The United States of Action

Today is the Fourth of July and that means Americans everywhere are celebrating Independence Day with fireworks, barbecues, concerts and parades. Here at Bulletproof Action we are letting freedom ring with a list of action movies from sea to shining sea!

I have selected one action movie for every state based on where that movie (or at least a portion of it) was set. This list was a challenging undertaking and I do want to thank those who assisted in filling in some of the gaps. As you might imagine, some states were tough to find an action movie match for. Some good old fashioned “American ingenuity” was used for a few states. Then there were other states like California, Illinois and New York that had so many options the toughest part was settling on just one.

With the preamble out of the way, allow me to present to you The United States of Action…

ALABAMA

What better way to illustrate the United States of America’s reputation of being a “melting pot” than with Castle Falls, a movie set in Alabama starring the English born Scott Adkins and the Swedish born Dolph Lundgren.

ALASKA

Alaska benefitted from Steven Seagal’s “Eco Warrior” phase in 1994’s On Deadly Ground. Seagal’s Forrest Taft takes on an evil oil company helmed by Michael Jennings (played by Michael Caine), who appeared to have used some of his crude oil to dye his hair.

ARIZONA

Detective Ben Shockley (Clint Eastwood) has been tasked to escort a prostitute (Sandra Locke) from Las Vegas to Phoenix so she can testify in a high profile mob trial in The Gauntlet. That proves to be easier said than done and many are betting on the fact that the duo won’t make it to The Grand Canyon State.

ARKANSAS

In White Lightning, the crooked Sheriff J.C. Connors (Ned Beatty) finds out the hard way that you don’t mess with the family of Gator McKlusky (Burt Reynolds) and get away with it. White Lightning was released in 1973, I am not sure in the fifty years since its release if the great state of Arkansas still has moonshiners, but I do know they have a lot of places to buy used physical media.

CALIFORNIA

The Golden State has produced a lot of action gold over the years, but who better to represent the state than a man who was its Governor… Arnold Schwarzenegger! Arnold had plenty of movies that were set in California, but my personal favorite is 1985’s Commando.

COLORADO

If I have said it once, I have said it a thousand times… Mr. Majestyk is the greatest action movie about a watermelon farmer who gets sideways with a mobster in the history of the world. The movie was shot and set in Colorado, which based on 2021 data is not even in the Top 8 watermelon producing states. I bet Colorado was in the Top 8 before that bastard Frank Renda (Al Lettieri) ordered his goons to shoot up all those Majestyk brand melons much to the dismay of Vince Majestyk (Charles Bronson).

CONNECTICUT

Violent Night was a “Christmas in Connecticut” like no other as the baddest Santa (David Harbour) I have ever seen battles mercenaries (led by John Leguizamo’s Scrooge) looking to rob one of the wealthiest (and most dysfunctional) families in America, who call the “overpriced hell hole” Connecticut their home.

DELAWARE

Everyone knows the first rule of Fight Club, but do you know that the 37th rule of Fight Club? That’s the rule that states, don’t worry that Fight Club is a drama with action elements and not a full blown action movie. Some of you may be wondering where my mind was when selecting Fight Club to represent Delaware, but the bare knuckle brawls and the explosive finale allowed me to follow rule 37.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

It is not a state but the District of Columbia is a major part of the United States of America being the home of our capital. It is also the home of the superior “Die Hard at the White House” movie of 2013, Olympus Has Fallen… although I guess that means it is also the home of the inferior “Die Hard at the White House” movie of 2013, White House Down.

FLORIDA

When their father is murdered in epic fashion by the evil Franco, estranged brothers Will Alexander (Loren Avedon) and Casey Alexander (Keith Vitali) make their way to Tampa, Florida to bring their father’s killer to justice. No Retreat, No Surrender 3: Blood Brothers is my personal favorite amongst the Seasonal 7 and for that reason alone it bumped out a lot more mainstream options to represent the Sunshine State.

GEORGIA

Inspired by the Sidney Poitier/Tony Curtis classic, The Defiant Ones, 1996’s Fled finds convicts Piper (Laurence Fishburne) and Dodge (Stephen Baldwin) chained together and on the run in The Peach State after a chain gang escape goes bad. 1996 was quite the year for Stephen Baldwin and domes… first the Bio-Dome and then the Georgia Dome as part of Fled.

HAWAII

1980’s The Final Countdown, starring Martin Sheen and Kirk Douglas, plays a little game of What If? …as in what if a modern aircraft carriers went back in time to 1941, mere hours before the attack on Pearl Harbor and 18 years before Hawaii became the 50th state!

IDAHO

Where do the three escaped Kryptonian super villains land when they first arrive on Earth in Superman II? The answer is the small town of Huston, Idaho, where General Zod, Ursa and Non make their presence felt in destructive fashion.

ILLINOIS

In Rapid Fire, Jake Lo (Brandon Lee) finds himself at odds with Chicago mobster Antonio Serrano (Nick Mancuso) and as a pawn for the grizzled Chicago PD detective, Mace Ryan (Powers Boothe), who is determined to bring Serrano down.

INDIANA

Fred “The Hammer” Williamson’s actual hometown of Gary, Indiana was the setting for 1996’s Original Gangstas. Williamson starred in the film along with fellow Blaxploitation all-stars Jim Brown, Pam Grier, Ron O’Neal and Richard Roundtree.

IOWA

Terminal Impact (aka Cyborg Cop 3) is a prime example of why this list is based on where the movie was set and not where the movie was actually shot. The Nu Image dream team of Frank Zagarino and Bryan Genesse join forces to take on a mad scientist turning college students into cyborg mercenaries in Iowa of all places. And other than the scene where palm trees are visible I was able to suspend my disbelief that all of this action was going down in The Hawkeye State and not Johannesburg, South Africa.

KANSAS

Clark Kent’s return to Smallville, Kansas in Superman III was one element that gave the third installment of the franchise a different feel than its predecessors. Clark is there to attend his high school reunion, which is good because there’s a few jobs for Superman that pop up while he’s there too.

KENTUCKY

James Bond’s work has taken him to exotic locales all around the globe including… Fort Knox, Kentucky!?! Ranked #2 on our 60 Years of Bond Countdown, Goldfinger would find James Bond (Sean Connery) squaring off with Odd Job (Harold Sakata) inside the vaults of Fort Knox.

LOUISIANA

In 1986’s Avenging Force, Matt Hunter (Michael Dudikoff) battles the vile, white supremacist group known as The Pentangle from The French Quarter all the way to the Louisiana swamps!

MAINE

When you think of Maine and movies, your mind is likely to go to many a movie from the horror genre. For that reason alone it seemed appropriate that the 1999 action/horror mashup, Lake Placid, represented Maine on this list. Lake Placid tells the story of a giant crocodile terrorizing the residents of Black Lake, Maine and those brave enough to stop it (looking at you Bill Pullman).

MARYLAND

After Jack Ryan (Harrison Ford) thwarts a kidnapping attempt of the British Minister of State for Northern Ireland by a radical splinter cell of the IRA, the radicals bring the fight to Ryan’s home in Annapolis, Maryland. Patriot Games also features one of Sean Bean’s more unique death scenes.

MASSACHUSETTS

To me 2014’s The Equalizer is an example of a reboot done right and I say that as a big fan of the original series. One of the changes the Denzel Washington film made compared to the television series was the setting. The show was based in New York City, but the movie Boston, Massachusetts.

MICHIGAN

A downtrodden Detroit served as the perfect backdrop for the 1987 action masterpiece that is RoboCop. The movie has one of the greatest rogue’s gallery of villains in any movie and villains of that magnitude require a hero of even greater magnitude and RoboCop was that hero… Part Man… Part Machine… All Cop!

MINNESOTA

Minnesota may be the “Land of 10,000 Lakes” but they don’t have anywhere close to that number of action movies, but thankfully WWE Studios helped me out here with their 2016 film, Interrogation. The movie stars WWE Hall of Famer Edge (aka Adam Copeland) as an FBI Agent who uncovers a plot that threatens Minneapolis. C.J. Perry (aka Lana during her time with WWE) also was featured as an IT expert, shattering the stereotype of what an IT expert is supposed to look like.

MISSISSIPPI

In Stone Cold, Brian Bosworth (or The Boz for those in the know) plays a cop who goes undercover and infiltrates a Mississippi biker gang led by Lance Henriksen. Stone Cold is filled with some crazy stunts, some colorful characters and for pro wrestling historians, it even has “Mega Man” Tom Magee!

MISSOURI

Starring the versatile Patrick Swayze, Road House took a staple of the action movie genre, the bar fight, and centered a whole movie around it. Swayze’s Dalton not only cleans up the Double Deuce bar, but basically the whole town of Jasper, Missouri too.

MONTANA

I don’t believe the movie ever specifies exactly where the Anderson house is located in Nowhere to Run, but I do know the license plates on the prison bus are Montana plates and that was good enough for me. Let’s talk about that prison bus for a moment… not only was Jean-Claude Van Damme on the bus, so were several action heavies including Sven-Ole Thorsen, Manny Perry, Thomas Rosales Jr. and Peter Malota.

NEBRASKA

Slipping into Darkness is one of the more obscure movies on the list, it is no surprise that it was covered by our resident hidden gem lover, Matt Spector. It is also no surprise that a movie shot in and set in Nebraska has a big action set piece that takes place on a farm!

NEVADA

When I think of movies set in Las Vegas, I can’t help but think of many a PM Entertainment production, but my favorite of the bunch is 1993’s To Be the Best starring Michael Worth. Sin City and combat sports go hand in hand, so it only makes sense that Las Vegas hosts a huge kickboxing competition between the American team (led by Worth’s Eric Kulhane) and the Thailand team (led by Steven Vincent Leigh’s Hong Do)!

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Students from Brantford High School (located in Brantford, New Hampshire) are sucked into an old Jumanji video game and that’s when the jungle action and adventure begins in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. Once inside the game, the students find themselves at odds with the evil archeologist Professor Van Pelt in their avatar forms including Dr. Xander “Smolder” Bravestone played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

NEW JERSEY

He was New Jersey’s first superhuman-hero and one of Troma’s greatest gifts to the movie world… I am of course talking about The Toxic Avenger! 1984’s The Toxic Avenger shares Toxie’s origin story and his battle with the corrupt mayor of Tromaville, New Jersey.

NEW MEXICO

After Thor (Chris Hemsworth) pisses off his dad Odin (Anthony Hopkins), Odin banishes his son to Earth, more specifically New Mexico. It is in “The Land of Enchantment” that Thor meets astrophysicist Dr. Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) and before long, love is in the air!

NEW YORK

There were many classic action movies I could have selected for New York, but instead of making that agonizing decision I decided to go with something more modern… 2014’s John Wick. John Wick is a true New Yorker, even as the franchise grew and the we got to see John Wick in action all over the globe, he always came home to New York. And it is New York where we first met “Baba Yaga” in 2014 and saw him do what he does best.

NORTH CAROLINA

It was man versus machine at a North Carolina truck stop with plenty of AC/DC to go around in 1986’s Maximum Overdrive. To this day the only Stephen King movie actually directed by Stephen King… a coked out of his mind Stephen King, but Stephen King none the less.

NORTH DAKOTA

2017’s Logan covers a lot of ground in North America, but for the purposes of this exercise we are focusing on Logan and Laura’s time in North Dakota.

OHIO

As a lifelong resident of The Buckeye State, I can’t even begin to tell you how incredibly proud I am that Rolling Vengeance, a monster truck vigilante movie, is representing Ohio.

OKLAHOMA

Oklahoma is one of the states located in Tornado Alley, so it is fitting that 1996’s Twister represents The Sooner State. Starring Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt, Twister also famously features a flying cow.

OREGON

When I first thought of movies based in Oregon, I couldn’t help but think of The Goonies. An all-timer from where I sit and while it probably would lean more towards the adventure in action and adventure it would have been good enough for me. Then I remembered a little family friendly Chuck Norris movie that was shot in Oregon and features Chuck stopping a chainsaw with his bare hands! I am of course talking about the Nu Image film, Forest Warrior!

PENNSYLVANIA

Tom Cruise may not have been the ideal Jack Reacher, but Pittsburgh made for an ideal backdrop for the Christopher McQuarrie directed Jack Reacher. With plenty of Steel City landmarks featured, 2012’s Jack Reacher is definitely a product of The Keystone State.

RHODE ISLAND

Home of our very own “Toyman” Chris DePetrillo and Figures Toy Company, Rhode Island is also the home of one of the more unique movies on our list… Osmosis Jones. The hero is a quick witted white blood cell, the villains are a virus and his germ cohorts and it all takes place in Rhode Island… well, inside the body of a zookeeper who works and lives in Rhode Island.

SOUTH CAROLINA

I decided to go historical for the South Carolina entry with The Patriot… something Mel Gibson has done numerous times over the course of his career. Gibson’s Benjamin Martin is a colonist living in rural South Carolina, who opposes a war with Great Britain but ends up caught up in it anyway.

SOUTH DAKOTA

It is no secret that Mount Rushmore is located in South Dakota. It is also no secret that Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage) and his team end up at Mount Rushmore as part of their quest in 2007’s National Treasure: Book of Secrets.

TENNESSSEE

McNairy County, Tennessee was as corrupt as could be at the start of 1973’s Walking Tall. But that was before former professional wrestler Buford Pusser (Joe Don Baker) was elected sheriff and started cleaning up the town with his big stick.

TEXAS

Who better to represent the Lone Star State than a Texas Ranger? And before he was Walker, Chuck Norris was J.J. McQuade in 1983’s Lone Wolf McQuade. Popeye may have had his spinach, but all McQuade needed to get out of a tough situation (like being buried alive) was a can of Pearl beer. The movie also features David Carradine in an argyle sweater.

UTAH

After shooting a teenager in the line of duty as a big city cop, China O’Brien (Cynthia Rothrock) vows to never touch a gun again and moves back home to Utah. Once she gets back, China soon finds out that it’s not the same small town she left years ago. After her father, Sheriff O’Brien is murdered… China battles those responsible with the help of her friends Matt (Richard Norton) and Dakota (Keith Cooke). The formula worked so well in China O’Brien, they almost immediately ran it back in the sequel because Utah, get me two!

VERMONT

Special thanks to Mystery Science Theater 3000 for bringing this one to my attention many moons ago. The sci-fi actioner, Time Chasers features one of the worst protagonists in the history of action cinema, Matthew Bruch’s Nick Miller. Miller’s time traveling plane falls into greedy corporate hands and time traveling chaos ensues. And it all takes place in present day, future and past Vermont.

VIRGINIA

The same shit happened to the same guy twice, but the second time it happened to John McClane (Bruce Willis) it was at Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Virginia. Die Hard 2 is every bit as fun as the original, with the airport setting and the surrounding area allowed the sequel to expand on the winning formula.

WASHINGTON

All John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) wanted was something to eat while he was in Hope, Washington. But Sheriff Teasle (Brian Dennehy) had other ideas and as a result, everyone got to enjoy the magnificence of the Pacific Northwest wilderness in First Blood.

WEST VIRGINIA

In the 2015 action comedy American Ultra, Mike Howell (Jesse Eisenberg) finds out if he tries to leave his home state of West Virginia, he suffers intense panic attacks and has no idea why… but the Central Intelligence Agency does!

WISCONSIN

Charles Bronson plays Paul Fein, the patriarch of a family of cops in the 1995 TV movie, Family of Cops! The Fein family calls Milwaukee, Wisconsin their home and enough people must have invited them into their homes because there were two sequels that aired on CBS in 1997 and 1999 respectively. I believe this was the blueprint for the now long running CBS series, Blue Bloods.

WYOMING

Wrapping up this long list with Howie Long as firefighter Jesse Graves, who battles fires (duh) and escaped convicts in the forests of Wyoming, in 1998’s Firestorm!