Tomb

It has been said that if you jump straight to the 60-minute mark of an action movie on DVD, you'll immediately witness a pivotal, kick-ass action scene. One hour in, every time. That's just where it belongs. Screenwriters apparently have some kind of rule about doing this to keep the audience from becoming bored. This week, I test this hypothesis by randomly jamming DVDs into my player, skipping ahead to the one-hour mark, and recording the results.

Here goes:

Test subject No. 1: I'm Gonna Git You Sucka (1988): Sixty minutes in, we see blaxploitation legends Bernie Casey, Jim Brown and Isaac Hayes pulling out handguns and blowing the crap out of a bar full of hoodlums. Holy shit! It works! Sixty minutes on the nose! Gimme another DVD, I'm gonna try again!

Test subject No. 2: RocknRolla (2008): Pow! Rock star Johnny Quid goes berserk and beats up a bouncer outside a nightclub. Two for two! How can I not have heard about this rule before?

Test subject No. 3: Sukiyaki Western Django (2007): Whoops. No action at the 60-minute mark here. Just a talky scene leading up to Quentin Tarantino's bit as an old man in a wheelchair. Well, this is a Japanese action film directed by Takashi Miike — that guy doesn't play by the rules. He likes to put his big action scenes at the very beginning and the very end. Let's try something a little more Hollywood next...

Test subject No. 4: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (2005): Ah, that's more like it. Michelle Monaghan in a sexy Santa costume, running across a park, where she gets attacked by a killer. He tries to strangle her, but she headbutts him, takes his gun and runs out into a busy street in time to warn Val Kilmer that he's about to get shot. Sweet!

Test subject No. 5: Hellboy (2004): The three-disc deluxe DVD set of this fun superhero flick gives us the opportunity to compare two different versions of the film. In the slightly longer director's cut, the 60th minute is just fishman Abe Sapien preparing for an underwater mission. In the shorter theatrical version, advancing 60 minutes brings us to the pivotal subway battle, which comes after Abe's dive. Conclusion: Producers and test audiences enforce the 60-minute rule, but “the director's cut” is a chance to break it.

Test subject No. 6: Payback (director's cut) (1999): Mel Gibson kills the guy he wanted revenge on. Well, I guess not every director's cut bucks the rule....

Test subject No. 7: Big Trouble in Little China (1986): Monster attack! A hairy sewer ape kidnaps Kim Cattrall!

Test subject No. 8: C.H.U.D. (1984): Monster attack! Look out, it's a C.H.U.D.!

Test subject No. 9: King Kong versus Godzilla (1962): Whoa! Godzilla walks through a wall of fire! Then the army lures him into a dynamite pit!

Test subject No. 10: La Femme Nikita (1990): Nope. Nothing special happens. This film must be too French.

Test subject No. 11: The Princess Bride (1987): Nothing happens here, either. Damn it! We were doing so well.

Test subject No. 12: The Terminator (1984): Arnold Schwarzenegger drives a car through the wall of a police station and walks casually down the halls, shooting all the cops. Now this is what I'm talking about!

Test subject No. 13: RoboCop (1987): The dad from That ’70s Show shoots Miguel Ferrer in the kneecaps before playing him a taunting message from the evil corporate guy and leaving him alone with a live grenade. And hey, as long as I've got my RoboCop trilogy box set open...

Test subject No. 14: RoboCop 2 (1990): There's a huge police and gang shootout here, but it's at the 61-minute mark. You lose points for tardiness, RoboCop 2. You've got one more movie to get it right.

Test subject No. 15: RoboCop 3 (1993): Uh, RoboCop just sits there on his stupid chair, trying to remember his past while bonding with a little girl and stroking her hair. No wonder this flick effectively killed the franchise.

Conclusion: The 60-minute rule isn't exactly universal, but it's a heck of a lot of fun to experiment with. Try it yourself!