STEP aside Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hardy, there's a new breed of hero in town. With 54-year-old Sean Penn playing an ex-special forces operative in The Gunman, and Liam Neeson, 62, as a former hitman in Run All Night, older action stars are enjoying their moment. And while their knees might be a bit creakier than their younger counterparts, we know who we'd call on in a crisis...

* They give us hope. Try telling Liam Neeson's CIA agent Bryan Mills in Taken that he'd be better off hanging up his gun and heading to a tea dance, or Sly Stallone's Expendables heroes that they should leave the overthrowing of a Latin American dictator to someone a bit younger. These action heroes have proved that your golden years don't have to mean slippers and crosswords; they can be action-packed and full of excitement (though we might stop short of rescuing people from burning buildings, or hunting down kidnappers when we reach their age...).

* They know how to deliver a line. Can you imagine a 20-something actor uttering Harrison Ford's "Get off my plane!" in Air Force One, or John Wayne's "Fill your hands you son of a b****" in True Grit? And only a weather-beaten, gravelly-voiced veteran could utter Neeson's infamous "I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you" line from Taken. We believe these heroes when they issue threats, because they're old and experienced enough to have a few dozen villains already buried under their patio.

* They have great backstories. And by 'backstory', we don't mean 'remember the time I slipped a disc on a wet pavement in Blackpool?' We mean the kind of backstory Sean Penn has in The Gunman, where he's haunted by his special forces past, or Liam Neeson's in A Walk Among The Tombstones, where he plays a reformed alcoholic who lost his job in the NYPD as a result of a tragic (and booze-fuelled) accident. Beat that for a yarn, Hunger Games whippersnappers.

* They look tougher. Every wrinkle tells a story, so they say. Who wants to see a gym-honed hunk with beautifully moisturised skin and fluttering eyelashes fighting the baddies? We like our heroes weather-beaten, greying around the temples and not worried about smudging their fake tan. And if there happens to be a hint of a paunch, so be it. Every action hero deserves to refuel with a few doughnuts and a six-pack of beer.

* They don't need fancy gadgets. When you've been an action hero as long as these guys have, you don't need newfangled technology to do your dirty work for you. No talking robots, shiny gizmos or complicated thingamajigs for this lot - a battered old mobile phone and a bog-standard revolver will suffice - or in the case of muscle-clad Penn in The Gunman, big guns, in more than one sense of the word.

* They could be trailblazers. Dame Helen Mirren, 69, has bemoaned the "complete desert" of roles for actresses in their fifties, claiming to have "witnessed in my life the survival of some very mediocre male actors and the professional demise of some very brilliant female ones". But we can only hope that if Hollywood has got its head around older men being cast in high-octane roles, it's only a matter of time until their female peers start getting meatier parts too. In fact, Dame Helen has already proved her worth as an action hero, playing a deadly assassin in Red, while Sigourney Weaver, 65, has agreed to reprise her role as Ripley in the new Alien movie. Times could indeed be a changin'.

* Run All Night is in cinemas now and The Gunman is released on Friday, March 20