Action!

Recently saw Shoot 'Em Up with Clive Owen, Monica Bellucci and Paul Giamatti(surprisingly good as a really bad guy). That was a movie that sure lived up to its name! It was packed with shoot-outs and chases from beginning to end and the entire movie was an adrenaline rush. More to the point of this post though, the stunts were completely preposterous and over-the-top. One stunt saw Owen shoot down his car's windshield, drive the car straight at a van, leap through both windshields, roll down the van's aisle and shoot the gangsters in the van. Another saw him involved in a gunfight in mid-air as he and the bad guys jumped off a plane. And yet another saw him give Bellucci an orgasm even as he is shooting at the gangsters who have interrupted their passion play! But the point is I enjoyed the stunts the same way I enjoyed the stunts in movies like The Transporter and Crank. Law of physics were rarely obeyed and frequently broken but the stunt sequences were a lot of fun and kept me smiling and thrilled.

Which begs the question why the action sequences in Tamil films don't elicit the same reaction. It can't be the fact that our stunts are unrealistic since that description would fit all the above-mentioned stunts. It can't be that our heroes use stunt doubles since I'm pretty sure it wasn't Clive Owen doing all those stunts in Shoot 'Em Up. So why is it that our stunt sequences more often than not elicit groans and chuckles from us? Is it because we use stunt doubles who look nothing like the stars they are doubling for(like the double used in the Binny Mills fight sequence in Sivaji). Is it the unhurried picturization that allows us to see the stunt doubles more clearly (unlike, say, Matt Damon's motorcycle ride in The Bourne Ultimatum, where it is clearly a stunt double but fast editing and the focus on the bike except for the close-up shots hide it for the most part)? Is it our actors' insistence that they be filmed performing stunts they clearly can't do (like Vikram's awkward run across those urinal separation thingies in Bheema)? Is it the use of graphics to create some patently absurd stunts(like Vijay's jumps between those windows in Gilli)? Is it a combination of two or more of the above?

While on the topic, I think the slot of a real action hero is open in Tamil cinema right now. We see a number of new heroes but while some of them act well or fight well or dance well, none of them presents something unique that catches our attention right away. What we need is someone who does his own stunts, like Jackie Chan or Tony Jaa. Since we go ga-ga over a few leaps or jumps done by our heroes, I think we would be really thrilled to see a Tamil hero do a real Parkour sequence like the one in Casino Royale or District B13(and there's no dearth of obstacles in our cities and villages). And it wouldn't matter that the hero is a new face. Just the fact that he is the hero will be enough to get our pulses racing as he does his own stunts, wouldn't it? After all, I had no idea who Tony Jaa was before I saw Ong-Bak but it was still exhilarating seeing him do all those stunts.