!', the John Wick movies are simple in concept yet slick in execution. In the films it's a fool's errand to take on Wick's all-encompassing skill - and he has plenty of similarly competent colleagues from the last few years...