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.
I mean there’s only a tiny handful of motivations that are ever used for action movies
Are there any others?
Highlander is just about being the Last Guy Standing.
Action/Adventure films like Indian Jones, the Lara Croft series, The Mummy, and National Treasure are about chasing some kind of mystery or lost fortune.
Fast and Furious and Top Gun largely revolve around guys with big egos rivaling one another.
Survival is another popular one. Rambo, Predator.
I was loosely thinking about that as saving a hostage (yourself), but i think you’re right that it’s probably distinct enough to be its own separate motivation
Money. Ie robbing a bank
Though I’d almost say a heist film falls into its own genre separate from action. There’s often some big shootout action scene and a lot of cool car chases with cool cars, but they tend to follow a separate formula from standard action movie fare. Struggling to think of a movie that can classify as both but my film knowledge is not great.