Dude where’s my theory? Notes on the action-cop film
The action-cop is a sub-genre (under the action-adventure genre) that mediates cultural prejudices and tensions within the realm of pseudo-realistic fantasy. The result is a model that seeks to correct “urban violence, corrupt government agencies, endangered families, and growing cultural antagonisms” .
There is evidence to point a link between a star’s rise in demand and his association with the action-adventure genre (specifically the action cop genre). This can be found in the rise in their fees - Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone, and Clint Eastwood. It has also led to the rise of lower-budget, lower-star imitations such as Steven Segal, Jean Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren.
Formula
The formula in action-cop genre is divided into three acts (or plots?) - act one introduces the principal players: the hero, his new partner, his superiors, his loved ones, and the villain. The film establishes its genre by making obvious characters and situation.
Act two advances plot by bringing to fore all the different layers of conflicts - hero vs. partner; hero vs. bad guys, hero vs. system. All these provide the tension and are presented with clarity.
Act three is the resolution of all the hero’s conflicts: all is saved, the world is a better and safer place - until the sequel!
Iconography
The urban setting is an iconic element of the genre - like the Western it highlights the struggle between savagery and civilisation. The west is replaced by the city. The urban setting represent urban landscapes gone wrong - a new wilderness where law means nothing and only the rich and powerful can survive.
The film poster plays a key role in the establishment of the iconography. The posters seek to evoke the genre conventions of the buddy motif, violent action, the urban setting, and the big name actors. The posters highlight their incompatibility and antagonism, while prominently displaying the gun. The heroes are posed shoulder-to-shoulder, turned slightly away from each other, or stand covering each others’ back - implying the antagonistic relationship of the two mismatched heroes.
MOTIFS
Action-cop genre as site for ideological reconciliation
Besides the buddy motif, the action cop genre is a site for ideological reconciliation - it reconciles many ideological self-images about America. The co-heros are from different backgrounds (yet the films reflect personality clashes than ethnic clashes) - they learn to understand and respect each other. This reaffirms the image of America as a unified society. These films represent American ideology of ruggedness, individuality, yet a unified society of mythic heroes. This reaffirms America as a social utopia despite the undeniable tensions of race and class. This subsumes the buddy motif as the defining syntactic feature of action-cop genre.
Traditional American values.
Drawing from the hardboiled detective and the western, the action-cop hero inhabits a corrupt/harsh/villainous world. He has the jaded character of the detective and the cowboy’s sense of communal responsibility. This referencing is consciously alluded to in some of the movies along with the standard admonishment not to “pull any John Wayne shit”. Films such as Black Rain reinforce how the American style of frontier justice is superior despite any cultural difference.
Villains
A high ranking government official is commonly represented as villain or knowing accomplice. These individuals are thoroughly corrupt and perverse. The rich and powerful elite of American society are megalomaniac characters, who want to gain positions of power. These are the fictional equivalent of the Kennedys and Trumps. The third type are the ruthless mercenaries and mobs following a strict hierarchy of command. These characters are mirror image of the way FBI and CIA operate.
All the three villains are representative of what is ordinarily accepted to be part of a civilised society and they are the stock villains posing a threat to the community.
Thus the hero operates between the good side of the American society (or civilization), i.e. the community, and the ugly effects of rampant capitalism and greed. The villains often hold daughters, wives, and girlfriends as hostage and the hero is called upon to save them. Thus the film acts out a symbolic resolution of the American familial ideal despite rising divorce rates and what some perceive to be a disappearance of the traditional American family.
Hero
The hero is a role model in this turmoil - he is not tempted by bribe, does the job for justice not for fame. In movies such as Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, and the Hard Way, the finale includes a declaration by the villain that “there are no real heroes”, which is disproved by the hero’s selfless, courageous act.
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Replace all American, with all Indian, and you find something similar. Slightly different, but cliche nonetheless, done to death ad nauseam in Bollywood.
Well written Kishore.
I think it is fair to say that mainstream Hindi cinema (cinema here defined as the entire institution of financing, production, distribution, exhibition, and spectatorship) is beginning to resemble mainstream American cinema. Films such as Chak De, Dhoom liberally borrow plots and plot structure, character development, narration, and elements of film (cinematography, mise-en-scene, editing) from Hollywood films. In many ways, this critique should not limited to cinema alone, but should also extend to the wider canvas of Indian society. In particular, our popular culture has many structural similarities to American popular culture. It’s just that the content is different.
Kishore,the homogenised middle class that is the upshot of economic liberalisation and has similar tastes,values and cultural motifs..thats why popular culture in India is reflecting American way of life..And thats what America wanted..a cultural hegemony sans military invasion..To a great extent it seems to be succeeding and we in India are going ga ga over the changing facing of Indian Cinema (Hindi in particular)…I doubt its content is different..Infact it is same but garnished with local flavor and that seems to be its saving grace so far..When it will jettison its local setting and characterisation also it will just be a poor replica of Hollywood..To escape such cultural imperialism Hindi Cinema has to innovate and reinvent itself on constant basis.
Krysh: You have hit the nail… I don’t see the Indian culture industry avoiding the path of American entertainment industry — commodification of culture. The culture industry, which engages in the production of works for reproduction and mass consumption — thereby organizing free time — presents culture as the realisation of the right of all to the gratification of desire. In the case of the film industry this leads to screenplays that
a) employ the three act structure (equilibrium, disequilibrium, restoration of equilibrium or new equilibrium)
b) use plots driven by causality reinforcing the dominant logic (for example good vs evil)
c) use the pleasure/emotional principle in narrative closure.
As critics (and cinephilia, which unfortunately is being accelerated by internet) we are encouraged to navel gaze and consume trivia — for example film criticism (or what passes of as such) is reduced to polemics, trivia, and innuendo. Take the case of the recent review of RGV ki Aag at PFC — besides the tautology of the film being a painful watch, it does not empower the reader with skills to read films. This kind of film criticism should be contrasted with say a review of “A bout de Souffle”, whose importance is not in any technical genius that other filmmakers have to emulate (as is often used in the case of Hollywood continuity editing or special effects) - but its philosophical and political critique of a) Classical Hollywood, and b) the invasion of American culture in post-war France. When we juxtapose such historical moments to review a film like Kaante, the reviewer can inform the reader that the filmmaker missed a historic opportunity to make a landmark film. Since the film was already set in the US, the filmmaker could have used the symbolism of the rise of Indian economy and Hindi cinema (Bollywood?) to appropriate the plot in a tongue in cheek manner. Given the anti-Bush sentiment, such a film would have been welcomed in countries across the world. But then….