14. Rudy Youngblood - Apocalypto
After taking audiences back to the final hours in the life of Jesus Christ in The Passion Of The Christ - complete with dialogue in reconstructed vernacular Hebrew - Mel Gibson followed it up with another violent jaunt into the past to explore the last days of the Mayan civilisation, Apocalypto. Frequently as brutal and bloody as The Passion Of The Christ - although here the violence is widespread, the sign of a civilisation on the brink, where human sacrifice is commonplace and men are hunted like beasts - Apocalypto is a thoroughly entertaining action-packed chase movie with a slight arthouse veneer. Central to the film's success is the lithe and athletic performance of Rudy Youngblood as Jaguar Paw, the hunter taken from his village and led to the slaughter, only to escape and hunt down his oppressors. There's something Rambo-ish about the way in which Jaguar Paw comes into his element when the tables are turned, and Gibson's direction is suitably adrenaline-charged, too. Unfortunately it wasn't enough to kick start a thrilling career and he's only appeared in two little-known movies since.