Movie

The Marine 6: Close Quarters (2018)

This WWE-produced franchise has a high inclusion rate for female villains. Six Marine films were made altogether, and four have a bad girl in the cast. For the last outing, we finally got a woman as the main antagonist. If Becky Lynch beating up men isn’t enough, there’s a second female who also gets a lengthy fight scene.

Fresh ideas are scarce, so why not use the obvious template for a lone action hero? You guessed it: Die Hard. Jake Carter (Mike “The Miz” Mizanin) is trapped in an abandoned brewery with a criminal gang holding the innocent Sarah (Louisa Connolly-Burnham) hostage. The villainess’ father is on trial for – um, bad stuff that’s not really explained in any detail – so Maddy threatens to kill Sarah unless her juror father rigs the verdict. Too bad Jake Carter is paying an old war veteran a visit when he hears screams from upstairs.

The villains lock the building down, so it’s up to Jake and his former commanding officer Luke Trapper (WWE star Shawn Michaels) to protect Sarah. Cue the usual fisticuffs, shootouts and an air vent escape. The veteran provides assistance, but he obviously dies heroically, as minor characters do in these films. More shocking is the villainess killing Jake before the movie’s done. Yes, the main character. Which grants Maddy a higher placing than would otherwise be the case.

Villainesses

Maddy Hayes (Becky Lynch), Katrina (Anna Demetriou)

The henchwoman Kat first seems to be a non-action role. She relays footage of Sarah to her father and attends court as a “friendly” reminder to comply. This proves an effective tactic, but it’s in the second half of the film when things get more interesting. She returns to the brewery and leads a group of baddies on a hunt for the heroes. By now they’ve escaped the building and entered a tunnel system. An excellent setting for an ambush, and the gothic Kat looks creepy holding a chemical flare.

The hero party (down to Jake, Luke, and Sarah) openly displays distrust when Kat plays innocent, but foolishly follows her down the tunnel. Then she gets caught in a lie. While Jake fights a brute, Kat garrotes Luke with a wire cord she keeps handy for such occasions. The henchwoman is difficult to shake off, and instead of the expected quick fight, we get a drawn-out struggle. There are cutaway shots of Jake, but nothing too intrusive. Eventually, Luke uses his superior strength and slams Kat to the ground.

In the opening half, Maddy murders a civilian showing the ex-marines around, and one of her own men for failure (despite following her orders not to use weapons). The brutal knife executions establish Maddy’s authority as the primary villain and her preference for close-quarters combat, perhaps an allusion to the title.

Maddy is an imposing authority figure with her fiery hair and leather jacket, and her mostly male crew is too intimidated to challenge her. When Jake is wounded during the tunnel shootout, the mooks know to leave the killing blow to the villainess. Maddy uses her knife to finish the hero, throwing it into his chest. This brings his heroic escapades to an end and leaves Luke with a death to avenge.

The new protagonist wastes no time tracking down Maddy and her thugs, who’ve kidnapped Sarah once more. The henchmen put up little resistance, leading to a confrontation on a boat. Maddy proves a much more challenging opponent, getting the better of the hero in the early rounds. After a couple of retorts about Jake, Luke uses a rope to ensnare Maddy and throw her overboard. The attached anchor weighs her down, and we get a lengthy shot of her drowning. Perhaps too brief a finale, but Maddy is a rare physical main villainess, and few women can claim to have killed a franchise hero.

Honourable Mentions: The Marine Series

The Marine (2006) – Angela (Abigail Bianca)

Long before female wrestlers were cast as series henchwomen, Angela was a more traditional femme fatale. The original Marine is essentially an 80s action movie brought into modern times with hero Sgt. John Triton (John Cena) is introduced on a Middle Eastern combat mission. This is a gung-ho sequence with loud explosions and nonsensical bravado – it’s clear what tone the filmmakers were aiming for.

After psychotic jewel thief Rome (Robert Patrick) pulls off a heist, his crew encounters John and his wife Kate at a gas station. There’s a psycho henchman who likes to shoot and blow up things without good reason, so Kate ends up kidnapped and John comes to her rescue. Perhaps the bad guys shouldn’t have picked a fight with a former US Marine, as he wastes no time in hunting down those responsible.

Angela plays an innocent victim during the jewellery store job, but quickly shows her true colours. There’s a sequence with gratuitous shots of her bare legs, and she’s a willing – and equally crazy – partner to Rome. Angela wastes a couple of guys: a customer at the gas station and some poor trucker she flags down. Both kills are off screen and we only see the buildup, which means Angela is eye candy, mostly.

There’s plenty of tension between Angela and Kate, which slowly builds over time, culminating in a catfight. That’s the extent of any real action, and the only encounter with John is when he tosses Angela from a truck into an oncoming coach. Her demise is rather bizarre: lots of broken glass covered in blood, which suggests a mangled corpse we never see.

The Marine 4: Moving Target (2015) – Rachel Dawes (Summer Rae)

After a solo entry with Ted Diabase Jr., all the films had Jake Carter as the chief hero. The fourth movie started the trend of female wrestlers as baddies, and Summer Rae received top billing despite having little dialogue in the movie. Perhaps the producers realised sports stars with limited acting experience work better as the silent henchwoman type.

In this movie, Jake is working for a private security firm, only to get ambushed on his opening day. The target is corporate whistleblower Olivia Tanis (Melissa Roxburgh), and somebody doesn’t want this lady talking. The movie is essentially one giant chase scene through a forest, with sections at a remote cabin safe house and police station to vary the scenery. Nowhere is safe from the mercenaries, and despite some initial distrust, Olivia realises Jake is her only hope of staying alive.

Rachel is a constant presence, shooting an assault rifle and operating a tracking device when the situation calls for it. She lasts for most of the movie and is the most prominent villain other than the main baddie, Simon Vogel, and traitor agent Ethan. The last encounter between Jake and Rachel is a brief fight, which ends with the knife-wielding villainess tossed to the ground. With a thug closing in, Jake uses her as a human shield to protect himself, and the series’ first female WWE star ends up a bullet sponge.

The Marine 5: Battleground (2017) – Murphy (Naomi)

Jake obviously didn’t like private security, since he’s now working as a paramedic with Zoe (Anna Van Hooft). This doesn’t stop him from getting into trouble, and when he rescues a wounded man in a sublevel parking garage, it’s the beginning of a very long night. Turns out the man handled a hit on a biker gang leader, and his crew are out for blood.

The few women in this film all get seen off in brutal fashion. The prologue had Maryse Ouellet Mizanin (the Miz’s real-life spouse) as a civilian trapped in a car. Despite a heroic rescue attempt, she dies on a gurney – essentially a glorified cameo. Zoe lasts approximately half the film and is reasonably helpful before the biker gang take her hostage and shoot her just for the hell of it. That’s not a smart move with Jake Carter around, and he takes out the crew. Later on, the action shifts from the parking garage to an amusement park and the streets above.

The sole female biker is Murphy, the first main villain to die at Jake’s hands. Like the other evil women in the series, she uses a knife. Murphy actually has two of them, switching to a second after Jake overpowers her. Despite less screen time, she gets a longer fight than Rachel. And a more satisfying end when Jake turns her own blade against her.