I know what you’re thinking.

“How does he know what I’m thinking?”

I also know what you were thinking before that.

“True Lies? Sure, it may be an adrenaline fueled roller coaster ride of thrills, laughs and spills, but one of the greatest movies ever made? Behave!”

Well allow me to put your mind at ease. That reaction is involuntary. It’s programmed into us. As human beings we’re taught from an early age that The Beatles are the best band ever, Muhammad Ali was the greatest boxer of all time, and action movies are just big, noisy distractions for teens with low attention spans and real movie buffs should be watching Werner Herzog movies.

Well, fuck Werner Herzog. I loved Bad Lieutenant as much as the next man, but he’s not the be all and end all of film making. There’s a plethora of wonderful movies out there across all different genres. And while I have the utmost respect for the works of people like Herzog, or Orsen Welles, Christopher Nolan, Akira Kurosawa, or loads of other people who I found by Googling “respected film makers”, I also appreciate that there’s unsung heroes out there just like in music, or boxing, or any other medium.

I mean, look at music. You’ve got the classics like The Beatles, the Stones, Bob Dylan, Led Zep, Floyd… they’re always going to hit the top of the lists. They’ll always be up there. But we need to think for ourselves. We can’t just accept that they’re the best because the people at NME or Q Magazine tell us so every couple of years when they run out of ideas and do another “The Best Bands of All Time” list.

Imagine. You’re in a pub talking about music to a barfly you’ve just met. Everything is going swimmingly. And then you drop the nuclear bomb of controversy that is “Yeah I don’t really like The Beatles… I’m more of a Ned’s Atomic Dustbin guy” and it’s like you’ve just announced your allegiance to Nazism and you’ve got a fetish for setting kittens on fire. The jukebox goes off. The barman slowly slides his hand under the bar to reach for his baseball bat in case things kick off. A deathly silence takes over the room. For all intents and purposes, this place just turned into a saloon from the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Things started good, then you said something bad, and now you better believe things are going to boot off big stylie.

Sure, you probably deserve it; The Beatles were super-sweet. But the point is, you don’t need to limit yourself to the “classics” and you shouldn’t be ashamed to admit your love for something that doesn’t fit within the boundaries of socially acceptable “bests”. Listen to Radiohead as much as you like, but don’t automatically write off every other band that didn’t start twiddling knobs instead of playing guitars. Love Muhammad Ali, but don’t… yeah I don’t know anything about boxing apart from what I learned in Rocky films so just make up your own analogy for this one. You see what I’m saying.

If you tell me that The Killers are your favourite band, better than all other bands, ever, in the history of time, then I’ll accept it and respect you as long as you put your point across. Sure, I’d have to fight to stop myself from breaking out laughing, but it’s your opinion, man, and you’re welcome to it. You’re welcome to The Killers too. Keep them. They’re fucking awful.

Anyway, the point of this diatribe is that action movies are kick ass (yeah, I know, we took the scenic route, okay?) and that they shouldn’t be instantly dismissed as great movies because they’re not Schindler’s List or from the 30s. And yeah, they probably won’t be talked about by hipsters sat in Starbucks wearing scarves indoors in July, but frankly, I don’t care for coffee that costs more than a beer, and I couldn’t care less if every one of the smug, chin-stroking cunts gets their scarves caught in revolving doors and end up redecorating the windows in arterial spray red.

And so it comes to this. Finally. Four things that make True Lies one of the greatest movies ever made.

1. The Bridge Sequence (feat. Pelican)

Sure, that might look like the name of a post-rock song, but in actual fact the truth is far simpler and it won’t take nineteen minutes of feedback to get to the point. The pelican in question is just your plain old, run of the mill pelican. He can’t play guitar. He can’t shoot hoops. But this pelican will go down in folklore. This pelican should have got the best supporting actor oscar. This pelican… in fact, let’s back up a bit and set the scene.

Terrorists have just encased a nuclear bomb in concrete and buried it on an island off the West coast of America. They’ve got a couple more bombs and they’re not afraid to use them. They’re making good their escape in a limo and several vans. The limo contains Arnold Schwarzeneggers wife who has been taken hostage by the nefarious Tia Carrera. Arnie is in pursuit in a helicopter and he’s just called in some fighter jets from the local air-force base to help out. Shit is going down. Right down.

This has all the makings of a great movie scene, and by great movie scene, I of course mean shit blowing up real good. Suffice to say, the jet pilots aren’t taking any chances in letting these terrorists get to the mainland, so they blow up half of the fucking bridge with missiles. Say what you will about James Cameron, but you give that guy a few hundred million, and he invests it wisely. Oh boy does that bridge blow up.

Shit is getting serious now. The bridge is out. It’s falling apart. One of the vans sees this upcoming potentially hazardous twenty foot pothole and slams on the brakes. The van skids. Will he make it? Won’t he? It’s dry and he’s got pretty good tires. He might just you know. Slowly, the van screeches to a halt, dangerously teetering over the edge of the collapsed bridge. The terrorists sit perfectly still to try and make sure they don’t accidentally tip it over the edge. They get it balanced. It’s just like the end of the Italian job. That’s Caine, not Statham. And then… well, actually, I’m going to let YouTube take it from here.

I know, right? Some questions need to be asked here, but one is much more pertinent than any other. I feel it needs to be asked. Why in the fuck does that van explode? It fell like eight feet. Unless it was made out of fire, and that water was made out of petrol, I cannot fathom why that van would explode. It’s instantaneous as well. It’s like the second the license plate on the front of the van scrapes against that broken concrete sticking out of the water the entire thing goes up in a mushroom cloud. How does that even make sense? I can only imagine this was the last scene shot, and James Cameron was under budget by a few thousand dollars and decided to just stuff a Rammstein gigs-worth of pyrotechnics into the thing and go out in style.

Now, I need to point out; I am not mocking the movie here. I do not mock this movie. I do not enjoy it “ironically”. That is for people who are too unsure of themselves to admit they like something that might be deemed uncool. Fuck that. I fucking love this movie. And I’m glad that van exploded. There is never once that I have watched this scene in the movie and not laughed my back off when that van goes up. I would enjoy it less if it didn’t turn into a fireball. It enhances the experience. Classic stuff.

And it’s all down to this little guy right here. I’d like to think that the pelican was flying by looking for a tasty fish supper when he heard the screams of Jamie Lee Curtis, saw that Arnie’s wife was in trouble, and decided to wade in and help out. I’d like to think that maybe this pelican doesn’t suffer fools gladly, and certainly doesn’t suffer motherfuckers who gonna be blowing up America with nuclear bombs and shit gladly. Not on his watch. The fact remains that we will never know the true intentions of the pelican. We will never know what string of coincidences or chain of events led to his intervention. What we do know is the consequences of his intervention, and the charred remains of three scumbag terrorists are a testament to that.

Thank you, pelican. We salute you.

2. Bill Paxton (AKA Simon AKA Carlos the Jackal)

Bill Paxton is a role man. He’s not a leading man, unless you thought Twister rocked, in which case you’re probably reading this post in a library in between sniffing the seats girls were using before they saw you drooling and left. Yes, I’m insinuating you have mental problems and you only found this page by searching #girls #library #seats #sniff. I included those tags just to catch you, pervert.

Anyway, where were we? Oh, Bill Paxton. Yeah, he’s a role man. He’s the sort of guy you can hire to turn up to be in a movie for ten minutes, he’ll steal the show, take the movie from a nine to a ten, and get all the best lines. Think about John Torturro in the Big Lebowski. He turns up for two minutes as Jesus Quintana and it’s probably the greatest two minutes of cinema the Coen brothers ever constructed (<— bold statement). All it took was a hair net, the Gipsy Kings cover of Hotel California, an audacious purple outfit, and John Torturro. That’s a role man. And Bill Paxton is great at that.

It almost makes you wonder how awesome a movie would be if you just hired Bill Paxton to be the lead, but then you remember Twister and put that thought safely back in the “Don’t open even in case of emergency” compartment of your brain. File it next to “Hire James Corden to host awards show” and “Invite Kerry Katona to wine and cheese night” and then leave it there for the remainder of your days, praying that Alzheimer’s will take that section of your brain from you before it takes remembering how to walk, or that you think Robbie Williams is a smug, chimpanzee faced cunt.

So back on point, Bill Paxton turns up in True Lies as what appears to be a secret agent targeting Arnie’s wife. Possibly for information. Possibly to use her as leverage against Arnie. Who knows what his agenda could be? But then we find out it’s just because he wants to bone her (I know, right) and he’s not really a secret agent at all. You see, that’s merely just a yarn he spins babes (and bowling shoe ugly housewives) in order to get their laughing gear around his John Thomas. He’s an utter, utter douche bag. He’s a king among men.

It’s great watching him in action as he tries to sleaze his way into Jamie Lee Curtis’ knickers. The line, “If not for me… do it for your country?” will always go down as a personal favourite; the desperate Hail Mary of a man getting shot down but who really wants to get his dagger wet. It’s great stuff. But there’s two Simon related scenes in particular that steal the show.

One is when Arnie finally gets his own back on the guy, dangles him over the edge of a dam, and our intrepid would-be secret agent/ladykiller breaks down in tears and wets himself. The other is the scene where Arnie first meets him and tries to work out if he’s really a spy or not. Again, I’m going to let Bill take over here on YouTube, because simply writing out the words would do a disservice to this absolute acting tour de force. They’re talking about Arnie’s wife (without Simon knowing he’s her husband) while Arnold susses out if they’re knocking boots or not.

I have no idea how “Ass like a ten year old boy” can be considered a compliment. Answers on a postcard.

3. Romance, and the most epic kiss of all time

True Lies is a movie that knows how to kill a terrorist or two. It knows how to blow shit up. It’s got that down to a tee. But let’s not forget that Schwarzenegger is a rounded actor, and the movie knows how to handle romance too.

The movie both opens and closes with a tango; rose between the teeth and all. Arnie loves his wife dearly and rescues her from the clutches of evil doers. It’s got Eliza Dushku in it, which isn’t necessarily romantic, but I’d certainly do her, and that’s my idea of romance, baby. This is all mildly romantic stuff here. But the grand daddy of romance is still to come.

When you’re watching some shit with Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant in, they’ll go in for the big kiss at the end. Coldplay or some other awful, middle of the road bore-rock will build to what can be only loosely described as a crescendo, and their lips will meet. Sparks are lacklustre at best. Passion barely pokes its head in through the door. If that’s your idea of romance, then fair play, but I know for a fact that if I was about to get down to brass tacks with Ms Barrymore I’d want some fucking fireworks.

This is a problem that Schwarzenegger handles with aplomb. When Arnie puts the moves on a bitch, you better believe that there is going to be sparks. There’s going to be fireworks. There’s going to be… wait, a nuclear bomb blast?

Yeah, remember earlier when we were talking about the bridge and the pelican and I said that terrorists had put a nuclear bomb in concrete on an island off the West coast? Yeah I wasn’t just saying that. They really did. The bomb is wired to blow. Shit is about to get real. “Don’t look at the blast” a cop shouts. And then as Arnie grabs his wife around the waist and moves in to put the lips on her, the nuclear bomb goes off in the distance, showering them in a glorious, ethereal glow the likes of which only weapons of mass destruction can provide.

Instantly pregnant. No penetration necessary.

And with his wife now quivering with delight, Arnie hops into a fighter jet and gets ready. Because…

4. The End (AKA That ending AKA Oh Christ, rewind that AKA Yes, that really just happened)

Say what you will about James Cameron (again); he knows how to handle a third act.

In this movie there have been some of the greatest stunts, explosions, one liners, and other such delights in the history of action, nay, all cinema. We’ve seen almost everything. Romance, explosions, a pelican. This has been a great movie. But after all this greatness, how could they possibly come up with an ending that could fully deserve to bookend this story? How could they top what had come before? How could it end in a way that didn’t feel like a let down?

Enter Schwarzenegger in a fucking Harrier Jump Jet.

Not content with stopping terrorists on foot, on horseback, and in a helicopter, Arnie takes to the skies once more in a fighter jet to take things to the next level. You see, these terrorist motherfuckers have kidnapped Arnie’s daughter to use as leverage against him and they need to be stopped. Old school street justice. In a plane.

Frankly why anyone would kidnap Arnie’s daughter is a mystery to me. They’ve seen what he does first hand. They know that he’s double hard. They know that killing terrorists to him is like putting the bin out on a night. They know that he will do anything for his family. If I was the terrorists and I’d found out where he lived, I’d have sent him an expensive hamper, a couple of bottles of bubbly, and an extremely apologetic letter before hiding in a bunker in the Middle East for the remainder of my days living off cat food and playing on my Nintendo DSi. No way would I be fucking with this man.

But terrorists are a foolish breed, and these terrorists are no exception. So they kidnap his daughter. He’s super pissed, naturally. And so he hops in a Harrier, takes flight, and heads down town to show them the error of their ways. This results in approximately $10,000,000 in damage. All totally justified.

Meanwhile, Eliza Dushku (that’s Arnie’s kid to you) has stolen some sort of key from the terrorists that allows them to arm their remaining nuclear bombs. She runs to the roof of the skyscraper they’re in (yeah, perfect escape plan) and starts making her way along a crane to get away from the terrorist leader. He promises he won’t hurt her if she gives him the key back. She’s sceptical of this and quite rightly decides to hold on to it. It’s all getting a little bit hairy.

Enter Schwarzenegger in a fucking Harrier Jump Jet. Again.

Long story short, the daughter and the terrorist both end up on the back of the jet, and there’s a bit of a ruckus (that leads to probably the greatest nuts shot ever committed to film) and then after a little bit of trickery, our villain slips and falls from the back of jet, snagging his back pack on a missile. Arnie, never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, looks at his nemesis, smiles wryly, and… well, take it away Arnold…

Yes, I think I’m well within my rights to declare this as the greatest way to finish off a villain in movie history. Nothing will ever top this. Ever. For the rest of my cinema going days I truly believe I will never see any terrorist die in any way that ever gives me as much joy as this does. It is literally incredible.

We could sit here and debate the implausibilities of the situation all day. What we couldn’t sit and debate is how badass it is because we already know how badass it is. OFFICIAL RULING: Fucking badass.

And so this brings us to the end of another wonderful journey together. Those of you who are lucky enough to have seen True Lies, I hope it brought back some wonderful memories. Those of you who haven’t seen it; I am very, very disappointed in you. I think I’ve raised some compelling arguments as to why True Lies is one of the greatest films of all time here. We’ve had some laughs. And plenty of terrorists have met their match. Take care of yourselves, and watch out for pelicans.