The box-office options for action fans this April have been a dual offering of The Accountant 2 and A Working Man. Both promise viewers cinematic thrills regardless of whether they choose to see Jason Statham stylishly take down human traffickers or Ben Affleck return to crunch numbers and crack skulls. These two films also point to a growing storytelling trend in the action landscape that has only become more pronounced with each passing year: the rise of the working-class action hero.
Not unlike the classic idea of the “secret identity” popularized by superhero stories, these action film protagonists lead dual lives. One is filled with exciting, death-defying struggles, the other with a regular job as uneventfully mundane as any experienced by the audience. These jobs can serve a wide range of narrative purposes for a film: creating relatability, illustrating contrasts, providing unique weapons, or giving justifiable reasons for conflict, to name just a handful.
But how much do these everyday jobs really matter to the main character or the film they inhabit? To break that down, we have compiled a ranked list of action films where the hero punches a clock as often as they punch bad guys, ordered not so much by film quality but rather by how much their day job affects the film. That’s right, we ask the age-old question of these film heroes: Are they working hard or hardly working?
Image: Hi-Yah!
The job: Janitor
The hero: Seiji Fukushi
Where to watch: Hi-Yah!, Prime Video, and for free with ads on Tubi, Pluto TV, and Plex
A Janitor’s director, Yugo Sakamoto, has become an internet darling to fans of international action cinema thanks to 2021’s Baby Assassins, a film about two teenage girls who also happen to be deadly contract killers living together as roommates. Its peculiar blend of slacker comedy and state-of-the-art fight design won over audiences in such a big way that the film has turned into a successful multimedia franchise in its home country of Japan, and caused his earlier action work to gain newfound attention. One of those is this low-budget “V-cinema” (the Japanese equivalent of “direct-to-video”) entry released just months before Baby Assassins took the action world by storm. In it, a socially awkward hitman is tasked with secretly guarding his crime lord boss’s daughter while she attends high school.
The premise would suggest that this would be an action comedy about the protagonist stealthily defending the boss’s oblivious daughter, all while trying to maintain his cover as an unassuming school janitor. But the film does shockingly little with the concept. There are just a couple fleeting moments of the character doing janitorial work and keeping an eye on his target. Most of the film’s run time is devoted to the sort of underworld double-crosses and excessively quirky characters that are a common element of modern low-budget Japanese crime films. It isn’t until nearly an hour into the film, when a variety of oddball killers (including a proto-version of the teen killers that would go on to feature in Baby Assassins) descend upon the school, that any real action even happens in this sub-90-minute story. When the action hits, it’s admittedly excellent, but getting there is a slog. A Janitor is one for Baby Assassins and Asian genre film superfans only.
Image: Lionsgate
The job: Apartment building doorman
The hero: Ruby Rose
Where to watch: For free with ads on Pluto TV and Plex
When John Wick: Chapter 2 blasted its way into theaters back in 2017, one of the many highlights it contained was Ruby Rose’s portrayal of the antagonistic mute bodyguard Ares. She seemed poised to make a big splash in the action world, but that has yet to really happen. Rose, in the years since, has starred in a string of middling DTV actioners, of which The Doorman is one of the stronger efforts.
This Die Hard clone, where she plays a military vet turned apartment building doorman who squares off against invading thieves in an effort to protect her estranged family who just so happen to reside in the same location, does little to separate itself from the glut of movies that take inspiration from the 1988 Bruce Willis-led classic. It has brief moments of stylish direction (and creative violence) courtesy of cult director Ryuhei Kitamura (Godzilla: Final Wars), but it’s painfully lifeless in nearly every other aspect.
The film does nothing substantial with the setting after establishing the building has secret passageways dating back to Prohibition, or the fact that the main character is something as unassumingly mundane as a doorman. There is a brief scene where Rose, wearing an ill-fitting doorman’s outfit (that looks more like the classic cartoon idea of a bellhop uniform), helps a resident bring in groceries, but outside of that, the location and her occupation have no bearing on the events of the film. They could be swapped out for any other place and occupation with minimal effort. Which is why The Doorman barely slips onto this list before the door shuts behind it.
Image: New Line Cinema
The job: Assistant to the grocery store manager
The hero: Jackie Chan
Where to watch: Available to rent on Prime Video, YouTube, and Apple TV
Rumble in the Bronx is a historically significant film for its lead, the legendary Jackie Chan. The famed Hong Kong action superstar had long struggled to break into the U.S. film market, and this was the one to finally land with American audiences. One of the keys to that success is the simplicity of the presentation. Here, Jackie is just an average joe visiting America to attend his uncle’s wedding and help out in the family grocery store.
Chan’s brand had long been the antithesis of the uber-serious martial arts master archetype that is so prevalent in the genre. This film crystallized that for unfamiliar audiences, as they watched him not only engage in death-defying stunts and frenetic action but also playfully goof around while carrying stock for his family’s market or take a moment to politely put away a shopping cart not long after defending the store from shakedown artists. Rumble in the Bronx falters as the story progresses to involve less-relatable things, like a search for stolen diamonds and large-scale destruction involving a hovercraft, but the early sections were enough to endear Chan to a whole new audience as “friend of the neighborhood who just happens to be really great at kung fu.”
Image: RLJE Films
The job: Lumberjack
The hero: Nicolas Cage
Where to watch: AMC Plus, Shudder, and for free with ads on Pluto TV and Plex
Mandy is a film that stands out even among star Nicolas Cage’s extensive and wildly diverse filmography. Its story of one man’s path of bloody vengeance against a deranged religious cult that kidnapped and murdered his true love (the titular Mandy) is, to put it mildly, a visually intense experience. The psychedelic imagery, vibrant, saturated color palette, and other dreamlike presentation choices that whiplash between bleak, cold realism and nightmarish visual excess are nearly overwhelming.
What holds it all together is Cage himself. While he does indeed go full “Cage rage” with his performance when the time is right, it starts with his character as simply a soft-spoken lumberjack in the Pacific Northwest, clearing forest land to support his idyllic life with his doomed partner. The film may not dwell much on his work, keeping it all to the opening credits. But when his peaceful world is shattered and he chooses to take up arms against those that wronged him as his only way forward, he gravitates toward tools of his profession: an ax (that is just as chaotically designed as the rest of the film around it) and eventually a chainsaw. Tools that will fell the dark forces in his new world as easily as they would the redwood trees of his former one.
Image: Summit Entertainment
The job: Snowplow operator
The hero: Liam Neeson
Where to watch: Prime Video, and for free with ads on Pluto TV
Almost two decades ago, Liam Neeson took his first steps into the action star pantheon by gravely informing an unsuspecting kidnapper (and by proxy the moviegoing public) about his “particular set of skills.” And ever since uttering that now famous line in Taken, he has been displaying those skills on screen. It’s doubtful that when he uttered that line he ever dreamed that one of the skills he’d be showing off to audiences was “snowplow operator.” But that is exactly what the action/comedy Cold Pursuit has him doing.
This English-language remake of the Norwegian film In Order of Disappearance casts the towering Irishman as a well-respected member of a ski resort community who spends his days clearing the highways of heavy snowfall to ensure safe travel. His simple life of service is turned upside down when he discovers his only child has been murdered by a local drug syndicate. Before long, he spirals into a force of parental rage, looking for retribution against anyone responsible for the tragedy. What differentiates this movie from the glut of similar action movies Neeson has starred in post-Taken is the wry black humor that encompasses the events of the story. While his individual part is not so different from the characters he has played before, everything else around his serious performance is more darkly comedic. His trail of revenge sets off an escalating series of drastic misunderstandings that culminate in a savage gang war that he is almost completely oblivious to. Cold Pursuit is a charmingly odd deviation in Neeson’s late-era action filmography. The only thing keeping it from being placed much higher on this list is that it never does anything all that interesting with the giant snowplow the character drives. It’s mostly just a mode of transportation in the story, and that is frustrating. If Cold Pursuit featured copious amounts of destruction delivered via plow it’d be sitting near the top of this ranking.
Image: IFC Films
The job: Waste management professional
The hero: Adrien Brody
Where to watch: AMC Plus
Clean was obviously a passion project for two-time Academy Award winner Adrien Brody. He not only produced this gloomy tale of a former addict and hitman now living a sober, low-key life as an unassuming neighborhood garbageman, he also wrote the script and performed multiple songs on the film’s soundtrack. But all that effort was in service to a project that feels recycled from a half-dozen similar (and better) films.
When there are scenes focused on Brody driving his garbage truck through lonely nighttime streets and quietly observing the urban decay all around him, it hints at a more introspective approach than the “retired badass runs afoul of local crime figures and is invariably pushed into wiping them out to save his community” plotline Clean settles into. It’s understandable that an actor would want to test themselves with a physically challenging and unique genre like action, but the solemn tone robs the film of any fun one might get from a genre movie where a garbage collector takes out both the literal and figurative trash to tidy up the streets. Clean is so dead set on being taken seriously that it barely does anything with the garbageman concept other than using the truck as a means of quick entry through a wall of the villain’s home during the obligatory final confrontation.
Image: Lionsgate
The job: Gardener
The hero: Robert “Bronzi” Kovacs
Where to watch: Prime Video
If you have ever spent time scrolling through the seemingly never-ending bottom-shelf films that clutter free streaming sites like Tubi, Crackle, and Plex, you have likely stumbled across the work of the strangest action lead working today, Robert “Bronzi” Kovacs. Kovacs, who typically goes by just Bronzi (or, as he does here, Robert Bronzi) is a Hungarian stuntman who has built an entire acting career off the fact that he bares more than a passing resemblance to deceased screen legend Charles Bronson (who has his own spot much higher on this list). Bronzi has starred in numerous low-quality films meant to cash in on the legacy and goodwill associated with the late Death Wish star. For example, 2021’s The Gardener, in which he plays the role of a groundskeeper to a wealthy British family’s estate. When armed invaders show up looking to ransack the place, Bronzi has to rely on the military training of his former life to stop them and protect his employers.
To be blunt, this is not a good film. It’s far below B-grade, with incredibly dodgy acting (some of the actors even visibly struggle to play dead), barely competent camerawork, ugly CGI, and Spirit Halloween-level prosthetic gore and scar makeup. It tries to compensate for all this technical inadequacy by delivering exactly what you expect from an “unassuming guy is actually a secret, righteous killing machine” no-budget film — clueless criminals get limbs mulched with a lawn mower, stabbed with broken shovels, hit with greenhouse booby traps, and cut up with gardening shears. That strong commitment to the theme (there is also plenty of nonlethal gardening on display) is how The Gardener managed to make a respectable showing on this list despite being a movie strictly for the “so bad, it’s good” crowd.
Image: Shout! Studios
The job: Demolition crew member
The hero: Scott Adkins
Where to watch: Peacock, Prime Video with ads, and for free with ads on Pluto TV and Plex
Castle Falls opens with an aging MMA fighter, played by Scott Adkins (John Wick: Chapter 4), losing a practice match and coming to the sad realization that his pro fighting days are over. With no job prospects and no money to make rent, he loads up his truck to search for work in a new city. While living out of his vehicle, he scores a temp job as part of a demolition crew working on an abandoned hospital. There, he stumbles across a large sum of hidden money in the wreckage and hatches a plan to quietly retrieve it in the hours before the building is fully brought down. When the time comes, he quickly discovers he’s not the only one after the money. And it will be a race against the clock to grab it and sneak out before the entire structure collapses around him.
Castle Falls is a rare Scott Adkins-fronted action project where martial arts isn’t the sole focus. While there are a few fights, including one with fellow action luminary Dolph Lundgren (who not only co-stars, but also directed here), it’s more about survival, as Adkins’ character has to use his knowledge of the site to stealthily get out with enough money to turn his fortunes around. Adkins has long been a name that knowledgeable fans have come to rely on for old-school action thrills, and Castle Falls delivers that in spades, along with a dash of working-class grit.
Image: Warner Bros.
The job: Naval galley chef
The hero: Steven Seagal
Where to watch: Available to rent on Prime Video, YouTube, and Apple TV
Not only is Under Siege one of the first mainstream Hollywood films to feature the trope of the working-stiff action hero, it also provided one of the more outrageous images associated with that trend — Steven Seagal in a full chef’s uniform, complete with a tall, pillowy hat. This funny juxtaposition of the overly serious, egotistical martial arts star unintentionally looking like a cosplay of the Pillsbury Doughboy mascot is a joy in and of itself for action fans. But outside of that accidental comedy, this 1992 classic about terrorist hijackers meeting their match in a galley cook (who also happens to be a highly decorated Navy SEAL) holds up thanks to confident directorial work by Andrew Davis (The Fugitive) and a stacked selection of players filling out the cast around the charisma-less lead, including all-timer villain turns from an unhinged Tommy Lee Jones and a scenery-devouring Gary Busey, who more than make up for the void left by Seagal — who was years away from the lethargic self-parody he would eventually become as a fighter, but wasn’t much of an actor (a deficiency he would never fully overcome).
The film has fun with the idea of Seagal as a chef at the start, having him joke around with his cook staff, nimbly displaying his knife skills while prepping vegetables, and showing him only really get heated when the soup and desserts he was preparing get ruined by the bad guys. Under Siege, unfortunately, just doesn’t do much with it once the action fully kicks in, except for a makeshift bomb involving a microwave and Seagal breaking out his knife again to cut more than produce during the final climactic fight scene.
Image: Millennium Films
The job: Mall security guard
The hero: Antonio Banderas
Where to watch: Available to rent on Prime Video, YouTube, and Apple TV
How do you make an action film where the main character is a mall security guard and not have it be immediately dismissed as some sort of Paul Blart: Mall Cop-esque joke? You cast Academy Award-nominated actor and veteran action star Antonio Banderas as the lead. In Security, Banderas plays a down-on-his-luck military veteran starting a new job as an overnight security guard at an indoor mall. Before his first night even fully begins, he finds himself in a standoff with a group of mercenaries (led by a menacing Ben Kingsley) looking to kill a federal witness hiding in the building.
What makes this film work, other than the star’s fully committed performance, is how deftly the script uses the mall setting. It could have been just window dressing for the plot, but the script makes a point of clearly establishing the mall’s geography. It then uses that layout to build tension as the small team of mall security guards, led by Banderas, utilize whatever they can find as makeshift traps to try and hold off the highly skilled forces that are working to infiltrate the building. This “few against many” siege film approach, coupled with the unique setting, helps firmly separate Security from the other entries on this list.
Image: Falling Forward Films
The job: Baker
The hero: Ron Perlman
Where to watch: Hulu
If a film is going to have a concept that is as ripe for mockery as “retired hitman seeks escape from his violent past through the art of baking,” then it better have an actor who can make both sides of that role work equally. There’s no doubt that Ron Perlman, even well past the age of 70, is still an intimidating on-screen figure. But there is also a thoughtfulness to the way he carries himself which helps the idea of him spending his twilight years making breads and cakes not feel completely ridiculous.
When The Baker takes the time, in its first act, to show Perlman earnestly prepping and manning his quaint bakery, it feels natural, appropriate to the character. When the plot then calls for him to put away his apron and find the gangsters responsible for his son’s untimely death while also protecting his orphaned granddaughter, it doesn’t ignore what he is currently (a trait shared by all the films in the top 10 of this list). He bonds with his granddaughter over meals. They travel in his delivery truck. He convinces a potential suspect to open their front door to him with the promise of fresh-baked goods. Even the film’s standout action scene sees him savagely fight off a mafia enforcer with a hastily grabbed rolling pin and dough-scraping knife. Again, in a lesser performer’s hands, that could cause unintentional laughter, but Perlman sells it all with a gravitas that gives this small-scale action yarn much-needed weight.
Image: Quiver Distribution
The job: Window washer
The hero: Daisy Ridley
Where to watch: Available to rent on Prime Video, YouTube, and Apple TV
Director Martin Campbell (GoldenEye) has, over the last five years, largely focused on putting together polished action films with strong female leads. His latest effort stars Rey Skywalker herself, Daisy Ridley, as a high-rise window washer (with a military background, of course) who has the misfortune of being trapped, suspended hundreds of feet above the ground, when terrorists take over the building she is cleaning. While, ultimately, it’s never in doubt that The Cleaner will culminate in Ridley delivering a serious beatdown to the terrorists, the focus for much of the story is more on how she reenters the building from her precarious position outside it.
The biggest drawback to this approach is that it causes the film to be slightly sparse on traditional action beats, opting for tension over physical conflict a few too many times. But what action is present is slick and enjoyable, with Ridley showing off all the intense physical preparation she did for the role. While The Cleaner is by no means the most action-packed movie on this list, it is one of the most committed to letting the occupation of its main character affect the story in a logical, specific way — even going so far as to show the struggles of waking up on time and the frustration of commuting. In a space where character jobs are often just background shading, that sort of honest minutiae is refreshing.
Photo: Scott Garfield/Columbia Pictures
The job: Hardware store clerk
The hero: Denzel Washington
Where to watch: Hulu
The first film in the Denzel Washington-starring action trilogy, The Equalizer introduces him in the role of a retired government operator, living out his retirement from his violent past incognito as a 9-to-5-er working at a home repairs chain store, who can’t help but intervene to protect the friends he has made in his new, more peaceful life. Everything about the film understands Washington’s lasting appeal as a performer is rooted in his ability to project an overwhelming sense of powerful authority, yet remain amicable and wholly relatable to an audience.
While the character’s specific job isn’t as necessary to the character as others on this list (the sequels change up his occupation), the setting of the hardware store plays a big part in illustrating the dichotomy between the innate Everyman and Superman aura that Washington brings to the role. As his character works there, pretending to be like everyone else, he’s helpful and kind to those around him — a friendly surrogate uncle to anyone who needs it, offering a charming joke or encouraging life advice during a break from stocking shelves and guiding customers, never letting on about the heroics that fill his non-working hours. In the final act, when vicious gangsters invade and take his co-workers hostage, he stalks the store aisles, silently picking off each perpetrator. He exhibits a cold, ruthless efficiency that has more in common stylistically (considering its hardware-based violence) with Jason Voorhees than it does Jason Bourne.
Photo: Orion Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection
The job: High school substitute teacher
The hero: Tom Berenger
Where to watch: For free with ads on Pluto TV and Plex
The Substitute takes the public panic about high schools being cesspools of drugs and gang violence that gripped the media at the time of the film’s release and cheekily uses that as a jumping-off point for a story about a soldier of fortune who masquerades as an inner-city substitute in order to find out who was responsible for an anonymous attack on his history teacher girlfriend. Before he can finish regaling the students with stories about his time in ’Nam, one of them stumbles upon a drug smuggling operation running out of the school. This leads to an after-hours all-out assault on the building that sees him and his team of mercenary pals blow the place to hell with machine gun fire, grenade explosions, and all manner of meatheaded action movie excess.
The Substitute plays like an action-slanted parody of educational “teens in crisis” dramas, like Dangerous Minds (which was a sizable success the previous year both financially and culturally). It hits many of the same story beats but peppers in enough gang members being chucked out of windows, gratuitous use of ninja throwing stars, and tough-guy bravado (delivered by a litany of top-notch character actors like William Forsythe, Luis Guzmán, and Ernie Hudson) to please any discerning B-movie fan.
Image: Warner Bros. via Everett Collection
The job: Certified public accountant
The hero: Ben Affleck
Where to watch: Max and Prime Video
Ben Affleck, with his large stature, movie star looks, and strong jawline, seemed ready-made for action stardom, but most of his time in that arena came when he was playing second fiddle to a larger marquee name or pre-established property. The Accountant changed that. Its story of a mathematics (and combat) savant who specializes in sorting out the account books of very dangerous clients, all while maintaining the facade of being a simple strip-mall accountant, gave him a sizable genre hit that could be comfortably cited as being carried by his name alone. It also demonstrated how adept he is when tasked with performing the hands-on dynamic and intricate action choreography style expected by movie fans post-John Wick.
While accounting may not conjure up the hardworking vibes of the other entries on this list, the film makes it clear that its heart lies with the worker. It makes a point to show Affleck’s character aiding others with his preternatural skills, whether it’s helping an elderly couple avoid massive tax fees or rescuing a whistleblower from a violent assault. It never gets lost in the plot’s central mystery of the numbers (or the brutality of the action which follows) that the point of The Accountant’s story is the importance of people and human connection. Which will hopefully be carried forward in the sequel and proposed third entry.
Image: Blue Fox Entertainment
The job: Nightclub bouncer
The hero: Jean-Claude Van Damme
Where to watch: Prime Video, and for free with ads on Tubi, Pluto TV, and Plex
As Jean-Claude Van Damme has gotten older and lost much of the youthful athleticism that defined his early career, he wisely chose to focus on improving his acting to compensate for the loss of his flashy kicking style and obligatory splits. This led to some of the most interesting work of his career happening long after his Hollywood glory days were over, like 2018’s The Bouncer (aka Lukas). This bleak French/Belgian co-production finds Van Damme in the role of Lukas, a struggling single father trying to make ends meet by working security at a local nightclub. After a run-in with the police, he gets coerced by a shady cop into going undercover at a gentlemen’s club owned by a notorious crime lord. The film then follows Lukas as he works his way up from simple club security to being privy to the inner circle of the group’s criminal enterprise and into an escalating world of violence far beyond simply muscling drunks out into the street.
The Bouncer only has a few action scenes, and while they are standout moments — shot in lengthy takes with brutal realism — the focus of the film is the deep melancholy etched in the lines of Van Damme’s haggard face as he works to survive another night to make it home to his daughter.
Image: Amazon MGM Studios
The job: Beekeeper
The hero: Jason Statham
Where to watch: Prime Video
It would be relatively easy to fill out this list with almost exclusively Jason Statham vehicles. No other action star has represented everyday jobs as a front for cinematic ass-kicking more frequently than him. So when it came time to compile this list, the question was not “Will the British star be included?” — it was simply a matter of which movie would be given the distinction. And if you can only choose one, it has to be his most audacious: 2024’s The Beekeeper. It’s gonzo tale of a rogue agent (from a covert guild of bee-obsessed, autonomous world guardians) who goes on a rampage that starts with decimating lowly internet scammers and quickly winds its way up to attempting to cleanse the highest level of government corruption, and it is unlike any other entry on this list in terms of ambition and just plain weirdness.
That alone is not what gets this one comfortably high on this list. That is owed to the fact that The Beekeeper, through all of its exquisitely crafted on-screen mayhem, is absolutely loaded with bee-centric details. Statham lovingly tends to beehives in the first act, harvests honey, and drops bee facts in casual conversation. When the action starts, he applies beehive defense techniques in his initial attacks. Even more facts about bees and philosophy based on those facts never go long without being uttered (and give crucial hints to the plot’s wild progression). And in that fine action movie tradition, there are even bee-based puns before Statham’s driven beekeeper squares off with a villain who is subtly costumed to suggest a bee’s natural enemy, the hornet. It’s all absurd, but delivered with such skill and conviction that it’s nearly impossible not to buy in and join the hive.
Image: United Artists
The job: Watermelon farmer
The hero: Charles Bronson
Where to watch: For free with ads on Tubi and Pluto TV
Charles Bronson’s Vince Majestyk only wants one thing: to run his farm and bring his melon crop in on time. His meager plans hit a massive roadblock when, after a scuffle with a group of small-time extortionists, he finds himself in the local jail, where he crosses paths with a smug contract killer. This chance meeting sets off a chain of events that leads to a game of cat and mouse between the two that won’t be settled until one of them is planted 6 feet underground.
One of the eternal appeals of Bronson’s on-screen persona is that, with his unconventional weathered looks and low-key demeanor, he always came across as a hardworking, regular guy. The script (by famed author Elmore Leonard) understands this implicitly. Mr. Majestyk is the most work-focused film on this list. Majestyk’s desire to just get back to his farm’s business is always at the forefront, becoming a kind of mantra for the character as he navigates the severe dangers in front of him. When the film wants to convey his compassion, it does so by showing the respect and care he has for the migrant workers who help with his land. When it needs to push him to the edge, it’s through hurting those same people and his crop. So, when he takes up a gun in the film’s final act, it’s not just out of self-preservation, it’s to defend his dream and those who support it.
The job: Long-haul trucker
The hero: Patrick Swayze
Where to watch: Available to rent on Prime Video, YouTube, and Apple TV
The late Patrick Swayze only starred in a handful of action projects, and most are rightfully revered by a vocal and dedicated fan base that holds them up as classics of the form. There is one movie from this area of his filmography that has unfairly flown under the radar, though, despite being a near-perfect example of a two-fisted action romp with a decidedly blue-collar bent: 1998’s Black Dog.
Here, Swayze plays an ex-con truck driver who is unwittingly manipulated into transporting a load of illegal firearms from Georgia to New Jersey. What he thought would be a simple long-haul run to earn some much-needed money to support his struggling family quickly turns into an all-out road battle with hijackers who want the valuable shipment for themselves. The film is a white-knuckle relic of a bygone era where high-adrenaline, death-defying practical stunt work was the norm for Hollywood action movies. In Black Dog’s brief run time, it’s jaw-dropping how many vehicles are legitimately flipped, crashed, and blown up while barreling down stretches of real sun-scorched blacktop as the bad guys try unsuccessfully to stop the 18-wheeled juggernaut being manned by Swayze’s protagonist. With its pronounced “working man” aesthetic and a tone that would best be described as “Smokey and the Bandit meets Mad Max 2,” Black Dog is perfect for this list and ripe for rediscovery by hardcore action enthusiasts and lovers of practical stunt work.
Image: Vertical Entertainment
The job: Bricklayer
The hero: Aaron Eckhart
Where to watch: Netflix
There are stronger films than The Bricklayer on this list, and there are films with a heavier focus on the hero’s occupation as well. But none blend the working-class world of the character and action movie tropes together better than this overachieving DTV entry from director Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2). In it, The Dark Knight’s Aaron Eckhart stars as the titular bricklayer — who, within moments of first appearing on screen, announces himself by that title with all the confidence of Batman as the camera does a slow push into a close-up of his face. Eckhart’s bricklayer is a former operative who gets pulled back into the shadowy world of the CIA to hunt down an assassin from his past who is murdering innocents and pinning the deaths on the government agency. What follows is an extremely competent action movie, clearly budgeted and cast for a theatrical release, that is treated like any number of globetrotting James Bond/Ethan Hunt-style adventures but has enough masonry-flavored details to spot to make it worthy of a drinking game. In the course of the story, Eckhart clocks an approaching adversary by their reflection in a pair of safety goggles, drops an attacker in cement, uses a tape measure as a strangulation device, bludgeons foes with a sledgehammer and a brick, then proceeds to stab more than one with a trowel.
It’s not all limited to winking on-brand violence, either. There are moments where knowledge of brickwork directly aids in his sleuthing, and he waxes philosophical about the zen nature of his blue-collar trade with a befuddled CIA higher-up (Tim Blake Nelson, most recently of Captain America: Brave New World). Of course, the film also has more than one scene of him living up to his namesake and building structures out of brick. The Bricklayer is a thorough blending of the ridiculous and the sincere — a shining example of how embracing superfluous details about a fictional character and making them vital to it can make a familiar story exponentially more memorable and fun.
