| Tough Guys Don't Dance (1987) Cast:Ryan O'Neal, Wings Hauser, Issabella Rossellini,Lawrence Tierney,Debra Sandlund Ryan O'Neal stars as a writer who during a slow season finds a severed head in his pot stash, a few days after his wife leaves him along the way Wings Hauser dogs him with endless accusations and O'Neal can only turn to his tough guy father Lawrence Tierney in this lackluster thriller. If anything else, Tough Guys Don't Dance may have the most interesting cast ever assembled. A slew of gifted actors all the way from exploitation legend Wings Hauser to art house actress Issabella Rossellini, it's a variety of acting styles that you thought you'd never see in hollywood which makes this such a surreal effort. Of course that's among many of the movie's problems, in that the acting styles never mesh for a second. In particular Wings Hauser is an excellent psycho in a sleazy thriller but you take away the sleaze and he loses his edge ergo you put O'Neal in a sleazy thriller and boy, does he look out of place. Infact the interesting cast gives off the impression that the casting director was stinking drunk at the time. Seriously Wings Hauser in the same movie with Ryan O'Neal, they might as well have also gotten Goldie Hawn and Michael Dudikoff to even out this messy cast. What's worse is that the movie can't decide whether it's a thriller or a black comedy, I think this why the movie is such a failure. Wings Hauser, Issabella Rossellini and Lawrence Tierney are perfect for the thriller genre and Ryan O'Neal and Debra Sandlund are perfect for comedy but mixing them together is like mixing oil and water, they just don't flow together. So in this case the movie is dead in the water before it can even get started. Sometimes novels make great movies and although I had never read the book, this movie hardly interested me enough to go read the book, plus the idea is downright ridiculous to think that this could've made for a coherent movie. Still it's fascinating watching a completely mismatched talented cast try hard with the material and in that this movie may be worth watching for curiousity alone. D.Norman Mailer** |