Sicario Meets Terminator In This Overlooked 2010s Action Thriller That Deserved Better

Published Sep 11, 2026, 9:30 AM EDT Simon Gallagher has worked in movie and TV journalism for more than 17 years. He has written more than 6000 articles and reviews, and edited thousands more. He is an expert in the entertainment industry, particularly in the golden age of screen superheroes. Simon is also a Rotten Tomatoes approved critic. The 2000s and 2010s kicked off a new wave of obsession in action movies, with more gritty realism, more moody hyper-violence, and a noticeable shift away from gonzo entertainment in mainstream releases. Everything became a little more John Wick, even as outliers like The Expendables revived the 1990s feel. Morality became more grey, blood got bloodier, and everything just got markedly more intense. Few movies captured the perfect storm of those vibes better than Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario, which channeled rising border tension, with the eternally compelling idea of organized crime - cartels, in this case - and above-the-law agents operating in a sort of lawless no-man’s-land. Villeneuve built a movie that was both immaculately paranoid, but simultaneously breathlessly fast-paced, and full of bone-crunching action. It was also considerably more intelligent than the action thrillers of the 1990s, and took the bleak new aesthetic built after 2000 to a new level. Sicario was also the start of what should now be called the Taylor Sheridan supremacy, and helped create the blueprint that the hugely talented writer/director - and his copycats - has ran wild with since. Considering the film he made before he wrote it - forgotten torture porn original Vile - the perfection of Sicario is even more impressive. And since its release, fans have hungrily sought out their next watch that captured even some of what made Sicario great. While the same classics are routinely revisited, one overlooked gem, which beat Sicario to theaters by two years never seems to be talked about enough. That action thriller hidden gem is Kim Jee-woon’s The Last Stand, which was also set in the sun-drenched borderlands of modern cartels with a return to form action leading man performance by the legend that is Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold Schwarzenegger Made His Real Comeback In The Last Stand In 2003, Hollywood's loss was politics' gain, as Schwarzenegger stepped away from acting to become the Governor of California, and aside from a couple of cameo appearances, largely remained inactive beyond the end of his term in office in 2011. He did, playfully dip his toe back into the action with his first cameo (uncredited) in The Expendables, and then returned for an expanded role in the sequel, but he hadn’t been a leading man since Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. That changed with The Last Stand, which was very much a vehicle for Arnie that drew on his action star mythology. On the pre-release marketing rounds, he spoke of being drawn to the opportunity to get back to what he knew: “What I was looking for in a movie was just simply a typical kind of Arnold action movie and this one had great chase scenes, great action, great fight scenes and shoot-outs and it also had some great comic relief and a good story.” But there’s difference, too, as Schwarzenegger said in the same interview with IndieLondon, his Sheriff Ray Owens is less of an impenetrable hero archetype, he’s more vulnerable. At the same time, though, his background and the contradiction of his small border town isolation mean he’s essentially a one-man army, and The Last Stand delivers that same relentless, believable threat he brought to his performance as the Terminator. Despite how well it anticipated the same warzone as Sicario, The Last Stand didn’t get a massive injection of hype from Schwarzenegger’s return. Costing a reported $45 million, it took just $48 million at the worldwide box office, thanks to a graveyard release in January. Nothing about that performance was justified. Why The Last Stand Is Worth Watching The Last Stand is way better than both its box office and its somewhat middling 61% RottenTomatoes score suggest. It works for exactly the same reasons Schwarzenegger was drawn to it: lots of action, lots of fun - thanks in part to Johnny Knoxville’s role - and a role for Arnie that humanized him while reminding everyone that he was still exactly the kind of superhuman who could reasonably stand between a violent cartel and the Mexican border. It’s also notable as a great neo-Western before Sheridan made the genre his own. Outsiders may look at it, see the story of a veteran cop who stands up for a small town and see a generic studio action vehicle, but it’s way smarter, and way more stylish than that. There’s all out war with the cartel bad guys too, and chase scenes. Basically, all a Sicario fan could want, with more surprising warmth than you might expect. It’s easily the best thing Schwarzenegger has made since his return from political exile, and it definitely belongs higher in the ranking of his movies overall than it seems to get credit for. The Last Stand 7/10 Release Date January 12, 2013 Runtime 107 Minutes Cast Johnny Knoxville Lewis Dinkum