I was in the mood to turn my brain off witch an action movie I hadn't seen before, so did just that.
I won't do a full review since I'm only 30 minutes in, but the movie is Ambulance, 2022; Jake Gyllenhaal, some black dude, and some hispanic chick.
It's competent enough so far, generally. It's not doing anything too fancy, but I appreciate that from an action movie. But the Modern Audiences™ nonsense is unavoidable. I wish I didn't notice this but, once you know, you know.
Every black person is competent and in a position of power. Every white person is some combination of psychopath, loser, or incompetent. There's only been one woman in focus so far, but she's - no kidding - "the best paramedic in the city," and extremely competent. Hobbled with some newbie white dweeb...who's probably going to die or otherwise get damseled, at a guess.
Gyllenhaal and Black Dude are brothers. Black Dude was adopted by, wait for it, Gyllenhaal's psychotic criminal father. Black Dude is a patriotic veteran who's trying to get his life together, while his white brother is a criminal who drags him into shit. Gyllenhaal's criminal crew are, I believe, all white...and some of the most ridiculously incompetent or insane people around. Hilariously, they're also a very diverse set of whites for some reason; you have I believe an Italian, Irishman, and some sandal-wearing hippy hacker or something. It's bizarre.
It's all so tiresome.
A minute after I posted this, all the diverse and incompetent white dudes are dead. This is so stupid.
As a general rule, I avoid all western entertainment made in 2012 or later. The whole modern audiences thing accelerated hard in 0bama's 2nd term. There's only a few rare exceptions, otherwise you're better off watching or playing vintage or eastern stuff.
You are 100% right about 2012. Obama singed a bill into law back in 2012 that legalized directing propaganda towards the American public.
I occasionally recommend a few Western films after 2012 that aren't woke:
Otherwise, you're right... it's best to just stick with Eastern films for good action-thrillers.
I mentioned it in one of my comments, but check out Boss Level too. I rewatched it after my frustration with Ambulance, and it held up. It's not overtly "based" or anything, but it does have a very pro-fatherhood and generally masculine message, and doesn't really do sex/race discrimination. It's shocking it was made in 2020.
I said it's not "based," but if we're going by today's shitty standards (which is a bad standard) I suppose it actually is kind of based. Mostly it's just stupid action movie fun though.
I adore some good bad-action movies -- we used to have plenty in the 80s, which were a good way to burn an afternoon and come away feeling stoked to workout or get active outside. We don't really have those feel-good, cheesy action films these days, so I'm all for that whenever a proper one rears is head, and Boss Level seems like a decent go of it.
I've actually had it on my watchlist for ages but I've never sat down to give it a look -- so I will need to make time for it at some point.