After mostly making Transformers movies for the last decade, Michael Bay returned to his roots of hardcore action movies with 6 Underground. This Netflix action-comedy stars Ryan Reynolds as the leader of a group of six highly skilled individuals who fake their own deaths to carry out covert missions around the world.

The movie is filled with the kind of mindless destruction and over-the-top set pieces that are expected in a Michael Bay film. However, the film does set itself apart from his more recent projects for being unapologetically R-rated with intense violence throughout. Here are some of the grittiest scenes from 6 Underground, ranked.

For all the other over-the-top aspects of the film, of course, we needed to have an over-the-top villain. The bad guy of the story is Rovach Alimov, a cruel dictator from a fictional Middle Eastern country called Turgistan.

Rovach is not all that interesting as a villain, but we are given plenty of reasons to hate him. We even get the classic scene of the villain killing his own men to show how evil he is. When his top generals are killed, Rovach promotes the next in line but quickly throws them from the room of a skyscraper because they had too much to gain from their predecessors’ murders.

Hotel Assassination

The movie’s violence is so extreme that it walks a fine line between being an action movie and being a horror movie. And the movie revels in the blood and gore it creates as with the gruesome sequence where the good guys ambush a Las Vegas hotel room where Rovach’s generals are partying.

The way the good guys murder people so carelessly actually makes it a bit hard to cheer for them. And the slow-motion shots of the bad guys getting shot in the face show that Bay is really eager to escape the PG-13 world of Transformers.

Prison Break

One of the main missions the six heroes go on is the plan to rescue Rovach’s good-hearted brother from captivity and have him take Rovach’s place as leader of the country. This involves an elaborate prison break, and in true Michael Bay fashion, the prison is actually a swanky penthouse.

The sequence is filled with the kind of odd tonal shifts that happen throughout the film. The violence is extreme and graphic as the team gun down their many enemies but there’s also plenty of cartoonish humor involving exploding pools and laughing gas.

Gas Attack

While the movie often feels like it wants to be a Deadpool-like meta action-comedy, it also shifts into somber sequences in which it all of the sudden takes itself very seriously. The juxtaposition doesn’t really work, especially in the sequence detailing One’s (Ryan Reynolds) backstory.

In his old life as a billionaire inventor, One decided to volunteer in Turgistan for publicity and is present when Rovach launches a gas attack on the innocent people on the ground. It is a brutal sequence that feels very out of place in the film yet has the same lack of subtlety as the rest of the movie.

Running Over Crowd

The team successful frees Rovach’s brother and helps him send a message to the people of Turgistan that it is time for a revolution. The country soon turns against Rovach as he tries to make his getaway.

While fleeing his palace, the people in the streets begin to revolt and he has his motorcade run them over. Again, it is the kind of ugly and unnecessary level of sadistic violence that doesn’t fit in a wacky action-comedy. At this point in the film, we didn’t really need any more convincing that Rovach was evil.

The World’s Biggest Magnet

One of the final sequences of the film involves the team infiltrating Rovach’s yacht and attempting to bring him to justice. This also features one of the wildest, most cartoonish and most fun sequences in the film.

One manages to create a device that magnetizes the entire yacht, turning it into the world’s biggest magnet. The moment he activates it, all hell breaks loose with people in body armor being thrown around like rag dolls, bouncing off the walls while guns, knives, and grenades fly through the air.

Flash Grenade

 

While the movie does show that Bay can get a little reckless with an R rating, when he chooses to have fun without barriers, it can be really entertaining. One particular moment during the wild yacht sequence is the goriest thing Bay has ever put onscreen.

As Seven is fighting with one of the bad guys, he shoves a flash grenade in the man’s mouth and pulls the pin. While we only see the splatter of the explosion, Bay cannot resist showing us the aftermath of the exploded head as well.

Rovach’s Death

If the movie has stuck to being just mindless action with a comedic tone, it could have been a really entertaining ride. However, the uncomfortable and very confused politics of the movie makes it hard to have a good time with it in the end. This is especially true of Rovach’s end.

After the team captures him, he begs to be killed with dignity. Instead, they drop him off to the people of Turgistan who proceed to beat him to death. It’s a brutal end for a brutal character, but given how the whole movie was about giving these people democracy, depicting them as a bloodthirsty mob, in the end, was problematic.

Six’s Death

The opening of the movie serves as a wild action sequence that introduces us to the members of the team in an extended action sequence. However, one of the members, Six (Dave Franco), doesn’t last long.

As the team races to get away, their car crashes which brutally kills Six during their first mission. It is a genuinely shocking moment to see a character we presumed to be a main character killed off so quickly. It also sets the stakes appropriately high for the rest of the movie.

Car Chase In Florence

That opening sequence of the team’s first mission set in Florence, Italy really shows what this movie is going to be. It is an extended scene that fully embraces its own insanity while always looking for ways to go further.

The car chase introduces the various members of the team as they are being chased by the bad guys, with one of them getting a bullet taken out of them in the backseat. Bay doesn’t hold back on the mayhem or the R-rating as he shows bodies being thrown from cars, impaled and blown up all while Ryan Reynolds makes some quips.