ACTION-MOVIE BARROOM BRAWL SCENES

American Ninja 4 was on last night, what an EPIC 80's B-Action Film. Mike Dudikoff was one of my idols growing up, absolutely no joke. Some kids looked up to Jesus, I looked up to Dudikoff. AN4 had it all: parachuting; ninja fights in the middle of fields; ninja training compound; American POWs to rescue; an old British bad guy; the quiet guy who kicks everyones ass; and of course "The Action-Movie Barroom Brawl Scene." But the last time that I saw this movie was when I was probably 8 or 9. So I'm watching last night and started laughing at the bar fight scene because it occurred to me that it was some martial arts master beating down a bunch of drunks. But then I thought how that's the way in basically all action movies. Notice how the tough guys in movies always get shown walking into a bar and whooping ass? It's cause they're all shitfaced... it's usually like noon time and the guys are all fucked up, obviously alcoholics, and usually their bartender talks some shit to the tough guy then sics his drunks on him. Some drunk slob slurps all the meat off a chicken wing in one bite then hobbles over "Let me at 'em!" The bartender has to turn him in the right direction. Then the "hero' instead of being like, "c'mon you're drunk man, let's not do this." he sets up and gets in a martial arts fighting stance like he's in the dojo, exhales to a ready stance....the drunk goes to exhale but pukes in his mouth a little bit. Then he goes to pass out but the hero thinks it's an attack-move and reacts with lethal force. Poor guy probably just wanted to play some Keno and watch Sportscenter on his day off. And his bartender gets him Fucked up by a Martial artist. Don't get me wrong, Barroom brawl scenes are still awesome, but I think they just get used too much. Like if the writer wants to show how tough a character is then he puts him in a bar, because it's a "seedy" environment, then the main character beats the hell out of some guys making him a tough one. But sometimes it's just laughable. Hell, even Casey Affleck beat some dudes up in Gone, Baby Gone. He's all "Oh beer and Keno at noon fellas?, blah blah blah BANG!(GUN-CHOP TO THE FACE!)" What a cheap shot on a few poor alchies. But the King of the sober-barroom fight was Stephen Seagal. He always unnecessarily fucked guys up. He walks in and struts around preaching like a Principal would to a 3rd grade classroom just provoking the shit out of everyone. One of his better scenes was this one, and like I pointed out, all of these guys "attacks" are pretty questionable. And actually the first guy isn't even looking, Steve just rips him off the bar, I think that blue tank-top was just trying to see if his partner was okay. oh and listen to the instigating bartender: I don't care how swollen my beer-balls are, If I watch 2 guys get completely dismantled by one man...I'm not gonna be #3, not even if I have a gun. Most of these heroes look pretty well-built, Seagal is like 6'6". Does #3 really think he just got lucky punches with Bubba and Hank? He's obviously professionally trained. Needless to say, #3 usually suffers a broken nose and/or an arm twisted behind the back until it POPS! Then there is, not always, but sometimes a guy #4 who takes off his coat. Universal Soldier had a #4 (kind of hard to call him #4 though, because the #3 didn't have much of a showing, he could almost be considered collateral damage) For some reason #4 guy always takes his coat off like "I got this", like that's the missing piece of the puzzle, the coats were slowing the drunks down. First you see #4 stand up while watching, then after #3 gets his face broken, he rips teh coat off / throws it behind him / and charges...faceplant into a jukebox The one barroom fighter I've mentioned that I'd go after is Casey Affleck in Gone, Baby Gone. I would have snuck up on that little pussy and jammed a Keno pencil in his jugular, push all 2 inches in so the surgeon couldn't find it. No one talks shit about Keno. And to wrap this post up, I want to show the video of Handsdown the best BRB scene of all time! It comes from Kickboxer in which Jean Claude Van Damme, the muscles from brussels, gets shitfaced, grinds on some Thai ass (feeelin', ooh-ah, so hot tonight!) and then ruins a bunch of guys, ON AN EVEN/DRUNKEN PLAYING FIELD. I love when he does the split like "What's the capital of China?" HUH? "BANGKOK!" (click it to the 1:40 mark for the bar scene)