Eraser (1996) - Great Arnold action!

♥♥♥♥♥

+ Best Action Movie of the Year + Most Under-Appreciated Movie of the Year 

The sleek, very 90s poster for Chuck Russell's Eraser

Arnold Schwarzenegger (Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)) is a name that a lot of people consider camp, outdated and opposed to anything to do with acting. - I am here to tell you; that that's a dirty Commie lie!
Arnold is without a doubt the greatest action star this world has ever seen. No other actor in this genre can compare to his stats and amazing body of work that stretches from the Conan films (1982; '84), over the amazing Terminator franchise (1984; '91; '03; '09 (without Arnold); '15), Predator (1987), Red Heat (1988), Total Recall (1990), Last Action Hero (1993), True Lies (1994), The Sixth Day (2000), Collateral Damage (2002), The Expendables franchise (2010; '12; '14), and The Last Stand (2013), - which thank God turned out to be great fun earlier this year. Not even mentioning his comedies, Twins (1988), Kindergarten Cop (1990), Junior (1994) and many other enjoyable films. He is a versatile, highly intelligent and fascinating persona actor of an old-school breed that sometimes makes people think him out of place in our day.
Eraser is a perfect example of a fine action movie that we would all have missed, if it hadn't been for for the Austrian hero:

Witness protection Marshall (Arnold) gets assigned a witness (Vanessa Williams (Soul Food (1997))) who is going to incriminate a major weapon's manufacturer. - All hell breaks lose, and it turns out the corruption goes all the way up to the Pentagon!

An impressive production with fine performances from Williams and Arnie, along with James Caan (The Gambler (1974)) who is especially auspicious as the arrogant villain. - There's something about Caan's hunchbacked-like way of carrying himself around as if he has a giant log where normal folks have a flexible spine, that makes him very believable as a mean son of a bitch.
The cast even includes great, American actors, James Coburn (Duck, You Sucker/A Fistfull of Dynamite/Giù la Testa (1971)) and James Cromwell (L.A. Confidential (1997)). This is an uncommonly fine cast in an Arnold film and an added delight. The plot is handled very well and the action superbly. SPOILER Among the memorable scenes are one in which Arnold takes his escape from a dangerous airplane by throwing himself out of it and catching a parachute in mid air, (before the plane comes back for more...!!!); and another one in which a confrontation in a zoo turns very spectacular when Arnold destroys the glass holding the alligators, and impressively credible CGI-gators attack left and right. "You're luggage!", Arnold declares triumphantly after shooting one of them in the head. Wonderfully politically incorrect and nostalgic, it sure is.
Arnold has 8 slated, upcoming films at the time of writing this, seemingly rebounding tremendously in showbiz after his political career, so despite his 65 years, we have a lot to look forward to from him, and I personally hope that he will know when to say when, and not leave the world stage in an Orson Welles-ian (The Transformers: The Movie (1986)) kind of a way.
It is always impressive when a director manages to turn out a truly great movie from a huge  budget as with Eraser: Chuck Russell (Bless the Child (2000)) did that and was generally a happening guy in the 90s: Coming out of an extremely successful A Night on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), Russell remade The Blob (1988), blew everyone's expectations with The Mask (1994), and then made Eraser, but then steadily fell out of the Hollywood race. His 2002 The Rock-starring The Scorpion King is Russell's last big feature, a film best forgotten. He is at the moment apparently in pre-production with an Arabian Nights movie that doesn't have any specifics out yet. - Why isn't Russell attached to any of Arnold's coming 8 movies, I wonder...
If you are an action lover and/or an Arnold fan as this signature, you will do best in tracking down Eraser, as it's a great action film just the way they should be, right down to the cool guitar riffs that crop up in between important scenes and in the end. Tony Puryear (Street Time (2003), TV-series) and Walon Green (Sorceror (1977)) wrote it, with Michael S. Chernuchin (Marco Polo (2014), TV-series) contributing story elements.

Related posts:

Charles 'Chuck' Russell: 1996 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Top 10: The best action movies and TV-series reviewed by Film Excess to date
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) or, Your Kids and the Bastard Son of 100 Maniacs

The high-octane, cheesy trailer alone makes me happy

Cost: 100 mil. $
Box office: 242.3 mil. $
= Minor flop (returned 2.43 times the cost)
[Eraser premiered 11 June (Hollywood, Los Angeles) and runs 114 minutes. Shooting took place in New York, California, including Los Angeles, Canada, New Jersey, Maryland, and in Washington DC from September 1995 to March 1996. Schwarzenegger performed one of the aerial stunts himself, which involved him free-falling 65 feet while doing a back flip. It opened #1 to a 24.5 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 2 weeks in the top 5 (#3, #5) and grossed 101.2 mil. $ (41.8 % of its total gross.) It came out in a packed summer schedule close to hits The Cable Guy and Independence Day. It was Oscar-nominated for Best Sound Editing, lost to The Ghost and the Darkness. Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review, translating to a notch harder than this review. Russell returned with Bless the Child (2000). Schwarzenegger returned in Jingle All the Way (1996). Eraser is rotten at 35 % with a 5/10 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Eraser?
What's your favorite Schwarzenegger actioner?