15 Mindless Action Films You Must See Before You Die

Rutger Hauer is Detective Harley Stone, an American-accented Dutchman living in a London of the not-too-distant future – well, 2008 – where he’s chasing his partner’s killer, but get this: he doesn’t know if the perpetrator is a man or an animal.

If it’s human, how come it has claws and fangs? If it’s an animal, how was it able to enter a club and write “I’m Back” on the mirror? Given that Hauer bears claw marks on his arms from their previous tussle, how come he doesn’t know what it looks like? Slip his mind?

Hauer may be “the best” but he acts pretty stupid, lighting cigars while standing over a victim with its heart torn out, shooting at rats in the walls and questioning a dog at a crime scene, so when The Old Flame (Kim Cattrall, still sporting her Star Trek VI haircut) shows up, she’s amazed to find him living in a room without rubber walls. The film’s token female, Cattrall does little except take a bath fully-clothed and get kidnapped in the third act, by which time the movie has settled on an identity for its killer. “I wouldn’t say this thing thinks it’s Satan,” someone tells Hauer, “I’d say it is Satan.” To which our hero replies: “Well, Satan is in deep s**t!”