I love this movie. It is the king of biker movies. Charlie Sheen turns in a great performance as a cop who infiltrates a biker gang. It's a good story, and I am a real sucker for the undercover agent finds his loyalties tested genre. [Oh, yes, I watched Wiseguy! And The Equalizer. That was the best Wednesday night lineup ever.] He comes within a hairsbreadth of going over the wall, and nearly tore himself apart in the process.

The head biker/antihero [Michael Madsen -- the guy I really liked in Clear and Present Danger] was smooth, menacing, and compelling; and he made you wish that the movie could have a different ending. Rip Torn plays the biker who manages to get Charlie Seen inside -- he provides comic releif and a touch of pathos. There were a handful of bikers that stood out from the background, an interesting love interest [Linda Fiorentino, who I always enjoy -- I have a sick obsession with Jade], and a shadowy backstory that had mythic qualities. And a song that sounds like Dire Straits -- The Road to Hell. The film opened with an amazing quote:

It is easy to go down into hell:
Night and day the gates of dark
death stand wide; but to climb
back up again, to retrace one's
Steps to the open air, there lies
the problem, the difficult task.
~Virgil, The Aenid

This is a god-awful movie. Truly, truly bad. Even for what it is, which is a biker movie. It also belongs to the cross-genre all of the bad guys end up really really dead, which is quite emotionally satisfying. It fails to capture the best of either genre. This movie has 3 major influences:

• Die Hard: Who can argue that Die Hard rules the all of the bad guys end up really really dead genre? It has a great cast, arresting characters, fantastic pacing, and lots of humor. Stone Cold managed to get the pacing, but didn't even try for the humor. They also failed to develop arresting characters -- there should have been some memorable bikers, and Stone's legal connection should have been better. Compare this to Die Hard, with Reginal VelJohnson's genial cop, Alan Rickman's gleefully snobbish terrorist, and the Russian terrorist.

• Road House: I think that they were hoping that Brian "The Boz" Bosworth could manage a Patrick Swayze in Road House imitation. You know -- the quiet, determined, tough but tender-hearted, bad-ass with a poet's heart blond love-god. [Yeah, I love Road House. Blow me.] Unfortunately, from the vantage point of 2001, it is extremely difficult to see The Boz as a bad-ass when he's so blissfully blonde. That "it used to be a Mohawk but now it's growing long and isn't spiky any more" look just... it may have been possible to look like that in the 80's and inspire respect or fear, but it just isn't now.

• Above the Law: If you haven't seen this movie, go watch it. It rocks. It does everything Stone Cold tried to do, and more.

There is a good thing about the movie. [That's right -- one good thing.] Lance Henricksen, as the head biker. He's a sly old fox; he moves through the crowd of bikers like he's moving through ghosts. A predator, he is lined, and graying, and cold. Of course, the damn movie people have to fucking ruin it by making him go completely crazy and start killing people for no good reason.

But there's some good, senseless violence, and in the end, all of the bad guys get killed. That's always a good thing. And a helicopter falls from the sky!

I've seen the movie 4 times. *grin*

Some sample bad dialogue:

• Angels don't die.
• Everybody bail. You're on your own.
• There's a lot of things I can accept, and even more I can ignore.