Zero Tolerance: (1994. dir: Joseph Merhi) Evil drug traffickers (including Mick Fleetwood and aging Tarzan Miles O'Keeffe) wipe out an FBI agent's family, but they are harshing entirely the wrong dude's mellow. It's vigilante time, compadres, and due process be damned. So Robert Patrick goes after these five drug-lords, one after another, but is he in danger of losing his own soul in the process?
Who cares? Because back then they knew how to shoot an action flick. No CGI. No shaky cam. The gunfights don't go on too long, they incorporate dynamic shifts, and the collateral damage stays minimal. They keep us engrossed through interesting shots and moves and choices, all filmed and edited with old-fashioned clarity. One Destructo Set-Piece that was particularly satisfying was the decimation of a warehouse on Algiers, along with its evil-drug-trafficking inhabitants. Another, beautifully lit, has Patrick taking down a German drug-lord's crystalline fortress on an island off Seattle. In another, he steals a cop car and drives it straight through a helicopter, leaving a mass of fiery wake behind him.
In between, he spends some time looking all beatific in his sorrow, like a medieval painting of a saint. He parries the arguments of the woman trying to save his humanity and goes about his Charles Bronson/Clint Eastwood business, figuring he can worry about his soul when the business is done.
Because this is an action film, not some damn tree-hugging wuss-fest.
the Marine: (2006. dir: John Bonito) Patrick has a good time playing a sociopath with a sense of humor in this awkward John Cena hagiology. (If, like me, you've never heard of him, Wikipedia calls Cena a "professional wrestler, rapper and actor," the reigning pro wrestling superstud champion of the known universe, I'm paraphrasing here, and "the public face of WWE since 2005." Personally, I was expecting Michael Cera and thought what interesting casting that was.)
The movie, as you might guess, is a mush of Ted Nugent patriotism (as in "I love my country because I can own my own rocket-launcher, but I hate my government because I get violent when folks tell me what to do"), throwback sentimentalism (a wistful nostalgia for a lost era that never really was, and family values, as long as you've got a really hot wife), and a Robert E. Howard-esque uber-romanticization of masculine musculature and bellicosity to the point that it epitomizes godhood.
It's also a jewel heist, masterminded by Rome (Patrick). The getaway goes badly awry (partly thanks to our Herculean hero), and the nattily-dressed bank-robbers are forced to walk several miles through treacherous swampland in entirely inappropriate footwear, carping at each other all the way, with the hero's hot wife in tow. (Since one of the robbers is also a hot babe, you can see the hot catfight coming from a mile away, right?) Our Hero the ex-Marine (he was too good, too perfect, and altogether too tough for the Marine Corps, since that bunch of pusses actually follow rules) manages to separate the bad guys and pick them off, one by one. They had a good time with explosives in this movie. Not one, but two buildings are double-exploded. As in, the biggest explosion you've ever seen destroys the back half of the place, then somehow there's enough ridiculously combustible material in the front half (which was unaccountably untouched by the original explosion) that when it goes (always, always, with Cena's stunt-double leaping to safety just in the nick) it is THE EVEN BIGGER BIGGEST explosion you've ever seen.
Alright. The kids have fun with their bombs and stuff. The bad guys (and girl) get theirs, the MacGuffin-diamonds are (ironically! get it?) lost in the violence they've inspired, and Our Hero rescues his hot wife after she's been trapped and unconscious in a car underwater for at least ten minutes. Does he miraculously revive her with the Prince Charming kiss of life? How can you ask me that? I wouldn't dream of spoiling the end of the movie for you.
The main point is that Robert Patrick has fun, and when he has fun with a character, it's always worth watching. I wouldn't spend actual money on it, though.
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