Cold Warrior Tagged Articles at Cinematical

If you read my posts regularly, you might be under the impression that the only movies that make me truly weak in the knees are Marvel adaptations. But my heart belongs more to rogue cops than it does superheroes, and if I could have my film wish, it would be for a renaissance of the action/thriller. And you know, I think it might be on its way ...

First comes a story from The Hollywood Reporter that Paramount has hired Josh Olson to adapt Lee Child's novel One Shot. It's the ninth in Child's Jack Reacher series -- why they aren't adapting the first, I have no idea. Now, I haven't read the series, but from all accounts Reacher is the kind of man we haven't seen onscreen since Harry Callahan or Wendell "Bud" White. And that's why Olson (who was also behind the adaptation of A History of Violence) took the job: "I had just finished watching the first two Dirty Harry movies on Blu-ray. And I thought, 'No one's making movies like that anymore.' It coincided perfectly. It's just the kind of movie that I haven't seen in a while. It's a tough, smart, action-oriented thriller." (In a really funny twist, I was watching Dirty Harry last weekend and thinking the same thing -- and also how much I want to date Clint Eastwood circa 1971.)

Obviously, One Shot isn't enough to revive the genre, but Entertainment Weekly reports that rumors continue to gather around Lethal Weapon 5, particularly with Shane Black's Cold Warrior catching everyone's interest. Seems he's down for writing and directing the fifth installment, though all waits on the approval of Mel Gibson. I'm intrigued by the new story details, as it introduces a pair of young New York cops. Now, if Lethal Weapon 5 was more of a reboot/origin story for two new characters who could carry some films of their own, well, that would be pretty darn cool.

I would be a huge dork if I began this post with the sentence, "This is the best news ever," but it kind of is. One of my favorite (and yours too) scriptwriters is making a return to the big screen -- and may it be a triumphant one. According to Variety, Shane Black is directing Cold Warrior for Universal Pictures from a script penned by Chuck Mondry. This will be his second outing as a director -- his first was, of course, the fantastic Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

And frankly, Warrior sounds like a film from the heyday of 80's action. It centers on a spy from the Cold War era who comes out of retirement and teams up with a younger agent to thwart a Russian domestic terrorism plot. It couldn't be more timely given how icy relations are with our Eastern neighbors. (The Russians didn't get to take much of a break from big-screen villainy, did they? I thought their comeback would just arrive via the Russian Mafia, not as terrorists again.)

This is going to be a blast to watch -- from the description, I want to believe it's old-school Black, but it could just as easily go into dark and serious Breach territory. Obviously, my fondness for macho men, snappy one-liners, and heavy gunfire hope it's the former. That's the kind of movie that can cure all ills and make you forget your economic woes, isn't it?