Where have all the bad-asses gone?

Stephen Hunter discusses the drought of bad ass heroes in Hollywood.

Today's stars need love. They don't want to be feared, they want to be hugged. They want to be told, "It's okay, big fella." They don't want to shoot anyone, if possible; they certainly won't beat a confession out of a suspect or verbally rip the head off a kid who's new to the unit and trying hard. Their anger is well managed. They never get even, they don't punish, they see the folly of vengeance, they inflict pain only on special occasions. (Last year's "Sin City" was one such occasion, where the point of the film was its removal from a moral spectrum, thus allowing its brutish heroes the freedom to torture, as each did.)

This isn't totally true as seen in revenge flicks like Payback and the Denzel one where he goes after Dakota Fanning. But its true, in our post-modern era, we've gone all reflective. While this is probably for the best socially, it makes for not so great action movies.