As AI football looms, be thankful for those ready to rage against the machine

‘The interesting thing about Relational Football is that it is clearly counter-cultural, old school, hot, emotional, human, Statham-ish.’ Illustration: Robin Hursthouse/The Guardian

The Middle-Aged Serial Action Murder Epic has been one of the most popular movie types of the last 50 years. These films tend to have the same basic setup, which is middle-aged men repeatedly murdering the thing they’re anxious about.

For many years this was simply Nazis. A group of men, occasionally disguised in Nazi uniforms – nuance: fear that deep down they actually are Nazis – slaughter thousands of endlessly replicating Nazi soldiers and everyone feels good about this.