The quip supremacy

One area in which Arnie had a clear upper hand over Sly was in the quip department.

You know what I'm talking about: quitting a police reception desk with a promise that "I'll be back" (then driving a car through the front window); throwing a machete clean through a man with an injunction to "Stick around!"; dismissing a Middle-Eastern terrorist mastermind on the end of an air-to-air missile while opining, "You're fired!"

This one liner-heavy style demarcated Schwarzenegger's territory: droll, insincere, callous, comedic. The polar opposite of Stallone's: straight, sincere, earnest, tragic. When the latter tried to get pithy, the zinger never flew quite the same way. "You're the disease, and I'm the cure," says his Marion Cobretti in Cobra, sounding more like a Republican election slogan-writer than a rapier-witted badass.

Quips are such an established part of action-movie embroidery now – all over Marvel films like a rash – that it's easy to forget they're a relatively late addition to the genre. James Bond was the first dedicated practitioner, culminating in ironist Roger Moore's tenure when he liked to "keep the British end up" – but there were not many others. Clint Eastwood had his moments, like when his bounty hunter bumps up his body count +1 while "having trouble with his adding" at the close of For a Few Dollars More. But the quip industry didn't really come into its own until the mid-1980s, when Hollywood's action output shifted from gritty work-outs to facetious entertainment.

More dedicated quipologists than I have thoroughly detailed Schwarzenegger's massive and invaluable contribution to the genre. All I will say in this little blog entry is that my personal (and very unoriginal) favourite is from Commando. It arrives just after Arnie's Colonel John Matrix reveals he is already in possession of the vital information the lackey he is dangling over a cliff believed might save his life:

"You remember Sully, when I promised to kill you last?"

"That's right, Matrix, you did."

"I lied!"

[Minion drop.]