Action Cliches

The standard action film comes in one of two packages, the first and prehaps most common is that of a gorup of ex-special forces going on one last sucide mission, the heros will almost always be American, Navy SEALS, Green Berets, or just a group of rag tag mercenaries, almost never includeing any sort of European special forces, no SAS, GSG 9 let alone the ninjas of the battlefield the Gurkhas. If there are any foreigners in the team of heros then they will portrayed as shifty and likely to dobble cross the unit. The villiain will either be European (surprise surprise) or from the Middle East or a communist state. When it comes to the basic and predictable plot when they get ready for the one last sucide mission that wil eiter make them all rich (vis the hijack or Nazi gold, priceless paintings or a shipload of money from one of the aformentioned villians home nation) at least one of the unit will decide they dont want a part of it, and then at the end will appear armed to the teeth and save the unit from certan death while sacrificeing himself.
The other common action movie is the indestructable cop who is in the wrong place at the wrong time, most notably Die Hard, where poor John Mcclane gets stuck in the middle of a hostile takover of a skyscaper by European terrorists, the hostile takeover of an airport by ex-US special forces terrorists (who he is able to out gun and beat at hand to hand, the exact places you dont want to be), the stealing of more gold than in Fort Knox by a another group of European terrorists who just so happen to be led by the brother of the terrorist leader from the first film, and finaly the hijacking of the entire USA in a "Fireslae" by ex-CIA terrorists (higly critsied for the lack of yippie ki yay motherf***er).
The lead caracter is almost always a six foot something tall man who can layeth the smackdown on an ungodly ammount of candy arse (see the Rock (the wreastler not the film)) or Mr. T (also had a stint as a wrestler) (so why isnt the Undertaker an action hero yet?) who is possible the only member of the A-Team you need to worry about should you encounter them in a fight. There is very rarely a role for women in action films other than eye candy, look at Megan Fox in Transformers, all she did was stand around a look hot, this is almost always the case except for a few exceptions such as Angelena Jolie.
If its the superhero sub genre of the action film, the villian will alwys have an overly elborate plan to take over the world/setal all the worlds money/kill Batman/Superman/(insert superhero name here) there will sometimes be a betrayal from (insert superheors name here)'s freinds or allies, although this somethimes comes due to insanity from an event in the film and not a secret agenda (Harvy "Two Face" Dent is a pefect example of this).
There is of cousre the immortal hero clitche, prehaps the oldest in the book, where the hero can run through deadly machine gun fire, jump away from explosions, and his ninja accuracy from an impossible with a simple handgun when the villians cant seem to hit anything.
But no matter what, no matter how clitched and perdictable the film, if done right, this can still be one of the most enjoyable genres to watch (even with a lack of yippi ki yay motherf***er) , and if you dont agree with me, in the immortal words of D-Generation X: If your not down with that, i've got two words for ya, SUCK IT!!!!