Blood, Guns, and Testosterone: Action Films, Audiences, and a Thirst for Violence
Although this book’s title makes it sound like a high-octane look at action movies, it is in fact more akin to a film-school text: analytical, philosophical, and written in a dry, measured style. The author is a self-admitted action-movie fan, but for some reason he doesn’t catch the reader up in his enthusiasm. He devotes the bulk of the book to examining how various interview subjects react to—and relate to—action films, observing others, when we’d much rather hear about his own experiences and reactions (he does touch on these, but only briefly). The book is full of insightful scholarship—Donovan’s discussion of the evolution of the action hero (John Wayne and Gary Cooper to Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone) is quite insightful—but the slow pace of the text likely won’t appeal to movie fans looking for an exciting survey of their favorite genre. On the other hand, film-school students will no doubt embrace the book for its detailed analysis of the tropes of the genre. Overall it’s a solid, well-researched study, but a punchier writing style and a more personal perspective might have made it appeal to a wider audience. --David Pitt