Tough cookies

IN action film annals, women have been generally relegated to supporting or villain roles, with the exception of productions like “Wonder Woman” abroad, and in local films, female action exponents like Celia Fuentes and Alicia Vergel. This year, however, that relatively mild-mannered predisposition has radically changed, due to the feisty female portrayals of Paula Patton in “Ghost Protocol” and Gina Carano in “Haywire.”

In “Ghost Protocol,” Patton was the only female member of the crack team of agents led by Tom Cruise. But, she more than held her own when it came to “snap, crackle and pop!” fight scenes and daring stunts, which she executed not just with blithe aplomb, but also with crunchingly and crushingly believable power.

For her part, in the current actioner, “Haywire,” Carano is no less than the principal protagonist, with the stellar likes of Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, Ewan McGregor and Michael Fassbender “reduced” to her “supporting” players. That’s because the movie’s central plot revolves around top agents’ efforts to kill her, in order to get away with a top-secret “rescue” mission that turns out to have had the opposite intent, and effect.

Emergence

What’s instructive about the emergence of Patton and Carano as the season’s new breed of female action stars is the fact that both of them don’t just execute their fight scenes with believable strength and power, but they’re also exceedingly easy on the eyes. Gone are the days when tough women took care of the action, while a different set of sexy actresses took over when the script called for bedroom calisthenics. These days, stars like Carano and Patton can fill both requirements—no sweat and no problem!

In Carano’s case, she even has the official credentials to assert her claim to the movie’s female action queen throne and crown, because she’s a champion fighter on TV. Unlike many of her ilk who can’t make the shift to acting with sufficient success, however, she does right fine.

And, she’s also a turn-on in sexy scenes—quite ironically, just before, praying mantis-like, she sequentially kills her paramours, who turn out to be faithless lovers in more ways than one.

Now that our two tough cookies have succeeded in making the female action component a major part of some recent films, we wonder if the trend will catch on in local movies and television productions. And, if so, who will be the local screen’s new action queens—perhaps a couple of our homegrown tough cookies from “Survivor Philippines, Celebrity Edition”?

Training

But, even those relatively more experienced talents will have a lot of training to undergo before they can match the high and tough standards set by Patton and Carano in “Ghost Protocol” and “Haywire.” Still, the effort and pain should be worth it, because the fruits of stardom are many and yummy!

Postscript: Just this month, a third new female action wiz has joined the zaftig stellar fray: She’s Genesis Rodriguez, and she creates her own kind of sexy and kinetic excitement in “Man On A Ledge.”

—Keep ‘em coming, feisty ladies!