Patrick Hughes’ Action Machine

by Anthony Frajman

The director behind The Expendables 3, Hughes has also made the star-studded action comedies The Hitman’s Bodyguard, Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, and The Man from Toronto.

Yet, for his latest feature, War Machine, Hughes has made a slightly different type of movie: an action sci-fi.

Starring Alan Ritchson as a US Army Ranger candidate, War Machine follows a group of Rangers who face a deadly threat during boot camp.

Alongside Ritchson, War Machine features major names including Dennis Quaid and Jai Courtney.

For Hughes, the story of War Machine was one that he wanted to make for years. “I sold the original pitch back in 2018 and didn’t find the time to sit down and write it because I got caught up in a bunch of other things,” says the Melbournian.

“It was a story that just wouldn’t go away in my head and I really wanted to tell it, but I knew that if I told it, I was gonna tell it the right way,” he adds.

One of the most striking aspects of War Machine is its impressive scope and scale. The film, which was shot partly in Bright, Victoria, as well as New Zealand, utilises real locations. Hughes says this was a conscious decision.

“We wanted to shoot it all in real-world locations with real world stunts and at the scale we did. I just felt like there’s only one way to tell this story and it has to be on this grand scale. And also, to deliver it with that heart and soul of that human journey throughout it.”

Making War Machine gave Hughes the chance to shoot a feature at home for the first time in 17 years, since his debut feature, the modern-day western Red Hill was made there. Hughes says working in Australia again was incredibly enjoyable.

“We shot in Omeo,” he remembers about Red Hill. “It was interesting because we started shooting War Machine in Bright, which is on the other side of the mountain. And when I made Red Hill, I couldn’t afford to go anywhere near Bright because that’s the expensive side of the mountain,” Hughes laughs.

“It really felt like this homecoming,” he adds.

For Ritchson, the demanding role was incredibly challenging physically. Yet he jokingly downplays his preparation. “I prepared for this character by making millions of mistakes, trying very hard to ruin my marriage and destroy my family on a daily basis,” Ritchson says sarcastically.

One of the biggest challenges for Hughes was managing War Machine’s massive scale and stunts. “The real-world danger of it was a big challenge. We’ve got insane sequences set over grade five rapids. We’ve got actors getting blown off cliffs, we’ve got mudslides, we’ve got people going over fricking waterfalls. It’s just non-stop,” he says.

“Making action films, the key is that it’s all in the prep. The days are incredibly gruelling when you’re shooting. Every time you go to set up, it means that you’ve spent the last six months planning every nuance of it, and that’s the safety and the physics and all that sort of stuff.”

Hughes is currently making another feature starring Ritchson, a Vietnam War thriller shot on the Gold Coast. The director says that he plans to continue making films down under. “We just had a wild ride shooting this movie,” Hughes says.