From Sport to Silver Screen: Action Jackson

Action Jackson was allegedly born on the set of Predator through conversations between Carl Weathers and producer Joel Silver over their love of blacksploitation movies. We are so glad those conversations took place!

The plot unfolds something like this:
Someone must stop auto magnate Peter Dellaplane from systematically eliminating his competitors and also from being just generally evil. Lucky for everyone, the legendary Sgt. Jericho 'Action' Jackson is more than up for the task.

The best parts:
Aside from (almost) everyone bringing a great performance to this action classic, it was also Craig R. Baxley's directorial debut after stunt coordinating and second unit directing for the better part of 20 years, so the action in this flick is packed!

The unintended comedy:
Vanity. Whether it was how her character was written, or just that it was played by her, she is the source of most of this movie's unintended comedy. (I mean, at one point her character is supposed to be high on heroine and she proclaims that she "has the munchies". It's like no one on set had so much as read a book with drugs harder than weed illustrated in it so they assumed all drugs caused the same side effects. If you're going to write about something you don't know about, do your research people!)

The athlete:
Carl Weathers played for the NFL and CFL while obtaining a B.A. in drama from San Francisco State University. 

The That Guys:
There are many That Guys in Action Jackson, but a handful of them showed up in Die Hard later the same year, likely because both were produced by Joel Silver.

How we feel about this movie:
If it's been a while since you've seen this classic, or if you've never seen it at all, put this at the top of your list. We absolutely LOVE this film.