Ever since I saw The Fall Guy trailer the other day, I've been thinking about how cool and refreshing action comedies are when done right.
And it may be that in the last 15-20 years the genre seems to have a crazy boom and marginally most action films flirt more or less with comedy (especially after the crazy influence that the MCU has had on the action of Hollywood), but these two things have not always been united.
In fact, until about the 1980s action and comedy were two separate genres, something that gradually began to change with hit films like Blues Brothers and Beverly Hills Cop, but even more so when the little genius of the genre who listens appeared in Hollywood under the name Shane Black. And after having excelled in the 80s with the two Lethal Weapons, he then returned to prominence in the 21st century with the fantastic Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and The Nice Guys .
The rise of the genre, however, continued in the '90s with a new injection of comedy through the cinema of Michael Bay and Guy Ritchie, while then the nerdy/meta revival of action comedy arrived in the '00s with film by Edgar Wright and Simone Pegg. And since then, it seems, action-comedy films have become a staple of Hollywood cinema, both with cult hits like Tropic Thunder and Black Dynamite and blockbusters like Thor: Ragnarok and 21 Jump Street.
But in the meantime, since there are some very strong action comedies from the 80s and 90s that you may have missed, I take this opportunity to do a little tribute to those gems with the following 6 suggestions and add if you can think of something else in the comments.
48 Hours (Walter Hill, 1982)
Arguably the start of the buddy cop subgenre, with Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy 2 years before Beverly Hills Cop and Walter Hill came out of two movies with The Driver and The Warriors.
Repo Man (Alex Cox, 1984)
In my opinion, one of the best American films of the 80s, an exemplary sci-fi action/comedy with radical satire hidden in the pulp, a fantastic punk soundtrack and an overall adored director.
Big Trouble in China (John Carpenter, 1986)
With John Carpenter and Kurt Russell nothing could go wrong, and this true cult classic was a template for many fantasy action comedies that followed in the years to come.
Midnight Run (Martin Brest, 1988)
Martin Brest's post-Beverly Hills Cop is a much better action comedy, with a wonderfully funny Robert De Niro in the lead role and a lovable Yaphet Kotto in a supporting role.
The Last Action Hero (John McTiernan, 1993)
Epic meeting between two giants of the genre directed by John McTiernan (Predator/Die Hard) and screenplay by Shane Black. If meta/self-referential action comedies exist today, you owe it to them.
The True Lies (James Cameron, 1994)
We remain in the fields of Arnold Schwarzenegger, an extremely charismatic comic actor (here in crazy chemistry with Jamie Lee Curtis), with the unfortunately most forgotten classic film by James Cameron today. True classic.