With some action movies it’s all about the body count and the damage done since that’s what the protagonist is all about, taking names after wrecking everything they can as a one-man wrecking crew. Unlike Miley Cyrus these guys don’t normally come in like a wrecking ball, but sneak in like a thief in the night before exploding like a case of TNT wrapped in a cocoon made of C-4, taking out as many as they can and destroying whatever’s in their way. This has given us some of the greatest action stars that we’ve ever seen and to be fair they’ve been every bit as impressive as they’ve been made out to be. Of course in the 80s some of the effects were still a bit cheesy, but they worked all the same since people came for the action and they were given plenty to deal with. Sometimes the body counts were higher, sometimes it was simply more destruction that made the good guy appear more impressive, but whatever it was people left the theater feeling pumped or laughing their butts off since the very thought of someone performing the feats that they just watched was inspiring or hilarious. If nothing else it was highly entertaining to think that one man could do so much damage and get away with his life, most times.
Here are a few of the best one-man wrecking crews to ever come out of the 80s.
5. Ah Jong
If it’s a John Woo movie then you know it’s going to be something crazy, and if Chow Yun Fat is in it then you know that it’s going to be even more lit since this guy usually ends up playing one of the toughest action stars in the game. It’s no different in this one when he takes on an entire group of thugs and racks up an impressive body count that is higher than quite a few people on this list but at the same time doesn’t cause much more destruction than is necessary. There’s something to be said for a guy that can run through 69 people in a movie though and make it look this awesome.
4. John McClane
You know the saying, ‘it’s not Christmas until Hans Gruber falls from the Nakatomi Plaza building’. John McClane didn’t exactly rack up a humongous body count, but the damage that he was trying to prevent kind of made it possible for him to be added to this list. Plus, the idea that he wasn’t ready for combat and was caught unawares, but still had the ability take on and take out several trained terrorists was kind of impressive. True, they did give him way too many chances and were a little dismissive of someone they thought wasn’t that much of a threat, but hey, John’s not stupid at least, he saw a chance and he took it.
3. Colonel James Braddock
It’s Chuck Norris, so you know there’s going to be a body count, and it’s going to get pretty high simply because he’s the kind of guy that will start piling up the bodies as soon as the fighting gets started. It was tough to pick just one of his movies when it came to him being the kind of guy that can wade into enemy territory and do some serious damage, but this particular movie saw him taking people out left and right in a manner that might have made veterans laugh and the average moviegoer look on with rapt attention as the impossible and inane became cinematic history that would be remembered for years to come.
2. John Matrix
You might have thought that Matrix would be number one on this list, but the difference between this guy and number one is that we were shown that Matrix is more or less still fairly stable and isn’t suffering the kind of PTSD that others soldiers might. That might be what makes him one of the most unrealistic soldiers in the movies, but it’s not the only thing. The manner in which Matrix storms the bad guy’s compound is nothing short of video game epic since all on his own and with a tone of weaponry that shouldn’t even come close to the carnage that it unleashes, Matrix is an unstoppable killing machine that eats Green Berets for breakfast.
1. John Rambo
John Rambo is for better or worse the perfect killer since there’s not much else he’s really good at. He tried his hand at being a rancher in the last movie but obviously trouble has a way of finding this guy and stomping the peace right out of him. Ever since the first movie it’s been pretty obvious what he’s really good at, and it’s not something that people have a constant need for, but he’s one of the best at it without any doubts.
The 80s definitely produced a few great heroes, even if they were slightly broken.
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