WAR MACHINE - 2026

Brand new for 2026 and it's Alan Richson saving the world against an invasion from out in space....yeah I know, it's a bit on the far fetched side but it's really very good and its got lots of great action in it to.

JADE AMANTEA is the Stunt Coordinator and RYAN TARRAN is Richson's double. Huge fun.....enjoy

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to this week's look at the world of action and stunts on film and television. This week we're looking at a movie that relies on realism in a very unrealistic plot. Brought to you by the director who gave us Expendables 3 and the Hitman's Bodyguard movies of Patrick Hughes and starring the man Mountain that's been very busy lately after coming to the public's attention with his wonderful portrayal as Lee Child's ex-military policeman with a very particular set of skills with the one and only Jack Reacher as played by Alan Richardson. This is War Machine.

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You're one of the most promising candidates we've ever seen. Why are you here? I just want to get across that finish line, Sergeant Major. Rangers are the spearhead of the United States Army. Do you understand me? Hey, slow down, Superman. Make the rest of us look bad. You can expect your emotional, physical, and mental strength to be pushed to the limit. Keep your eyes open. What the hell is that? Good morning, everybody. I think it's coming.

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The idea is that Richon's character makes a deal with his brother in Afghanistan, begrudgingly, to join the Rangers, an elite force similar to the SAS. But moments after agreeing to this, the unit his brother is serving in is practically wiped out by enemy fire. Now Richson's character is also hit up but vows to carry out his brother's wishes and join the Rangers. Come hell or high water. During the training, all applicants are simply referred to by numbers. Richson is 81, and whilst on final exercise, he and his team of new recruits come across a remarkable force that originates in another galaxy. Filmed in New Zealand, it's a visually stunning film with very realistic action. The stunt coordinator is Jade Amenty, who's been in the business since 2005 with work on Kath and Kim and a job or two on Neighbours before later then working as one of the stunt riggers on Wolverine. And in 2015 he got his first coordinating job on the miniseries Gallipoli. 2021's Mortal Kombat was the first lead coordinating job after a bunch of assistant coordinating gigs on pictures that include Alien Covenant and Shazam. His work here was made much easier by having Alan Richon as the pictures lead. He is referred to as a machine by those on set, and he's absolutely relentless when it comes to physicality in this picture. He has a stunt double, Brian Tarran, who says himself it's the greatest job in the world. He's been Richson's double on all of his pictures since Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare in 2024. He then doubled him in the last series of Reacher, Motor City, and Playdate, which both came out in 2025. Just to give you an idea of how much Alan actually did on the movie, I'll tell you about one of the sequences in the training part of the film. Holding weights in each hand, each candidate is dropped into a swimming pool and made to walk the length of the pool. Now in this day and age, it's not unusual for the stunt double to have been dropped into the water and face replacement carried out, given the impression that Alan was walking the length of the pool as the character 81, but here he did it for real. Working on his breath control, he was able to hold his breath for the entire walk, which as far as the viewer is concerned, it's unbelievably long. He's also doing a great deal of his own swimming, and in one sequence he's attached by a rope and must swim from one side of a very fast-flowing river to the other. Now, in the movie he does this with relative ease, but in reality he had a rope and safety line attached and was swimming against what's technically category 5 rapids, with safety divers in the water and a cameraman who not only was in full diving equipment but is carrying a waterproof camera which he's wearing on a harness on his body. Couple that with additional safety lines, and it makes for a safe, although complicated, sequence. The final scenes filmed are remarkable and makes all of the work just extremely worthwhile. There are a number of occasions when Ryan Tarran takes over and doubles Richson in some very physical gags. An explosion goes off on top of a cliff, and 81 and his team are thrown down the side of a mountain with the force of the explosion. Done in a couple of ways, including using wires, Tarran's fall is lengthy and gnarly as he bounces down the side of the mountain. It's very impressive. CGI was used on this film, but it doesn't take anything away from the stunt performers, it only enhances each sequence. So if you have Netflix, go and check out War Machine while it's still being shown. It is well worth a watch. Join me again on Friday on YouTube where we'll take a deeper dive into some more of the action. But until then, it's bye for now.