Two men enter, one man leaves.

One thing I always enjoy or look forward to in action or even horror/suspense films are fights that take place in very confined spaces. No bells, no whistles, no games - just two (or more) combatants that are very willing to beat, maim, and seriously hurt each other in very close quarters. Hats off to the casts and crews that pull this stuff off too. Making a movie has difficulties in itself, but making an action scene where camera, sound, and lighting equipment take up most of the space where a brawl occurs looks nigh impossible!

First off, elevators. You can't get more close-quarters than this, in my view. Just for the hell of it I re-watched 1996's Extreme Measures the other day. Not only did I get the idea from this blog post from the movie, but this one takes the cake for me regarding the elevator category. Towards the end of this medical suspense thriller Hugh Grant's character brawls with a crooked cop inside of a lift. Both men vie for the elevator controls. Both good cops and Gene Hackman's mad doctor await in the ground floor lobby. All the while there's enough elbowing, head-bashing, kicking, and even pistol-whipping to make you dizzy. The scene is very short, but feels a lot longer (thanks to Danny Elfman's great score). In this clip, the fight starts at 6:07.

Yes, Hugh Grant plays a character that actually kicks some ass. Who knew? You can also see some elevator combat in Die Hard With a Vengeance where according to Hollywood, people don't go deaf after shooting in a closed lift. Also, Merantau (yep, Gareth Evans would go on to make The Raid) has a great elevator fight towards the end. My dear friend Brad Fetrow also mentioned Drive, and I give that one a nod, but it's not so much of a fight as Ryan Gosling's character basically just Hulks out and stomps a dude's head in. Ouch.

Next, bathrooms. The place where people go to answer nature's call also happens to be the perfect place to settle scores in the world of movies. For me, the bar was set pretty damn high and has yet to be beat with the bathroom brawl that takes place in 1979's The Warriors. Two gangs wreck a bathroom, and it's pretty awesome. Bats and chains swing, knives slice, porcelain toiletries are shattered, and mirrors and stalls crash into bits. Even the girl gets involved when she bites a dude!

Other bathroom fights that are good? Well in my book you've got the beginning of Casino Royale (great opening titles from that one, also mentioned by Fetrow), The Man from Nowhere, the hotel bathroom brawl in True Romance, and Rob Zombie's Halloween remake, where Ken Foree basically gets smashed into a steel stall partition, then stabbed. Damn.

Then there's fights that take place in close quarters all over the goddamn place. The kitchen fight in You're Next, where household cutleries are taken to people's heads. Also a dude has the kitchen door kicked into his face. Yeah! There's the train car brawl between Connery's Bond and Robert Shaw in From Russia with Love, which is an iconic gem. Never seen it? I feel sorry for you.

But probably the craziest close-quarters fight I've seen in a movie in recent memory goes to the South Korean horror-action romp I Saw the Devil, which features a three-way fight to the death in a moving car that's going very fast. It doesn't end well.

The movies 2LDK and Aragami were also mentioned to me. Both apparently have fights in close quarters, but I have yet to see them. When I check these movies out, or see any other ones featuring a fight in a tight spot, I might make amendments through future posts.