Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man

These two are a couple of Bad Dudes.

This film is a gem from 1992. Like a sprouting sunflower in the warm shit pile that was the early 90’s this film is masculinity in printed film form. I went into my lounge room a 7 year old boy and came out a fully grown man with chest hair like steel wool and a hard on that would intimidate Ron Jeremy. Mickey Rourke teams up with Don Johnson to create something that rivals a gentleman’s club for pure testosterone pumping ability. This comes courtesy of director Simon Wincer – known for such classics as Operation Dumbo Drop and The Young Black Stallion (which sounds like some kind of cheap porn flick).

This motherfucking movie even has Tom Sizemore (pre homemade porn, man what is it with this movie and porn?) and The Fat Baldwin. He’s dead now, so I should say The Fat Dead Baldwin. The Baldwin’s are fags anyway, except Stephen. He’s fucking hardcore. (Stephen Baldwin once punched a priest, then he looked at a lady and the lady got pregnant, then Stehpen refuses to pay child support.) There are all star casts, and then there is this film; an all ‘wash ups who were kind of famous 8 years ago’ cast. Throw in Ron Howard or Rutger Hauer and you’d be set.

I saw this film as a kid, and so I developed a kind of affinity for it. It is solely responsible for my perception that real men have beards, ride motorcycles and have one night stands a lot. Even their fucking names are manly – Harley and Marlboro. If you made a film like this today everyone would think you were taking the piss. They would laugh and be amazed by your satirical masterpiece. They would call it the next Animal Farm and all the pretentious people you know would have a copy lying around in subtly obvious places for all their friends to see. Except that it’s a dead serious film.

The plot makes sense at least, to a point, but then you are watching a film about Mickey Rourke and Don Johnson on motorcycles… who the fuck needs a story arc. Just give me beards, bikes and snappy one-liners. There is a scene in this movie where Don Johnson gives a motorcycle cop the finger then pops a wheelie and speeds off. The cop chases his, and when he parks outside a house he tells the cop, “I just needed to blow off a little steam.” The cop removes her helmet and says something to the effect of “Then let’s blow off that steam.” He fucks the shit out of her and gets up to leave the next morning when he finds Harley there in her house cooking them breakfast; if breakfast was ‘a kitchen cupboard’ and cooking was ‘setting fire to’. They leave the girl to, I assume, go eat a man’s breakfast of bacon, sausage and engine oil.

This film is tragically… well, that awful period between the 80’s and the 90’s. Yes, this film is tragically that period. It’s not a particularly stand out film, it’s budget was low and the story was penned by a nine year old boy who just saw his first ‘Bikes & Babes’ magazine, but the sound track is mostly Bon Jovi and I’m pretty sure you see some tit. It’s bad, in all senses of the word. You know it’s good when there is a character ridiculously named Chance Wilder. I wish I was kidding.

Even still, it holds a special place in my heart, right next to the cholesterol deposit.