Lights! Camera! Action!

Book excerpt: Action, action, yet more action. No action film worthy of genre would be caught dead without its fair share of red-hot lead and no-holds-barred fisticuffs, high-octane pursuits and gravity-defying gymnastics. Then again, nonstop action soon wears thin absent a rooting interest in Last Man Standing First Woman to Cross Finish Line. Rooting interest inheres not in overt action, no matter how artfully choreographed or breathtakingly executed. Rather, rooting interest comes from empathy for the protagonist and, more precisely, from the dramatic action embodied by the protagonist's struggle to accomplish a worthy goal opposed by a formidable foe. Action is a double-edged blade, overt action being a necessary but insufficient condition to sustain viewer interest, which soars and ebbs to extent that dramatic action intersects with-injects meaningfulness into-gunplay and fistfest, acrobatics and pyrotechnics. Lights! Camera! Action! spotlights the essential elements of action comedy, action romance, and action adventure. It underscores the crucial distinction between overt and dramatic action, which a screenwriter must weave together in order for an action script to hum and shimmer, pulsate and zing.