This piece marks the debut of a new series surveying the movie landscape of the 1990s, when everyone in La-La-Wood and beyond tried to make their own Cool Crime Movie modeled on Pulp Fiction—a film they all loved yet did not seem to understand even a little bit. Come with me on a journey through a cinematic universe where everyone dresses like a rockabilly, drops non sequitur pop culture references, and holds their gun sideways: the world of Coattail Tarantino.
In preparation for my survey of the cinematic world Quentin Tarantino birthed written earlier this year, I watched a boatload of movies from the 1990s that owed something to Tarantino stylistically, spiritually, or temporally, films that could have only been made after his success altered the Hollywood landscape. I am often asked by people I’ve made up in my head, “How did you determine what films to watch?” The answer is that I jotted down the names of several movies that immediately came to mind, then looked up lists of year-by-year releases to make note of any others that looked Tarantino-esque—basically, any film that featured crime and/or large groups of similarly dressed Guys Being Dudes strutting down sidewalks. After additional research, the list was winnowed down using a complicated process known as Vibes. In the end, I watched a lot movies that had almost no relationship to Tarantino’s work, but this was only fair and correct. If I was going to make sweeping generalizations about the wave of Cool Bros Doing Crime Movies that littered multiplexes after the smash success of 1994’s Pulp Fiction, then science demanded I prove my theses with an ample amount of data.
It’s important to remember that Tarantino’s emergence as a cultural force created a Hollywood feeding frenzy similar to another phenomenon of this era: the flurry of major label band signings that followed “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Just like Nirvana sent record labels scrambling to find any act that could be described as “punk” or “indie,” regardless of their musical resemblance to the original article, film production companies were desperate to release anything they could plausibly compare to Pulp Fiction. So even if a movie didn’t that film’s influence or sensibilities, it’s instructive to take note of what 1990s Hollywood thought they could get away with labeling as Tarantino-esque.
As stated in my original post, the overwhelming majority of the films, while often dated in ways that could make me cringe, were no better or worse than meh. It was rare to find a pleasant surprise among the bunch, a film that was genuinely good or at least enjoyable to watch, but it was also rare to find a truly dreadful movie. The real stinkers, though, boy did they stink. I would find myself watching these movies at at a slant or through my hands, unable and unwilling to view them in full, a la George C. Scott in Hardcore. My wife and kid would hear me groaning or exclaiming in anguish and ask if I was in pain, and I would have to admit yes I was in pain because I couldn’t take another minute of Suicide Kings.
The worst of the lot by a country mile was Boondock Saints, a reprehensible tradcath revenge fantasia that took a few years off my life in a single viewing. Were it not for Troy Duffy’s cinematic Chernobyl, however, the bottom spot would have gone to 1996’s Mad Dog Time. I had never heard of it before looking through lists of films from that year, but its cool gangster trappings were enough to land it on my shortlist, a decision I will rue until the day I die. This is one of those films from the era that has almost zero relationship to Tarantino’s films, yet could have only been made after his movies created a madness for anything where Cool Dudes Do Crime. And it is terrible. Beyond terrible. There is no singular word or phrase that can encapsulate how truly, deeply, irredeemably awful this movie is, or the feeling it will give you if forced to watch it.
I am not alone in this assessment; it was named Siskel & Ebert’s worst film of that year, while Ebert’s written review for the Chicago Sun-Times called it “the first movie I have seen that does not improve on the sight of a blank screen viewed for the same length of time.” Entertainment Weekly described it as “jaw-droppingly incoherent.”
You might think a film this bad would be remembered in some capacity, a fabled flop on par with Ishtar or Gigli, yet I’m certain the vast supermajority of people out in the world, even those who were alive for its debut, have never heard of it. The only evidence I have that anyone has watched it since its release is an episode of the Have You Seen This podcast with guest Matt Christman. (I was not aware of this episode until doing research for this post, but their assessment is along the lines of Ebert’s above and mine below.) This maintenance of obscurity is for the greater good of humanity, though, as it prevents more people from being exposed to its toxicity.
When I first decided to revisit this film for a longer review, I was hoping I could rely on the extensive notes I took during my first viewing. I soon discovered that my “extensive notes” were not at all helpful, full of questions the movie refused to answer (“who is that?” “why are they doing this?”) and howls in the dark over the torture I’d inflicted on myself (“OMG I DON’T FUCKING CARE ABOUT ANY OF THIS”). This meant a second viewing would be required if I wanted to be write anything of consequence about it. After contemplating if I really wanted to subject myself to Mad Dog Time again, and enduring a series of traumatic flashbacks that could only be outdone by those who’ve lived through combat, I soldiered forth on a second viewing, which is at least two times more than anyone should watch this thing.
The naive among you may peep the film’s cast and wonder how it could possibly be so bad. Jeff Goldblum! Gabriel Byrne! Richard Dreyfuss! Ellen Barkin! Diane Lane! You might believe these pieces don’t quite fit together yet puzzle over how Mad Dog Time could possibly be so unwatchable. I’m here to assure you it is as unwatchable as anything ever made by humans, and that includes videos of executions.
Mad Dog Time was written and directed by Larry Bishop, son of comedian and Rat Pack hanger-on Joey Bishop. (You may have also seen him as the meme-generating asshole strip club boss in Kill Bill Pt. 2.) The film takes place in a parallel universe similar to the real one once inhabited by the elder Bishop, full of gangsters and molls slinking around in nightclubs with highball glasses glued to their hands. The notion of “parallel universe” is meant to be taken literally; an opening credit voice over tells us the film we’re about endure depicts another dimension, with animations of nebulae and atoms to underscore this conceit. The viewer need not worry too much about this, though, because the parallel universe premise comes into play at no time after it is voiced during the credits. Suffice to say everyone will walk in slo-mo around nightclubs in sharkskin suits and slinky dresses while hearing the best Frank, Dino and Sammy tunes a Starbucks compilation CD could offer. And prepare to hear “My Way” because buddy, you’re gonna hear the shit out of “My Way.”
The Sinatra-at-The-Sands nostalgia of Mad Dog Time was a little ahead of curve, or at least right on time, as the swing revival of the 1990s would kick into high gear after the success of Swingers, released the same year as this mess. Every other choice the film makes is so baffling it mocks the idea of time itself. This film could have been made in 1960 or 2137. It could be as old as the pyramids or as distant as Alpha Centauri. In some sense we have always been making Mad Dog Time, and always will be.
The action of the movie, if it can be called action at all, revolves around hitman Mickey (Goldblum) and his many loves and business interests. Mickey plies his hitman trade in basements where he engages in a bizarre hybrid of dueling and Old West shootouts like so: he sits at a nicely appointed desk, facing off against another gunslinger also sitting at a very nice desk, and each waits for the other to make a move as the pretext for reaching for their guns. Whoever is the fastest on the draw gets to win while the loser gets to die. This is one of the film’s few concessions to its Parallel Universe conceit, or at least I assume it is, since it is something no one in our universe has ever done. It is also never explained in the slightest. If you love loose ends, you will love this film. (Disclaimer: You will not love this film.)
As the film begins Mickey’s boss Vic (Dreyfuss) is about to return from a self-imposed psychiatric rest for paranoid schizophrenia and retake the reins of his criminal organization. It might be inaccurate to call Vic’s organization “criminal,” though, as his businesses seem to consist solely of various nightclubs—not poorly disguised fronts for drugs or smuggling, just plain ass nightclubs where dames pose and crooners croon. For a movie ostensibly about gangsters and wiseguys, there is precious little crime on display or even discussed within it—unless you count the desk duels; those probably ain’t legal, though they are very stupid.
In Vic’s absence, his affairs were run by underling Ben (Byrne), who has designs on taking over his racket of perfectly legit businesses. But Vic is less occupied by his enterprise than the whereabouts of his lady Grace (Lane), who serves as the film’s Harry Lime, constantly mentioned but not seen until the last third of the film. Mickey knows where Grace is but won’t tell, suspecting many players want him dead (Vic included) and counting on his knowledge of Grace’s whereabouts to keep him alive. Grace is pregnant and the kid may be Mickey’s, though he denies this rumor to anyone who asks, particularly his other main squeeze Rita (Barkin), who is incredibly jealous of her sister. Yes, Grace is her sister; no, it is not at all clear why this matters to the plot. Mickey also has to deal with the emergence of a rival hitman, Nick (played by screenwriter/director Bishop), who’s as quick on the draw as Mickey and far more cold blooded, and who is gunning to supplant him as Vic’s top guy.
I can state these basic plot points with a modicum of confidence. Everything that follows I cannot confirm and will not condone, because I’m at a loss to describe what happens narratively for most its running time. You do not under any circumstances “gotta hand it” to Troy Duffy, and Boondock Saints is not the most narratively coherent film either, but it’s Chinatown compared to the fever dream of Mad Dog Time. Plot points are raised only to be discarded. Characters voice motivations in one scene and contradict them in the next. Lines like “fuck everything” are invoked as deep personal philosophies and presented as if they’re the height of wit and sophistication. It is a film that constantly gaslights any viewer who believes they have a firm grasp on what is happening on screen.
One big problem Mad Dog Time has, among many, is that it has woefully miscast its major characters. Not all of the performances from the principal players are bad (though some are, and trust me, we’ll get there), but there are plenty of wrong performances. Jeff Goldblum’s twitchy “ooh, aah, yes!” schtick doesn’t jive with the icy, emotionally detached hitman Mickey is supposed to be. Or at least I think that’s what he’s supposed to be; trying to pin down any aspect of this movie is like trying to eat soup with chopsticks.
Richard Dreyfuss is equally miscast as mob boss Vic. Where we would expect Tony Soprano-like violent rage, we get Dreyfuss’s trademark arch peevishness, an odd choice for someone who is supposed to be capo di tutti capi. He also doesn’t play his character with any hint that this is a person who has recently recovered from paranoid schizophrenia—a feat that can be accomplished after a few weeks of voluntary psychiatric care, according to this movie. Then again, Mad Dog Time forgets about Vic’s mental health at will and almost entirely once he returns from exile, occasionally invoking Vic’s fragile emotional state to explain his actions but just as willing to ignore it completely.
As for those bad performances, I’m sorry to say that chief among these is Gabriel Byrne as Vic’s resentful underling Ben. This was shocking to me because Byrne is not only such an accomplished actor, but gave his greatest performance in Miller’s Crossing, portraying a grizzled 1930s gangster with tremendous subtlety and pathos. You would think that experience would prepare him for this role, and yet In Mad Dog Time he occupies an insane place much like that of Willem Defoe in Boondock Saints. He is not as unhinged as Defoe in that movie (NO ONE has ever been that unhinged), but he does make a series of unreal acting choices that compel you to shake your TV and knock some sense into him.
Repeating my caveat that it’s impossible to pin down anything this film intends to do, I believe Ben’s character is meant to be the comedic center of the proceedings. To Byrne, this means mugging and unleashing so many dumb puns it’d make an entire British panel show commit suicide. In one scene, as Paul Anka himself pays tribute to Vic by singing his composition “My Way” (bear in mind that by this point in the movie we have already heard this song at least three times in its entirety), Byrne hops onstage and interjects “jokes” riffing on the lyrics at Vic’s expense. This scene is so aggressively, agonizingly unfunny that I think it stopped time. It made me feel like I was observing the movie as it sat at the event horizon of a black hole, from which point it would taunt and torture me for all eternity.
You may have noted that the names of characters Vic, Mick, and Nick rhyme. Bishop certainly did, and he larded his screenplay with riffs using these names and other rhymes in quick succession. Byrne gets the bulk of these lines, and after a few instances of him saying things like “Nick’s a sick prick, Mick” I felt my soul do a “check ya later” and slither out of your body.
Silver medal in bad performance goes to Burt Reynolds, playing a rival gangster named Jackie Jackson who appears out of nowhere, does absolutely nothing, and then is killed. (Mad Dog Time loves to introduce a supposedly formidable rival to Vic who is dispatched in a matter of minutes, before the viewer can receive the slightest inkling about who the fuck this person is and why their death should mean anything at all.) Jackie wears a fedora and linebacker shouldered suit straight out of Guys & Dolls, which makes hall of fame-level Cool Dude Reynolds look like a little kid wearing an adult’s Halloween costume. At least half of his dialogue is ADRed, suggesting that he either wasn’t up to remembering his lines or couldn’t be bothered. Reynolds would turn in acclaimed performances in Striptease and Boogie Nights after appearing in this mess, so it’s not as if he was incapable of making an effort when Mad Dog Time was filmed. Maybe he was so mortified by his involvement in the film that he cut a hasty retreat. Considering some of the absolutely turkeys Reynolds appeared in during his film career, that he couldn’t be bothered to exert replacement level effort for Mad Dog Time speaks volumes.
The cast is rounded out with a buffet of big names slumming it in smaller roles and cameos. There is very little explanation for any of these roles vis a vis their importance to the story, and any attempt on the viewer’s part to dope this out will have to follow a path analogous to paleontology, where a scientist discovers the tiniest fraction of a bone and can only imagine the rest of the skeleton on which it could hang.
Gregory Hines is a gangster who is aligned with Vic, and whose death Mickey wants to avenge, though of course the viewer is given no reason as to why the two were so tight. He is perfectly fine in the role (though I could say more about that if I had any idea who this role is supposed to be) and also exits the proceedings early, well before its stink could possibly taint him. Kyle MacLachlan is a rival of Vic’s who tries to take down Mickey several times via dueling proxies and is eventually felled by a heart attack. Nothing could save this mess, but MacLachlan’s Agent Cooper uncanniness at least suits Mad Dog Time better than other approaches. Ditto Henry Silva, longtime character actor who specialized in playing unsettling psychos, as he adds his trademark glower to his role of henchman Sleepy Joe. (Did Trump get Biden’s nickname from here?) Rob Reiner plays Vic’s limo driver, appears in one scene to dispense wisdom, and escapes unscathed.
The worst cameo comes late in the movie, and when I say worst I mean less in the performance than in how the appearance will make the viewer feel. Throughout the film we hear vague references to a mythical figure known as Jimmy the Gravedigger. You do not have to watch this film for long to realize that just because something or someone is spoken of as being important doesn’t mean we’ll ever find out why or even see it/them at all. We do get to see Jimmy the Gravedigger, however, for about half a second in the movie’s final moments. Grace calls a meeting between herself, Mick, Vic, Nick, and Rita at her office in a funeral home. (On the scale established by the film, this is one of the less weird things that happens in it.) Jimmy the Gravedigger is the doorman at that meeting, at which point we learn that Jimmy is played by Richard Pryor. As he was ailing with multiple sclerosis at the time of filming, Pryor remains seated and says almost nothing on camera. And once the confrontation between the main players begins, he is never seen again. Thanks for showing us that, movie!
The film ends a la Reservoir Dogs with the assembled players finger pointing, talking over one another, and then shooting at/near one another. For no good reason whatsoever Vic kills Nick (the hitman he hired?) to spare Mickey’s life. I think. He and Grace reconcile. Probably. A final scene implies that Mickey and Rita were in league with one another in a scheme to bring Vic and Grace back together. Perhaps. The viewer is meant to take this as some mind-blowing twist, but by this point anyone still watching is merely grateful that the film is ending.
Let this post serve as one of those warnings made for future generations who may encounter radioactive sites: MAD DOG TIME IS NOT A PLACE OF HONOR. NOTHING IS VALUED HERE.