John Wick, Taken, The Equalizer. Too many to name. Saw a preview for The Amateur (2025) which is another one coming out soon. It seems like that’s the ONLY justification for killing they can come up with.
Like this is the logic here: “Okay we need an action movie with lots of henchmen to kill, what evil thing can that bad guy have done in the 1st act so our hero is justified in killing tons of henchmen?” So the bad guy does some overtly evil thing at the start of the movie (often unrealistically evil). Then killing people is the rest of the movie. Revenge happens. The end.
I enjoy action movies, but I keep seeing the same revenge-killing movies that feel like copies of each other.
Yep it’s gotten real obvious lately with the copy and paste formula of angry middle-aged ex-secret-agent/assassin being forced to revenge upon the evildoers that just won’t let him live in peace. That or the hot lady who used to be a secret spy assassin who wants to live peacefully but is forced to unleash karate revenge. Just a bunch of pointless rehashing with rotating cast.
Panos Cosmatos broke that mold with his revenge movie though, that’s a good exception. (Mandy)