Hard Times

Might be my favorite Hill movie. What I love is that it's a movie in which nothing really changes, for anyone. Guy comes to town to fight. Fights, wins, leaves town. The end. I also like how Bronson never really seems like he's in any sort of trouble in the fights. You expect the ultimate showdown with Street to leave him bloody and bruised, but nope. A bit of a cut over his eyebrow, that one moment where he gets hit really hard and has to catch his breath. That's about it.

I also love the little moments that show Street's character--him tossing aside the brass knuckles, or being given solace by the goons who were likewise fallen at Bronson's hands. I like that the bad guys aren't really that bad: Street is an honorable fighter, the promoter is just a fight fan, the large black thug that goes to collect from Cobourn tells him he doesn't want to hurt him, he just needs to pay his debts. Even the gangsters that take Cobourn hostage are almost flippantly happy not to have to hurt him at the end, that little washing of the hands gesture they do to acknowledge the clearing of his debt gets me everytime. The film is a lesson in stoicism. Also, Strother Martin being wierd and dandyish as fuck.

Then there are the two great exchanges from Bronson, the first when he gets his money from the cheating southern fight promoter by holding him at gunpoint. The guy says he won't use the gun, so Bronson clocks him in the head with it and goes: "That's one way, want to see another?"

The second, and I've always wanted to use this on a girl myself (in my Bronson voice, thus assuring my getting shut down), is when the he asks to go up to the woman's room, and she says she doesn't even know him, and he goes: "Yeah, but would ya like to?"

That's Frank McRae, also Nolte's boss in 48 Hrs, Schwarzenegger's boss in Last Action Hero, and tragic first victim to the commie bastard invasion in Red Dawn.

But yeah, Bronson kicks so much Nawlins ass in this movie it makes you wonder if Katrina was just an overzealous Walter Hill fan. Coburn and Martin are fantastic too, love the two of them sitting in the car at the end, all grinning and awestruck at Bronson's badassery.

"He sure was something, wasn't he?"

Props also to Barry De Vorzon's rich atmospheric bluegrass (though my first love will always be the synth masterpiece he created for V: The Final Battle... KA CHAK CHAK!)

 

It may be hills best film. It kind of got an Robert Aldrich thing going on.