Top 3 Modern Action Heroes

As Hollywood’s action heroes go, James Bond is the classic standard, but today, there is a new type of rogue action hero that has set the bar higher than ever before, bringing heightened satisfaction to audiences hanging on to every high-octane chase, death-defying moment, and anything-goes knock-out fight. In that spirit, here are my top three action movie characters of today:

3. Frank Martin – Probably the least known of these three, but certainly noteworthy. There are very few incredible stunts action heroes can pull of these days without being Jackie Chan or Bruce Willis, but Jason Statham manages to pull it off as a modern day rogue who works for no agency and has the bad guy streak in him. His wild card drives both sides of the road as “The Transporter” and comes back just as strong with just as many slick and smooth moves in “Transporter 2” with plenty of gentlemanly codes and rules to make him a contender for a new breed of Bond. Statham never fails to deliver and neither does Martin, and there’s plenty of edge-of-your-seat fun and unbelievable action you can’t help but love.

2. Tie: Jason Bourne & John McClane – There’s no choosing between modern cinema’s most wanted unbeatable spy and its best bruiser New York City detective. From “The Bourne Identity” to “The Bourne Supremacy” to the newly released “Bourne Ultimatum,” Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne only gets better and more determined to find out who he really is and bring down an entire covert government agency by himself with only his lightning-fast reflexes and razor-sharp mind for counterintelligence. Meanwhile, on the other hand, you have the man who just won’t die no matter how hard you try to kill him. From “Die Hard” through “Die Harder” through “Die Hard with a Vengeance” to the final and most recent choice to “Live Free or Die Hard,” Bruce Willis’s John McClane can’t take death for an answer, much less surrender, so sit back and watch all hell break loose as one man brings on the muscle, the wit, and the blind fortitude like only he can. There’s no better guarantee for a perfect standoff or better odds for the underdog than these two hardcore action guys, one in all seriousness and one just all out fun.

1. Jack Bauer – Well, there’s one action hero who outdoes them all. He defies conventions, categorization and comparison, and he hails from the small screen. My pick for ultimate action hero is none other than Jack Bauer. Kiefer Sutherland’s harried and unstoppable CTU agent gives “24” all of its adrenaline and whirlwind momentum. We go through it all with him and watch him lone wolf it through an entire warehouse full of armed terrorists to come out on top of one of the greatest fight/action sequences on television of all time this past season, and that’s just what he’s done lately. If it came down to a battle royal between Jack and my three choices from film listed above, all my bets would be on Jack. That truly is the power of Bauer.

The first three of these guys have movies this year, one just passed, one just out, and one just on its way (though that’s just Jason Statham vs. Jet Li, but I’d pay to see that action just the same). And Jack is back in January as usual. Now if you want to talk action heroines, that’s a whole other story.