12 Great Action Movies Ruined By Terrible Endings

2019’s fifth instalment in the never-ending Rambo series was the franchise’s darkest outing yet, trading any semblance of believability for lurid excess as it saw cinema’s unluckiest veteran try—and fail, actually—to save his niece from drug traffickers.

All this unwieldly plot is, of course, preamble to some ultraviolence, as the once-traumatised Vietnam vet decides to mete out all manner of gory vengeance on the poor girl’s captors. What follows is a brutally bloody version of Home Alone as the eponymous hero booby traps his ranch home and slaughters his way through the baddies. It’s good, gory fun, not a patch on the inspired anti-aircraft-gun slaughter sequence of the fifth film but nonetheless passable.

That is, until the titular hero hops on a horse and literally rides off into the sunset at the end, robbing the series of a dignified death and ensuring we’ll see some more far-fetched brutality from the now almost 75 year old hero once there’s another country to vilify as villains.

Wait, wasn’t this an anti-war series?