Tired of watching the same superhero flicks? Saving Die Hard for the Christmas season? Do you sometimes find yourself shouting at the screen, "NO MORE NETFLIX SLOP!"
That's what my wife Melissa and I were doing when we hit play on Unstoppable the other night, and it was so good — again — that we decided to list a few other movies that might have fallen off your radar. If they ever lit it up to begin with.
The result is Five Perfect Little Thrillers.
Before we get to them, let me say something about Die Hard, the perfect YUGE thriller that launched countless imitators — and why I included none of them. For decades after Die Hard, every other Hollywood elevator pitch started with "It's Die Hard on a..." So we got Die Hard on a Battleship (Under Siege), Die Hard on the Enterprise-D (Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Starship Mine"), and Die Hard on an Airplane (Air Force One and Executive Decision), among others.
Things finally came full circle in 2018 with Dwayne Johnson in Skyscraper, which was Die Hard Back in Another Highrise. Fortunately, that one did just poorly enough that we were spared Skyscraper II: Skyscraperer. "This Time It's Taller."
So the very first thing Melissa and I decided when compiling this list was that there would be no Die Hard ripoffs.
You're welcome, America.
Unstoppable (2010)
Such a simple premise. "Inspired by real events," as they say, an incompetent railroad worker (Ethan Suplee) lets a train loaded with deadly molten phenol leave the railyard without a conductor or the air brakes attached. And this runaway isn't a "coaster," just lazily rolling down the tracks; it's at full throttle.
Less than two hours away is an elevated S-curve above several fuel storage tanks. The curve has a top safe speed of 25 miles per hour, but the runaway train is doing better than 70. An attempt to get a conductor on board via helicopter fails, as does a planned derailment. The only hope lies in two other workers whose engine might — might — be able to hook up with and slow down the runaway train just enough to avoid disaster.
Denzel Washington plays the older man forced into early retirement in just a couple of weeks with half benefits. Chris Pine plays the rookie on his first day as a conductor.
And Another Thing: Oddly enough, Runaway Train came out in 1985 to similar critical acclaim and audience disinterest. With Jon Voight, Eric Roberts, and Rebecca De Mornay, it might also be worth checking out.
The wonder isn't whether they'll pull off the near-impossible, because we're talking Denzel and Pine here. The wonder is how well executed the whole film is, courtesy of director Tony Scott.
As my wife likes to say, "They put it on the box."
What that means — and I'll come back to this idea further down — is that the movie delivers on the tagline's promise: "1 million tons of steel. 100,000 lives at stake. 100 minutes to impact." Plus, you've got Denzel and Pine. What else do you need to know before plopping down 20 bucks on a couple of tickets?
A lot more, apparently. The film did about $167 million on a $100 million budget. After marketing, it maybe made a little money. Maybe.
There's no social message and there's no bloated runtime. Just a perfect little thriller. Oh, and stick around at the start of the credits for Animal House-style "Where are they now?" notes on the major characters.
The remaining four are in no particular order.
The Edge (1997)
Maybe the best part of a perfect little thriller is that the setup can be explained in a short sentence or two — "high concept," in Hollywood-speak — but it's the unexpected little details that ramp up the drama. And, man oh man, do we get those in The Edge, courtesy of screenwriter David Mamet (of Glengarry Glen Ross fame), director Lee Tamahori, and two standout but unexpectedly low-key performances from Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin.
The question is whether three city boys can survive the Alaska wilderness after a small-plane crash miles and miles from another human being. They have no food, no radio, no nothing... except for an enormous Kodiak bear with a taste for human flesh.
But that isn't what makes The Edge so interesting. The real tension is the human drama.
Hopkins plays Charles Morse, a billionaire married to a supermodel named Mickey, played, appropriately enough, by Elle Macpherson. He's joined her in Alaska for a photoshoot with Baldwin's fashion photographer character, Bob Green (no relation).
The third guy is Stephen (again no relation), played by Harold Perrineau. His job is to get eaten by the bear almost right away to help set the stakes.
Early on, Morse catches Bob flirting with Mickey — and suspects the worst when Green suggests they go on a little side adventure together.
On board the plane, the discussion turns to things like money and value.
Morse asks, "So what do you value me for, Bob?"
Baldwin's face reveals too much when he replies, "I like your style. Your wife's pretty cute too."
"So how are you planning to kill me?" Morse very calmly asks, and it's evident that Bob's been asking himself the same question.
The question barely has time to hang in the air between the two men when the plane hits a flock of birds and crashes into a freezing-cold lake.
Needless to say, there are plenty of ways for a man to kill another man in the Alaska wilderness, but the trick is that they need each other to survive. The closer they get to civilization, the easier it gets for either man to make it the rest of the way without the other.
The film sold maybe $40 million worth of tickets on a $30 million budget, despite critical acclaim and solid word of mouth. I saw it on cable probably in 1998, and I watch it every couple of years without fail.
And Another Thing: I mentioned taglines, and I'm a sucker for a well-crafted one. A good tagline shouldn't just tell you what the movie is about — it should tell you what kind of feelz the movie intends to deliver. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade had a spot-on tagline: "The man with the hat is back. And this time, he's bringing his Dad." So did John Wick with "Don't set him off." But the best tagline in movie history might be the one from The Princess Bride: "She gets kidnapped. He gets killed. But it all ends up okay." Now that's putting it on the box.
The Next Three Days (2010)
Sometimes, I just don't understand people.
Start with writer-director Paul Haggis (Casino Royale, Letters from Iwo Jima). Add a solid script based on a successful French thriller, Pour elle. Then give him Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks, Brian Dennehy, Olivia Wilde, and Liam Neeson to work with.
I'm already in, and I don't even know what it's about yet.
What it's about is John Brennan (Crowe), whose wife Lara (Banks) is wrongly convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. She attempts to kill herself out of desperation, which is when John decides to break her out.
It goes without saying that mild-mannered college professors like him don't know much about prison breaks, and his months of planning come down to the last 72 hours before Lara is to be transferred to a maximum-security state prison.
Now that I know what it's about, I'm so in. Audiences mostly ignored it, however.
The film's appeal is mostly due to Crowe. There's a great power to his performances, whether it's the unpredictable menace of Hando in Romper Stomper, the longing and determination of Maximus in Gladiator, or Brennan's desperate cunning. Also, I love watching an intricate plan play out — I must have watched the 2001 Ocean's Eleven at least a dozen times — and The Next Three Days delivers.
The critics didn't like this one as much as they did the others on this list. But Crowe did such an impressive job with the ordinary-man-in-way-over-his-head trope that I don't hesitate to recommend it.
Nick of Time (1995)
Nobody saw this movie — $8 million box office on a $33 million budget — and even fewer people remember it.
What a shame.
(Lots of NSFW language in the clip.)
The year is 1995, and outside of TV's 21 Jump Street, Johnny Depp is probably still best-known for "weird kid" roles in movies like Edward Scissorhands, Benny & Joon, and What's Eating Gilbert Grape. In Nick of Time, Depp plays a mild-mannered accountant (now there's a stretch!) named Gene, visiting Los Angeles with his young daughter (Courtney Chase).
They're quickly kidnapped by a couple of baddies (Christopher Walken and Roma Maffia) who at first pass themselves off as cops. "Mr. Smith" and "Ms. Jones" tell Gene that he has until 1:30 that day — just 75 minutes — to assassinate the governor of California. Or they'll murder his daughter.
What follows is a delightfully unlikely series of events, including Gene stumbling onto a conspiracy against the governor (Marsha Mason) including... well, I shouldn't say.
Supporting actors include Charles S. Dutton, Peter Strauss, and Gloria Reuben. Plus, of course, Walken at his greasy bad guy best. I remember watching this one on HBO three decades ago, then promptly forgot it until it somehow, finally pinged my radar again.
What I enjoy most is how closely Nick of Time sticks to Walken's 75-minute deadline. The movie doesn't pull the High Noon trick of putting a clock in each shot, but its 90-minute runtime (including credits) keeps the main action inside the limit, once it's established the characters and the setup.
I can't help but think of Mission: Impossible — Fallout, one of the better entries in the M:I franchise. But the big final action sequence puts a 15-minute (IIRC) timer on a nuclear bomb, and then gives Tom Cruise something like 30 minutes of screen time to stop the countdown. The action sequences are thrilling, but at some point, you can't help but feel the tension deflate as 15 minutes stretch into infinity.
Nick of Time has no such problem, and if the movie isn't perfect, it's perfectly taut — and stays that way because it never wears out its welcome.
It should have been a hit. But it isn't too late to give it a shot.
A Perfect Getaway (2009)
I can't say very much about A Perfect Getaway without giving away the perfect plot twist — and one audiences only have to wait exactly the right amount of time before the big reveal.
But I will say this. You start with an attractive and talented cast that includes Milla Jovovich, Timothy Olyphant, Steve Zahn, Kiele Sanchez, and also Milla Jovovich in a bikini. Stick them in a gorgeous tropical location as two couples who stumble across one another, happily enough, and then feel the dread slowly kick in and amp up as the couples learn more about each other in the wake of a double homicide...
...with a young couple as the prime suspects.
There are reveals, intentional and unintentional, that are as exquisitely timed as an atomic clock.
Writer-director David Twohy also did the screenplays for The Fugitive, Pitch Black, and the underrated The Arrival from 1996 — so he knows a thing or two about putting together an effective thriller. (We'll just ignore his misfires, because there have been a few embarrassments during his long career.)
But A Perfect Getaway is no misfire. It's probably his best screenplay since The Fugitive, and his best directorial effort, period.
Yet even with a paltry $14 million budget, the film maybe broke even.
In its "WTF Happened to A Perfect Getaway?" breakdown, JoBlo Horror Originals put it perfectly: "Writer-director David Twohy set out to break traditional structure, weaponize audience expectations, and deliver a face-melting twist long before the final act."
I think maybe the studio just didn't know how to sell a movie that refused to conform to Hollywood norms.
Which might just make it my favorite on this list.
And that's it: just Five Perfect Little Thrillers for you.
I hope you'll enjoy.
I'd also love to see your Perfect Little Thriller suggestions in the comments because five just isn't enough.
Last Thursday: A Tale of Two Cities
