Action Films: Is Too Real being Too Fake?

I saw the action film, “White House Down” starring Jamie Foxx and Channing Tatum recently and it was OK. (And it’s perfectly fine for a movie to be just “OK” in my book.) I enjoyed watching Foxx and Tatum pair up in this film; but only in this movie. Reason being is because their characters compliment each other and honestly, I don’t think I could see them as a duo again…

But on to the real reason of this post. Action films. Can they be too Hollywood? You know, the massive explosions, crazy car chases, loud and crazy shootouts. (Think Michael Bay movies.) Well of course they can! It’s amazing to watch and fun to experience! But what about portraying a REAL LIFE shootout? Or a realistic car chase? Is that too REAL to watch?

I’m a action film fanatic. I would say that I’m spoiled with those over the top actions scenes but when you start to notice them being “Over The Top”, you start to lose interest. Martin Scorsese films bear those true “action scenes”. For example, in the movie “The Departed”, (spoiler alert) the final scene is a shootout. But it’s not your typical shootout. Each bullet ended the guy. They didn’t try to hang on to dear life, clutching to their chest and gasping for air. They immediately died. Like a real person would if shot in vital body parts.

In the mist while writing this, I realize that it all depends on the story being told if we should have massive explosions and over-the-top actions scenes (i.e. Transformers) or realistic violent conflict amongst people (i.e. Out Of The Furnace). When you analyze movies, like I do, you start to see things that aren’t meant to be seen. So I apologize if any action movie dreams were killed from this post.