Hall of Fame: Joe Armstrong and Curtis Jackson

Take a minute and think of the most iconic duos in action movie history… I’ll wait. For most, you may not land on Armstrong and Jackson without a little help, but for The Brain and myself, Armstrong and Jackson are as important to the action game and our development as fans than nearly every other combination.

Best friends do everything together. They go boating, they take turns killing ninjas, they travel down to the Caribbean, they stop international drug rings who use ninjas as assassins, and sometimes they fight each other wearing buckets on their heads.

American Ninja and American Ninja 2 are the two films which provide us the look into the friendship and ultimately the heroic actions of Armstrong and Jackson. They start out as a couple of “Joes” in the Army and by the end of American Ninja 2 they’re a couple of ninja-killing badasses with a combined kill count that would rival anyone.

American Ninja finds Joe as the newest member of company of American soldiers in the islands of the Philippines. Corporal Jackson and Private Armstrong don’t start off as besties. In fact, Jackson lays it on Joe pretty good and it isn’t until Joe proves to Jackson that he’s not some chump that can be pushed around that they finally bond. I’ve always said that the best way to bond is to get in a shirtless fist fight in public. Eventually the two combine their martial arts skills to form the half-and-half cookie of the action world.

Joe and Curtis returned to the screen two years later with the duo heading down a beautiful Caribbean island to discover why some Marines have gone missing. Why these two are being sent to investigate something like that doesn’t have to be explained. Just assume that the powers that be acknowledged the success that the Joe/Curtis combination enjoyed against a serious crew of ninjas so they thought they could handle a little missing persons business. This sequel is one of my favorite sequels in movie history. While I’ve always loved American Ninja, I think the friendship between the two make American Ninja 2 the better film. Not surprisingly, Joe and Curtis find themselves smack dab in the middle of another ninja conspiracy and they’re forced to rip their shirts off and break as many necks as needed to stop the evildoers.

Michael Dudikoff and Steve James’s career received a massive boost in part to the success of the first two American Ninja films. Dudikoff was a newcomer to the action genre when the first film was released but Steve James had quite a few movies under his belt already. James would return to the next film in the series, American Ninja 3 with David Bradley, but the loss of the Joe Armstrong/Curtis Jackson dynamic didn’t help the film and it’s arguably the worst movie in the series.

Before I go, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention just how well the film Avenging Force fits in with American Ninja and American Ninja 2 as one hell of an action trilogy. It features both actors as friends who are fighting against some bad dudes (not ninjas) but if you really want to do this three movie marathon you’ll need to do what I do to get around the name changes of James and Dudikoff and accept one thing; both men changed their names post-ninja fighting in an attempt to lead normal lives. It’s not perfect but it gets around the difference in names and it allows me to enjoy the movie even more.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this year’s newest inductees into the Bulletproof Action Hall of Fame and don’t forget to hit us up on social media and let us know who should make the list next year.