Revenge and 4 Other Most Gripping Action Movies of the Last Decade to Watch if You Liked Havoc
No drama, no long dialogues, only violence.
The action genre, like any other, does not stand still, and once a decade audiences get a fundamentally new look at it. To honor the release of Gareth Evans' new action film, Havoc, we have put together a list of brutal modern action films.
1. Deliver Us from Evil, 2020
The dark action movie Deliver Us from Evil is the highlight of director Hong Won-Chan's work so far, turning the smiling star of Squid Game, Lee Jung-jae, into a heartless killing machine.
In-nam, a former spy and now a killer with a ticket to Panama and a strong desire to quit, receives unexpected news: firstly, he has a daughter, and secondly, she has been kidnapped by unknown people.
He must put his plans on hold and rescue the girl. The search is complicated by the completely mad killer who is on In-nam's trail.
2. Revenge, 2017
Before making the Oscar-winning body horror, Coralie Fargeat deconstructed another subgenre – rape and revenge, in which the victim finds and brutally punishes the perpetrators.
Revenge begins in the traditional way for rape and revenge movies: Jen goes to a secluded mansion in the company of Richard, who has left his wife for a young beauty. The woman is not at all embarrassed by this state of affairs, nor are Richard's suspicious-looking friends, who show up at the house early for an annual hunt.
3. Fight or Flight, 2024
Josh Hartnett plays former Special Agent Lucas Reyes, who is drinking himself to death in Bangkok after failing on his last mission. But then comes a chance to get back in the game – as part of a special operation to capture a hacker known as The Ghost.
Reyes is tasked with boarding a San Francisco-bound flight that intelligence indicates the criminal is on, and apprehending him as soon as the plane reaches its home port.
Reyes just has to figure out which of the passengers is The Ghost and which is a professional killer waiting for the right moment to eliminate the hacker.
4. Kill, 2023
Amrit, a Special Forces veteran, learns that his beloved Tulika is to marry someone else at the behest of her businessman father. Determined to make things right, he boards a train to Delhi and proposes to the woman in the bathroom.
But suddenly the carriage is attacked by a gang of robbers led by the psychopath Fani, who, realizing that Tulika will fetch a good ransom, decides to kidnap the bride right in front of the smitten Special Forces soldier.
5. The Night Comes for Us, 2018
A killer named Ito suddenly decides to save the girl he was supposed to kill. Nobility leads the man into a war with the Mafia, where old friends, new enemies and some killers with personal grudges quickly join in.
The director relies not on the originality of the story, but on the choreography of the massacre. Every scene is staged with such ingenuity that even The Raid sometimes looks pale.
And that is exactly why The Night Comes for Us makes you want to watch it again: not for the sake of cinematic catharsis, but for the sake of raw action, flavored with the aesthetics of Asian VHS action movies.