Slapstick tends to involve lots of physical comedy, broadly appealing humor, and comic violence, so the idea of a slapstick action movie really isn’t too out-there. Sure, lots of action movies don’t feature much broad comedy, and a good many comedic action movies don’t really feature much slapstick (especially if they’re buddy comedies, like Lethal Weapon, or superhero movies), but some deliver good action with slapstick sensibilities.
The movies ranked below are intended to highlight the best of the best, when it comes to films that scratch this very particular itch. Some movies here are quite violent, while others are likely to appeal to anyone of any age. They’re all quite funny and exciting in equal measure, and generally do a pretty good job of transcending language/cultural barriers, too.
10
‘Kung Fu Hustle’ (2004)
Directed by Stephen Chow
Thanks to it functioning as both a martial arts movie and a parody of martial arts movies, all the while being like a live-action cartoon in style and pacing, Kung Fu Hustle is a prime example of a slapstick action flick. Narratively, it’s not too wild or unpredictable, with a story that hits so many martial arts-related beats, but it’s all in the style, which is anything but conventional.
The action scenes in Kung Fu Hustle are often genuinely impressive, as far as choreography and stuntwork go, while some other set pieces go so gonzo that they become more comedic than they are exciting. Either way, this sort of approach ensures Kung Fu Hustle is always entertaining and unexpectedly surprising, even with that story being, at its core, very in line with martial arts movies of old.
9
‘The Three Musketeers’ (1973)
Directed by Richard Lester
There’s naturally going to be a sense of adventure and action whenever The Three Musketeers gets a movie adaptation, since the story is perhaps the quintessential swashbuckler. It’s about a young man falling in with the three titular characters, clashing with some other eccentric individuals and then, more generally speaking, lots of people get into sword fights, chase each other around, and banter.
It’s sort of a comedy, or at least feels light-hearted enough, as an action/adventure movie, to often feel comedic. It’s breezy enough to work as both, and it’s all very physical, with a ton of movement and action, with it all feeling quite bombastic and grand (it’s got a great cast, too). Maybe The Three Musketeers (1973) won’t be everyone’s cup of tea entirely, but it’s a pretty safe bet most people will enjoy at least some of it.
- Release Date
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December 11, 1973
- Runtime
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106 minutes
- Director
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Richard Lester
- Writers
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George MacDonald Fraser
8
‘The World’s End’ (2013)
Directed by Edgar Wright
As can be expected from a movie in the Cornetto trilogy, The World’s End has a good deal of comedy, and it’s all very varied, too. Like with Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, some of the humor here is very physical and slapstick-y, and then eventually, what begins as a romp about drinking and middle-aged angst becomes a bit more action-focused.
There’s another genre The World’s End rather brazenly taps into, and most probably know what that is by now, but it happens late enough into the film that, on the off chance you haven’t seen the movie, it won’t be ruined here. This one doesn’t get quite as much love as the other Cornetto trilogy movies, but it should. It hits the same way they did while also, in some ways, feeling a little more mature.
7
‘Pineapple Express’ (2008)
Directed by David Gordon Green
Before he made some not very good horror movies, David Gordon Green dabbled in comedy + action much more effectively, if Pineapple Express was anything to go by, at least. The plot here involves two people who are constantly high having to go on the run after one of them witnesses a murder, which puts their lives in danger, seeing as it was a corrupt cop with powerful friends who committed said murder.
“Plot” is generous, because it’s really just a set-up for Pineapple Express to be continually goofy, violent, and over-the-top, and it all works surprisingly well if you’re after something gleefully dumb. Stoner comedies aren’t too rare, but seeing one with this much physical humor and a great deal of violent action? That’s what helps Pineapple Express stand out.
6
‘Drunken Master II’ (1994)
Directed by Lau Kar-Leung
Apologies for not including various other Jackie Chan movies here, but Drunken Master II feels like the most appropriate one to pick, when the topic at hand is movies that are simultaneously slapstick and action-focused. The plot here isn’t too important, but sees Chan’s character getting wrapped up in a conflict surrounding some ancient Chinese artifacts, with him defeating enemies thanks to his distinctive Drunken Boxing style.
Sometimes, he’s literally drunk, and that naturally leads to the fight scenes being offbeat and quite funny. But Drunken Master II also has an impressive level of spectacle, and the hand-to-hand action sequences are some of the best Jackie Chan has ever been featured in. The comedy here generally isn’t quite as strong as the action, but that’s less a dig at the comedy and more a testament to just how mind-blowing the fight sequences are.
5
‘It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World’ (1963)
Directed by Stanley Kramer
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World isn’t just an action/comedy movie, and is instead of one of those rare – and true – epic comedies. Epics often revolve around more serious or emotional narratives, but here, chaos is the name of the game, and the entire film just involves a bunch of people all racing each other to find the location of a buried fortune.
Everyone is selfish at best, and kind of sociopathic at worst, and watching them all stumble over each other while causing massive amounts of (surprisingly funny) destruction is a blast. In the more than six decades since It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, nothing has quite come close to matching its wildness, even if some movies, like The Cannonball Run and Rat Race, admittedly sort of tried.
4
‘Sherlock Jr.’ (1924)
Directed by Buster Keaton
Few people put slapstick comedy and action together quite as well as Buster Keaton did. And, even more impressively, he did this more than a century ago, while being both director and actor, as Sherlock Jr. demonstrates quite well. At 45 minutes, it’s barely feature-length by even a generous definition of the term, but it packs a wild amount into just three quarters of an hour.
Sherlock Jr. proves remarkably innovative and forward-thinking because of the comedic approach it takes, all the while being surprisingly exciting.
Keaton plays an imaginative film projectionist who has aspirations of being a detective, and then he gets framed for something, and has to do his best to be, you know, a detective, so that he can clear his name. Film and “reality” collapse in on themselves, and Sherlock Jr. proves remarkably innovative and forward-thinking because of the comedic approach it takes, all the while being surprisingly exciting on an action front.
3
‘Hundreds of Beavers’ (2022)
Directed by Mike Cheslik
Keeping the spirit of Buster Keaton alive a century on from when he was more or less defining what action movies could be, Hundreds of Beavers is a mostly silent action/comedy movie that has to be seen to be believed. It unfolds almost like watching someone playing a role-playing game, too, miraculously functioning as a silent film homage and something of a faux-let’s play at the same time, all the while being lots of other things, too.
Hundreds of Beavers is gonzo and chaotic, but does nonetheless play by its own strange rules, and goes to painstaking lengths to naturally set up all those crazy rules (and without dialogue, too). That it all works as well as it does, and is paced in a way where just about every new scene is funnier than the last… well, again, it has to be seen, and even then, you still might not believe.
- Release Date
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February 9, 2024
- Runtime
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108 Minutes
- Director
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Mike Cheslik
- Writers
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Mike Cheslik, Ryland Brickson Cole Tews
2
‘The General’ (1926)
Directed by Clyde Bruckman, Buster Keaton
A couple of years after Sherlock Jr., Buster Keaton made what’s probably his best film: The General, which was even grander in scope and more spectacular, not to mention more easily definable as an action movie. All that being said, it was probably more linear than Sherlock Jr., really just being about Keaton’s character trying to rescue the love of his life and his beloved train after both are stolen during the Civil War.
It’s got adventure, war, comedy, action, romance… not all the genres, sure, a good many of them, and all within a runtime that’s not much longer than an hour. The General is still an impressive filmmaking accomplishment about a century on from when it first came out, and is honestly a good gateway movie into silent cinema as a whole, if you’ve not watched many films that came out before, say, 1930 or so.
1
‘The Blues Brothers’ (1980)
Directed by John Landis
Some of the aforementioned movies feel like miracles of filmmaking and tone-balancing, but none impress on that front to the same extent that The Blues Brothers does. This manages to be a musical, a borderline live-action cartoon, a crime movie, an absurdist comedy, a slapstick film, and an action movie that features some of the most remarkable car chases ever captured on film.
And The Blues Brothers is really just about a couple of guys being dudes. They love blues music, they want to save their orphanage, and they really hate Illinois Nazis. That’s all you need for a movie to be a classic, it turns out, and that word – “classic” – shouldn’t be thrown around too often, but there’s no other way to describe The Blues Brothers. It’s wonderful, absurd, understated, over-the-top, exciting, and hilarious, sometimes – and somehow – all at once.