The Screen Addict | Harley & Marlboro
Last week, I used this platform to initiate the No. Bad. Films. movement. The idea is that we should only write about the films we love, thus creating an opportunity for every single film to reach the right audience. It would be fair to say that not a lot of you have responded to my battle cry (although several people did correctly identify the quote) but that’s ok, I will not give up that easily. It should be pretty clear by now that I love nothing more than to write about films, so I will continue the No. Bad. Films. saga with a love letter to one of my favorite guilty pleasures – Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991).
“What you don’t know is a lot.”
Referring to HDatMM as a guilty pleasure actually undermines everything that the No. Bad. Films. initiative stands for, because it implies that I should feel embarrassed about liking the film. This, however, is exactly why I came up with the idea in the first place. For years I thought I was crazy for liking HDatMM, so I felt I had to call it a guilty pleasure to justify my love for it. Back then I still believed that ratings on IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes would tell me whether a film was good or bad, and the verdict on HDatMM wasn’t kind. IMDb currently has it at a 6.2 and the rating on Rotten Tomatoes is about the same, but I vividly remember it being below 5 – which, by the way, is further proof that time is the only critic that really matters. I couldn’t believe all the hate! Was I wrong for liking it? Why wasn’t I seeing what all these smart critics were seeing? It took me a long time to answer these questions.
“The older the bull, the stiffer the horn.”
I was around 13 years old when HDatMM was released. I don’t remember it actually playing in theatres, my introduction to it was through the place that provided in the bulk of my film-appetite – the rental shop. HDatMM did a fantastic job of appealing to 13-year-olds like me through its unapologetically masculine poster / cover. Set against a dusky skyline, we see a leather-clad biker and a modern-day cowboy leaning against the coolest motorcycle ever. The cowboy was someone I knew and loved – I had been a huge fan of Don Johnson ever since my steady Eighties television-diet introduced me to Miami Vice. The biker however, was a different story altogether.
“It’s better to be dead and cool, than alive and uncool.”
I am pretty sure that HDatMM was the first time I saw Mickey Rourke in action and to this day, I think the opening sequence of the film is one of the coolest character-introductions ever caught on celluloid. The pre-credits scene introduces us to the biker outlaw only known as Harley Davidson smoking a cigarette and wistfully staring at a photograph of him with a beautiful woman. Ex-wife? Ex-girlfriend? We don’t know. Through a TV or radio in the background we learn that it is Independence Day 1996, which, considering the film was released in 1991, places the story several years in the future. The broadcast addresses the deplorable state the world is in – the ozone layer is gone, smog covers the entire earth, and there is a new killer drug on the streets called Crystal Dream (Chekhov’s Gun). Then the opening notes of Jon Bon Jovi’s Wanted: Dead or Alive kick in, Harley puts on his leather jacket, jumps on his bike and disappears into the night while the gorgeous girl looks on.
“Lay off my boots, Harley. I’m in no fuckin’ mood.”
Ah yes, the leather jacket. I think maybe HDatMM also was the origin of my lifelong obsession with cool coats. The one Harley is wearing throughout the film is exceptionally awesome – black and red with all kinds of cool skulls and logos. I remember wanting to own this jacket so bad, but back then we didn’t yet live in a world where everything you want is just one mouse click away. Several years later I happened upon a small boutique in Barcelona and there it was – a replica of Harley’s leather jacket. The shop had priced it at a thousand dollars and I was twenty-something with no money. Still – I had to have it, so I spent the next couple of days raising the money through friends and family. Upon finally hitting my goal, I hurried back to the shop and slammed my money on the counter. The jacket though, had just sold. Today, you can buy Harley’s leather jacket everywhere online, but it’s just not the same. There was something incredibly romantic and cinematic about accidentally stumbling upon a coveted treasure only to have it slip through my fingers.
“You think, Harley. I survive.”
Don Johnson and Mickey Rourke were just two of the many Nineties staples that graced the screen in HDatMM. The male cast is filled out with the wonderful Giancarlo Esposito – of later Breaking Bad fame – the less famous but always dependable Baldwin brother Daniel, and a very young Tom Sizemore still at the threshold of his incredible Nineties and Noughties winning streak. On the female side we can feast our eyes on the frustratingly underused Chelsea Field, and the one-two punch of exotic beauties Vanessa Williams and Tia Carrere. Like Field, both Williams and Carrere made promising first steps in The Screentrade all through the late Eighties and early Nineties, but never quite broke through into superstardom. Be that as it may, both actresses certainly have my eternal admiration for holding their own opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in two of my favorites of his nineties output – Carrere in True Lies (1994) and Williams in Eraser (1996).
“This is your world, homes. I’m just livin’ in it.”
There are many more performers playing wonderful (small) parts in HDatMM and what binds them – in the opinion of this Nineties aficionado – is the delightfully quotable dialogue by Don Michael Paul. I couldn’t resist tying this piece together with some of Paul’s gems in between paragraphs – I hope you can forgive me for being self-indulgent. To the cinematically trained eye, it is abundantly clear that Paul’s script is lovingly inspired by one cinema’s most famous buddy movies – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). Cynical critics would call – and have called – HDatMM a rip-off, I say it is a loving homage by a group of craftsmen and -women who clearly adore film. This, of course, is exactly what I strive to do with the No. Bad. Films. initiative. Tell other people which film inspired you and why. It is so easy to trash a film, so why not apply yourself and do the more challenging and perhaps scary thing – tell me why you loved it. Ah, what the hell. Practice what you preach, right? Here are some more HDatMM quotes that made me fall in love with the film –
“The right woman can make you and the wrong one can break you.”
“If he’s gonna take my girl, I’m gonna take his bike.”
“Never chase buses or women. You always get left behind.”
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Twitter (X): Robin Logjes | The Screen Addict