Lou likes a good action movie, and quite frankly, so do I.
I will say that I prefer a more story-driven movie over an action flick. However, when those two things can combine, I’m all in! But these days, Lou and I haven’t really been going to the movies all that much, and so we’ve been binging these “on-demand series” that we can watch on TV. We’ve been hooked on a couple of narrative dramas — like Billions and Ballers — but these days, I’m happy to watch just about anything that creates some distraction from my real life.
I get super excited when we stumble across a series that has multiple seasons so we can binge a bunch of episodes in one viewing session and still have plenty of entertainment to look forward to. That kind of metal escape keeps me distracted, and, I love how a series gives you a lot more time to build up a relationship with the main characters than a movie does.
Right now, we’re watching an original series that has way more action than story. But I’m OK with that. It’s series called Strike Back, and it’s pretty darn aggressive — but, it has like seven seasons to watch! (Quantity over quality is kind of my bag in terms of “check-out” viewing these days!)
Strike Back is a British military ops series, and there are plenty of combat scenes, lots of shooting, lots of killing of sinister bad guys, and car chases o’plenty. It kind of gets my blood pumping, and there’s always this “against all odds” scenario running in the through-line where it’s this four-person military special operations team against hundreds of enemy aggressors who have an endless supply of guns with bullets that never seem to hit or harm the main characters. (Hmm.)
But the other night, I think I may have binged one too many episodes in a row for my peabrain to handle…
We were deep into our third episode of the night, and it involved a huge chase scene that took place on this strip of highway in Croatia — I think. (I’m never exactly sure where these people are, and, I’m often puzzled by how they got to where they are so quickly from where I thought they were at the start of the episode.)
Anyway.
In this episode, our four-person, kick-ass-British-special-forces team had just chased down the bad-guys and managed to somehow jackknife the flow of highway traffic to pen them in. But all of these regular motorists got stopped up in the flow, too. Then, when the gunfire started, bullets were flying everywhere, and a hand grenade was casually tossed into a bad guy’s Range Rover, causing a massive explosion that was shot in super-slow-mo for extra dramatics. (Epic!)
But as the battle built up, and the fiery chaos filled our TV screen, I think I started to glaze over a bit. And that’s when I caught myself looking into the cars peppered throughout the scene. I really wanted to see how the various “motorist” in the cars were reacting to the madness taking shape around them. There were probably 20 cars not directly involved in the battle, so it seemed reasonable to me that some of the motorists would be alarmed by what was going on!
The camerawork was mighty good in this scene because there was a lot to capture. But when one of my favorite operatives jumped up onto the trunk of a black BMW and then proceeded to walk up the car to stand on the roof to blister the enemy with heavy machinegun fire, I managed to sneak a peek at the “stranded motorist” in the front seat of the car. He was wearing dark shades and had a totally blank look on his face.
Just another day on the Croatian motorway for him, I guess.
When Lou and I finally wrapped up our TV watching for the night, I got all cozy in my bed, but I couldn’t stop thinking about that darn driver. He was obviously a stunt guy, but what if he was an actor, and he was being paid to depict that scene the way a normal person would react? Well then, he should rethink his acting career because he was totally unbelievable in his role as “BMW Driver Under Attack.”
But what if I was the driver of that car, and this wasn’t a TV series, but rather, my real life? How would I react to the explosions all around me? Or to the combat person standing on the roof of my vehicle, spraying bullets from a machinegun all willy-nilly at people who I have no way of knowing if they deserve to die or not?
I already know the answer to my questions.
I’d be sobbing!
And screaming hysterically!
And I’d be rocking back and forth with terror and fear!
Of course, you might miss some of my reactions because I also know I’d be ducked down on the floorboard of the car, praying my heart out for God to protect me from this shocking violence swirling around me! And…I also know for a fact that I’d be terribly worried about the guy on the roof of my car denting it in. And all of those stray bullets? I know I’d be worried about one hitting me of course, but I’d also be worried that some machinegun spray would hit my car, too! And then I’d be wondering how in the heck I was going to pay to cover all of the damage to my one and only asset! (I’m assuming I’m the owner of the car, of course, and it’s not a lease — because that kind of drama would be so much worse.)
Ugh. I can be such a specific thinker.
Clearly, I know that the audience is only supposed to focus on the hero of an action thriller — not the regular guy who gets T-boned in an intersection when the hero threads the needle to get away from the bad dude in pursuit. And I know you’re not supposed to wonder about the innocent bystander who gets chucked off of his bike when the good guy is being chased on foot and needs to find a speed advantage. I get all that…
But it’s all of the other people who make up the scene — not just the hero or the villain — that end up hooking me into the story in a way that gets my heart throbbing and my palms sweating. So if I totally avoid thinking about the extras, the scene doesn’t connect as well. And in that episode of Strike Back, I couldn’t stop thinking about this poor old scheloob, who in my mind, was dodging bullets in the front seat of his car after he accidentally drove his black BMW into a messy situation in the middle of a Croatian motorway — and, who, by the way, was on his way to visit his very sick mother! (A good story is built on the details!!)
I guess I can’t stop thinking about that poor guy because the unfolding of events in an action movie might be the single worst thing that could possibly happen at the single most awful moment of his life, and yet the audience is conditioned to move on and forget all about him… There is no camera to follow this guy forward into his life or to capture the huge inconvenience the hero’s triumph may have caused the BMW driver in his reality going forward.
Weirdly, I feel like I identify with the bystanders in life more than the hero of the story these days!
I guess I do want to be the heroine or the lead in my own life story, but the thing is, the narrative I’m currently living just isn’t supporting that reality at the moment. Lately, Lou and I seem to be more like the extras who are in the wrong place at the right time, and while we’re not sad or pathetic about any of it, the most interesting thing about us is how we keep on showing up every day anyway. We keep filling in the scene with a level of realism that rounds out the lives of the fancy people or the stars of the show who get to move into the next big thing in their lives while we stay stuck and kind of left behind.
Please don’t get me wrong. I’m super thankful for this season of my life! I seriously do have so much to be thankful for!! And I know that one day, things in my world will take a different turn, and I’ll be experiencing new things, and stepping into a different story than the one I’m living right now. But one of the things I appreciate the most about my current situation is how much I like noticing the “extras” and the “bystanders” in the actual world around me.
I like doing my best to really see people in my everyday life. And I like to challenge myself to dig deeper into my heart to find new forms of empathy for the situations I observe — especially when something I see going on in the life of someone else seems like it must totally suck. The courage it takes to keep going when things are really trying, or really bleak is something I admire in the anti-heroes I see all around me. We’re all in this life together whether we all see that or not. What I do matters. What you do matters…
Everyone matters.
But it’s the “anti-hero” who inspire me the most right now. The people who roll with the punches and live their lives despite the building drama in the world around them. Because no matter what happens, the anti-hero keeps on showing up, keeps on trying, and does his best every day to keep things real.
I do love my action heroes in Strike Back. They are truly bad to the bone, and when they take down the enemy with their incredible teamwork while dodging bullets with their fantastically honed reflexes, I get absolutely pumped!
