Fair warning: considerable spoilers follow – read after watching.
You all know the scene: the nefarious Richmond Valentine (deliciously portrayed by Samuel L Jackson) tests a weapon that causes anyone within its range to lose their minds in a violent rage, choosing a small Kentucky church – the base of operations for a radical right-wing hate group – as the location for his first experiment. Except that Harry Hart, the legendary Kingsman agent known as Galahad (and played by Colin Firth), is also in the church. Violent rage gives way to increasingly violent acts, all set to the increasingly frantic guitar solo from Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird”, with Hart utilising his spy training to emerge as the sole survivor.