Stone Cold

Donkey: One of the signature cinematic themes of the 80’s and early 90’s, apart from Corey Feldman and Corey Haim competing to see whose career could take a nosedive into an existential vat of taint sweat faster, was the action hero. Larger than life euphemisms for supplement store patrons too enraptured in drug induced rage to notice their shrinking testicles stripping away what little masculinity they once had while in the futile, ham-fistedly pursuit of more, these heroes proved that our society is just as good at objectifying and propping up unattainable standards for men as we are with women. At the height of their popularity, these men of steel were at the top of the Hollywood orgy pile, allowing Schwarzenegger, Stallone, and even Van Damme to make progressively bigger and more violent films whose sole purpose was to give you a boner every time someone was chest-fucked with a sawed-off shotgun. But when potent manseed drips down that clusterfuck, there’s bound to be a few pregnancies. So as is always the case, when these films started to make an obscene amount of money, Hollywood began churning out copycats faster than Madonna could find new ways to share her crabs, saturating the market in an attempt to cash in before the well of rocket launchers and shitty one-liners went dry. And since those highly sought after A-list stars could only appear in so many tragedies per year, the search was on to find lesser men who would attempt to fit the bill.

Those who stepped up to the plate to become action stars (or America’s Next Top Douchenozzle, if you will) typically ranged from mildly inappropriate to epic failures whose tales of retarded glory will ring through the halls of Valhalla forever. Our oft mentioned favorite will always be Kurt Thomas of the timeless masterpiece Gymkata. How someone looked at that wood nymph and thought he’d be credible as anything more than a stand in for Blossom, I’ll never know. But another fine example is the perpetual jock stain that is Brian Bosworth. I know what you’re saying: Brian Bos-what? Exactly. Brian “The Boz” Bosworth is an ex-Seattle Seahawk whom was every bit as notable as a professional football player as he was a thespian. Both careers were short and entirely forgettable. And I can see the logic in plucking a potential symbol of mindless male aggression from the very shallow pool that is professional football, seeing as when they’re not busy slapping each other’s ass, half the men on the field in that sport literally do nothing more than slam into another man as hard as they can and end up doing little more than canceling one another out, but you might want to at least choose one that can read dialogue with more emotion than a clinically depressed fucking Speak N’ Spell. Of course, for our purposes we’re sure glad they didn’t, since that wall-eyed casting selection produced his glorious debut, 1991’s Stone Cold.

The Plot:

Donkey: In the far distant future of 1991, the FBI is faced with a terrifying new foe that has emerged from the cyberpunk-ruled streets: a chubby, dim-witted biker gang, led by the android from Aliens, which is making rather modest and poorly planned moves to expand their drug empire throughout the rest of the US. But those fail in comparison to their true goal of terrible, pointless vengeance. Helpless in the face of this expansive beer swilling ZZ Top cover band, the FBI looks for the one man that will dare to sport a leather vest and fifth degree mullet to stop them…The Boz! Using the considerably modest arsenal of skills at his disposal, he’ll redefine their notion of “blitzing a tight end” and possibly learn a little something about sharing and friendship along the way.

The Case for Greatness (aka The Lowlights):

Exhibit A: It’s Fourth & Down, And We Need To Run The Play Called “Staggering AssFacery”. Send In THE BOZ!

Donkey: After completing decade-long research that will finally produce a hypothesis that explains to the world exactly why Steve Guttenberg was ever paid to appear in films, Future Scientists from the year 20XX will focus all the power of their brains and cybervag-equipped robot lovers to coming up with the exact formula for creating the bullet ejaculating money shot that we’ve come to know as the action hero movie. And while I don’t profess to be any kind of time traveler (yet), I’m pretty sure that their first recommended step will be to open your movie with a scene that holds no other value whatsoever than to showcase how hilariously lethal your main character is. And Stone Cold does exactly that, as the film begins with three armed gunmen storming into a grocery store, randomly firing off their guns into carefully stacked semi-delicious food items while shrieking like an Apache war party that’s mainlining Red Bull. And as they collect what has to be at least $50 from the cash registers mere seconds later, in steps The Boz. With that kind of timing, one must conclude that he’s a Time Bandit who travels through the Sea of Chronology with a troupe of midgets, looking for exceptionally petty crime to stop. As soon as he enters the store, he grabs a cart and starts walking the aisles, striking fear into the criminals by doing some light shopping. As they freak out and split up like they’re being stalked by the Predator, or possibly Sean Young, The Boz helps the first two thugs catch up on their sleep with loving smashes to the fucking head. The last man standing, who holds a teenager hostage who’s wearing braces and headgear that is giving me a flashback to my early teens, starts to freak out and decides to give up and just run. But as he gets to the end of the aisle, he slips on errant liquid cleverly placed by a certain lawman, which for some reason rockets him about 10 feet through the air like he’s been shot out of a cannon, smashing into a stack of cans while The Boz just sits calmly and watches. Job well done, bitches. But showing off our hero’s unlimited killing power isn’t quite enough. The next step is to show how he could have been a moderately unsuccessful stand-up comedian if he wasn’t burdened with this incessant need to shatter skulls. So it is at the exact moment that the last punk falls that the store floods with cops, one of whom is The Boz’s captain. But rather than giving him a high five and a reacharound for a job well done, the Cap’n asks The Boz what he’s got to say for himself, since he’s apparently done all this while still on suspension. His response?

The Boz: “You’ve got a clean up on aisle four.”

SNAP! Nothing says you’re a take-no-prisoners-or-showers rogue cop like basically telling your boss to Hoover the lint out of your ass crack without fear of reprimand.

Exhibit B: Evil Embarks On A Corporate Team Building Retreat

The next variable in our equation of awesome is the villain; the yin to the hero’s yang, or the cock sandwich to The Boz’s shit taco. So with that, the movie suddenly transitions us straight to a biker gang rally where we’re introduced to The Brotherhood, an obnoxious gaggle of overweight frat boys who place hygiene about four notches beneath Victorian-era poetry appreciation on their priority chart. As we watch their shitheaded reindeer games, the movie starts to jump all over the place without warning. It begins with the gang taking part in such healthy activities as shooting a beer can off one another’s shoulder and head from about twenty feet away, some random pulling of dudes along the ground behind speeding bikes, followed up with some light brawling in a circle of death. But just as it seems like this group of microbiologists is going to crack the code to the human genome, the intelligence is stepped up a notch further. Ice, the second in command of the gang, played by William Forsythe, uses a fully automatic weapon to shoot another can off the shoulder of a fellow biker named Mudfish. As a brief side note, I love William Forsythe. Although I’ll always remember him from Raising Arizona, that guy has been in everything. As a matter of fact, if you look back through your photo albums, there’s a good chance that he played you at a party once, to much critical acclaim. But anyways, he just unloads the goddamn gun while waving it around like he’s trying to draw a mural on a wall with bullets. Mudfish has the can fly off his shoulder while he stands there for a few seconds, completely dumbfounded, before diving out of the way, remarkably not punctured by the barrage of bullets that proceeds to decimate the car behind him. I guess I was wrong. I guess what I thought was Ice waving his gun around randomly was actually him tracing the exact outline of Mudfish. And here I thought he was just a douche.

But then the movie suddenly cuts away from the idiotic merriment to some random biker named Trouble. Yes, Trouble. He stalks into a small church and fires upon a priest who appears to be performing a wedding, which rockets him through the stained glass window behind him like he got in the way of Godzilla trying to kick a field goal. It then cuts immediately to an incredibly quick court scene where the rest of the gangs curses and swears as Trouble’s convicted of the crime and given a sentence of 45 years. I’m not exactly sure what they expected. It’s not like he pulled off that hit with ninja-like stealth. So you can’t just fart on a cop’s dinner while he’s eating it and then wonder why you get a nightstick across the jaw. And just to finish things off, the scene then cuts to a mansion where the judge who convicted Trouble gets into a boat to go fishing, starts it, and explodes while Ice looks on, giggling from a short distance away. But as disjointed as this entire sequence seems, my hat is off to this movie for being so succinct. Normally a character going on a kill rampage, getting caught, and facing a trial would take, if not an entire film then at least a good portion of it. But Stone Cold has the balls to say fuck that, we’ll do it in a montage.

With that sequence leaving us fairly confused and somewhat gassy, the movie turns back to The Boz, hanging out in his ridiculously large apartment that a single cop simply couldn’t afford. He looks over the morning’s paper, pretending that he can read while making a power shake of epic proportions for breakfast. And what kind of rocket fuel does a killing machine require to keep his kung fu grip in the red? It’s none of that fruity, new age healthy stuff. No, we’re talking orange juice, a couple of Snickers bars, half a bag of potato chips, a banana, eggs, and Tabasco sauce just to keep the hair on his balls razor sharp. But just as you think he’s going to actually eat that shit and likely drop dead of a flavor overload, he feeds it to his pet lizard, which apparently he hates and wants to die. Right about then there’s a knock at his front door, which he opens to find Sam McMurray, another dude from Raising Arizona. He identifies himself as Lance, an FBI agent, before asking The Boz to accompany him on a very urgent matter. I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that it’s a fashion-related emergency that only the mightiest headband-contained coif can guide them out of. With little argument, The Boz soon ends up meeting Lance’s boss, an FBI agent named Cunningham, in a car. After explaining that they’ve been watching the Brotherhood, who was not only behind the judge’s death but is also planning on extending their drug empire to become the Wal-Mart of black tar heroin and crab-infested hookers, Cunningham explains that since The Boz is responsible for more biker related arrests than anyone else in Alabama, they want him to work undercover and infiltrate the gang for them. Of course, The Boz doesn’t play by the rules, so at first he tries to refuse, only to be threaten to have his three week suspension extended to six months without pay. So as much as he might rage against the machine, that kind of hit to his bankroll would cut pretty deeply into his mousse and hairspray money, leaving The Boz little choice but to agree.

Exhibit C: In Like Flint, Provided That Flint Failed His GED Test 4 Times Too.

Risking an extreme bout of déjà vu, the movie then cuts right back to The Boz’s apartment, apparently the next morning where he wakes up once again to find Lance at his door. Only this time, the movie cranks up the homo-erotic insanity to the top of the charts as The Boz lets him in and proceeds to stroll around in ridiculous fucking bikini briefs. Goddamn it, I did not need to see The Boz’s shrunken boss. And just to keep the random idiocy going, Lance saunters into the master bedroom and sits down on the bed while The Boz brushes his teeth in his ensuite bathroom, only to discover a naked woman rustling beneath the sheets. She sits up to give us a completely unnecessary titty shot while not even remotely surprised that a strange man is in the room, and neither she nor The Boz seem to be the slightest bit concerned that Lance is being barraged with a lethal combination of her tits and his package. I smell an awkward, lube-filled proposal in the near future.

But rather than showing us what might be the most horrifying threesome in the history of cinema, the movie jumps past that as well as any single moment of the day and goes straight to a random bar where The Boz meets Lance in the parking lot before going inside together and ordering a couple of beers. And of course, just to play up the tired The Odd Couple buddy cop cliché, Lance insists that the bartender give him a glass for his bear, implying that even as a seasoned veteran, being fruitier than a box of Frankenberry is more important to him than actually being even remotely competent as an undercover FBI agent. Meanwhile, The Boz spots Ice upstairs, making out with what appears to be his mom while under the watchful eye of a little rat-like fellow biker named Gut who giggles and rubs himself under the table, so he carries out his ingenious master plan to infiltrate the gang’s ranks: he walks up and asks why the chick that Ice is making out with has been eying his ass all night. Alright…interesting approach. When Ice naturally threatens to skullfuck his corpse, The Boz goes on to declare that he just got out of prison and heard that the Brotherhood were the baddest motherfuckers ever, but he guesses that he heard wrong. Umm…okay. So the secret handshake that gets you into a biker gang is to walk up and slap them across the face with your cock, I guess. But as Ice seriously contemplates raping him, someone calls his name from the floor of the bar, where two dudes hassle a chick to get their money back after being sold what they claim were bad drugs. Following the age old tenet that the customer is always right, Ice and Gut march down and where Ice gives one of them a soccer kick directly to the babymaker, inciting a classic bar fight. But it turns out that Gut is not exactly the most skilled fighter amongst the gang, as he starts to get his ass kicked almost immediately. Seeing a chance to seal the deal with a moment of glory, The Boz steps in and saves him, fighting off the last few fat truckers until the fighting is done. While Ice is rather unimpressed by his actions, Gut jumps at a chance to cradle The Boz’s balls and invites him to a Brotherhood rally that weekend. Seeing his chance to finally slide on his glass slippers and be crowned the belle of the ball, The Boz plays it cool as says he’ll think about it. At night. While touching himself in the shower.

Carrying on the movie’s fine tradition of graceless transitioning, it cuts directly to the Brotherhood rally, showing The Boz roll up in a sweet rapist van that’s hauling his Harley behind it. Ready to prove to a throng of douches that he’s as big a burden on society as anyone else, he parks the van,  jumps on his hog, and without any invitation whatsoever, pulls up directly next to Ice at the starting line of a drag race. Without knowing where the hell he’s going or what the hell the point is, he simply steels his jaw as the two of them take off, driving side by side for a while until The Boz wins by what seems to be nothing more than accelerating slightly. Damn, those are some dope moves! I’m guessing he did a lot of practicing on a go kart course before coming here. But The Boz isn’t done there. After all, if you’re going to mark your territory, might as well piss on the biggest dog you can find. So his next stop is another goddamn fighting circle, as apparently these bikers have nothing better to do than break each other’s spine out of sheer boredom. The Boz steps in, sporting the shirtless with jeans combination, a timeless classic that you don’t see outside of playing beach volleyball with Maverick and Goose nearly often enough. While he flails away with the martial skill that only a failed football player could call fighting, the leader of the Brotherhood and Final End Boss of the movie, Lance Henrikson, stalks the perimeter and watches in constipated disinterest. The Boz and his nameless bassist for White Lion opponent trade a ridiculous number of punches directly to the face before The Boz eventually knocks the dude out to a chorus of boos from the crowd. His work done, he strolls back to his van with Gut in tow, still waiting for the chance to cradle the balls and work the shaft, only to find Chains there waiting for him. After a brief introduction, Chains tells The Boz to take his “old lady”, Nancy, and have a good time. But once they’re alone in his van, he refuses her advances, saying that he doesn’t think a woman should be passed around like property. And that, my friends, might be the finest bit of acting that The Boz does in this film. As he steps out and leaves her inside, Ice warns Chains that this dude smells trouble. And moldy bagels.

The movie jumps abruptly once again at that point to what could be later that day, that week, or even six months as we are introduced to the Brotherhood’s compound with some absolutely bizarre imagery. The camera pans along the grounds, passing by random chicks showering out in the open in only semi-enclosed makeshift showers, delivering even more completely unnecessary titty shots before immediately moving on to kids running around, some pushing even younger ones around in strollers. What the fuck is that? That couldn’t be any more confusing for the drooling male masses watching this film than if they had transitioned from chicks making out in a tub of Jell-O to one taking a teeth-gritting, four-coiled dump. Eventually we arrive in a clubhouse building where we find Chains watching the District Attorney give a television interview, swearing that he’s going to appeal Trouble’s sentence until he gets the death penalty. As he and a few of his right hand men debate the merits of pan frying versus slow roasting the DA’s balls and serving them to him, The Boz arrives at the front gates of the compound and says he has a package for Chains. He’s allowed entry and is sent to a pool hall where it’s time for, guess what, another completely unnecessary titty shot as a chick is playing pool topless. What does that add to the scene, you ask? Class, my friends. That’s just classy. Once inside, he finds Chains and gives him the package, which turns out to be a bulletproof vest, saying that he’ll need it when they do business. I guess bringing Chains a picture of his mom and jerking off onto it wouldn’t have been obvious enough. In response, Chains accepts the vest, puts it on The Boz, spins him around, and shoots him right in the chest, sending him flying onto a pool table. The Boz gets back to his feet far too quickly, belying the fact that even with a protective vest on, getting shot in the chest fucking hurts and is restrained by several dudes as he tries to retaliate. What the fuck did you expect to happen? For him to be so deeply thankful that he serves you a hot, buttery croissant? But I guess acting like a dick sore is exactly what a group of assholes is looking for, as Chains then offers The Boz the chance to join the gang, much to Ice’s objection. And when he accepts, The Boz is given his first assignment, which is to carry out a hit. He’s given an earring and told to bring the matching one, worn by the mark, as well as the ear that it’s attached to back to them to show that the job is done.

With a chance for a small break from all this non-stop, ball clenching action, The Boz rolls off to find his prey, giving us a long bike riding montage of glory, set to the musical tragedy of the second worst Foghat cover band they could find. After watching scene after scene of his mullet billowing in the wind for far too long, the movie turns to another night club where The Boz finds the dude he’s looking for. After slamming his face into a crowded bar for all to see, The Boz picks the guy up and hauls him out straight to the FBI where they pull off an elaborate ruse to make it look like The Boz carried out the hit. They take the dude’s earring and a picture of the tattoo that he happens to have over that particular ear, and then have a severed ear tattooed to match. It all seems to be going smoothly until it comes time to dispose of the victim. Rather than holding the greasy thug until the sting is over, they just throw him on a plane and tell him not to come back. Wow. Do you think maybe that will come back to bite you in the ass?

With their nearly cunning scheme complete, The Boz reports back to Chains and delivers the proof of success along with an incredibly witty line:

The Boz: “Let’s just say that I saved the guy a fortune in Q-Tips.”

Such hilarity! Of course, if he’s dead, then he’s not exactly worrying about the mounting costs of a vicious battle against the pesky buildup of ear wax, so that makes no goddamn sense. But still, classic! Impressed with his success, Chains orders him to take Ice’s place on their protection money collection run, sending him with Nancy, another biker named Tool, and his girlfriend. But once he leaves, Ice renews his objections, again warning Chains that he doesn’t trust The Boz. To put the matter to rest, they contact an informant that they have in the police department and ask her to check on The Boz to see if he’s legit. After she promises to call them back with whatever information she can find, Chains hangs up and returns to sharing smoldering looks of barely hidden sexual tension with Ice.

Exhibit D: Thug Life – Far More Boring Than Snoop Dogg Let On

As we catch up with The Boz, he and Nancy part ways with Tool and his girlfriend. Moments later when the other couple comes out of the small business that they’re extorting, an apparent turf war is brought to the forefront as Tool ends up having a grenade tossed at him by a passing mob car, blowing him through a storefront window. Then moments later, Nancy walks out of another business with the money she collected while The Boz just lounges on his motorcycle and the mob comes calling again. A greasy Italian jumps out of their car, roughing up Nancy for about 2 seconds before grabbing the money and jumping straight back in for a quick escape. But as they race off, The Boz use all the power of his two-stroke Weed Whacker of a brain and jumps on the hood of the car, issuing the fierce battle cry;

The Boz: “You picked up the wrong passenger, buddy”.

Okay, that wasn’t even in the same stratosphere as clever. If clever was a city that line would be Rue McClanahan. Does that make any sense? No. But it’s still infinitely more brilliant than that piece of shit line. And his plan proves to be all the more retarded a second later when the driver pulls out a gun, leaving The Boz no choice but to roll off the hood at a speed high enough that he should be exceptionally fucked up by the experience. But all is not lost as when the car comes out of the alley, it gets hit by a cargo truck. Unharmed by his involuntary pavement floor routine, The Boz runs out to the wreckage and starting wailing on mobsters as they climb out of the car, even going so far as to shatter one opponent’s arm. And yet, when the mob leader, a man named Domicci, puts a gun to The Boz’s head seconds later, instead of blowing unprocessed corn dogs all over the pavement, he just yells freeze and tells The Boz to warn Chains to stay out of mob turf before they all calmly get back into the car and drive away. So just to recap, the mob just fucked up a guy with a grenade who wasn’t posing any kind of threat whatsoever, and then walked away from a guy who was shattering their limbs. Wouldn’t four dead bodies have delivered the message to Chains just as powerfully as smacking The Boz on the bottom and sending him back to cry about it? Once they’re gone, Nancy blubbers about how Chains is going to kill her for losing the protection money, so The Boz gives her the massive $400 that she lost and tells her not to forget where that came from.

After an almost entirely pointless and inappropriately whimsical scene where the whole gang visits Tool in the hospital, bringing him pizza, a jacket, and flowers, The Boz meeting with Chains in private, revealing a vial of what he calls P2P. Peer to peer file sharing? So he’s selling Napster in a bottle? Declaring that he’s got someone looking to unload this stuff, most likely to get away from Metallica-lead lawsuits, The Boz tells Chains that all he needs is protection and a buyer. Chains assures him that it’s no problem, that he’ll sell the stuff to the Italians, minus Domicci, of course. Without warning, the movie once again transitions straight from that sentiment to Chains and The Boz walking into a fancy restaurant and to meet with the mob. As the Italians greet them, Chains gives them a large gift box. They open it and pull out a motorcycle helmet which, once the visor is flipped up, turns out to have a disembodied head in it. It’s never expressly stated that it’s Domicci in there, but I think that’s what they’re implying. The problem is that since Domicci was only on the goddamn screen for about 2 minutes in total and that helmet only shows the eyes of the head inside it, there’s no fucking way to know that’s not just the poor restaurant’s valet who parked their bikes for them unless we paused the movie to do a 20 minute analysis of his brow when we first saw him. But regardless, the mob doesn’t seem overly upset by the death of one of their own and the arrangements for the drug deal are made.

Now that the stage is set for that The Boz’s high stakes game of idiocy, the movie goes through a series of random scenes that have to strain as hard to maintain any kind of connection as the clasps on Morgana the Kissing Bandit’s bra. First we get an utterly ludicrous and completely hilarious scene where Chains sits in a room by himself and plays fucking beat box with a goddamn recording of the District Attorney’s television interview for no particular reason whatsoever. Then the movie turns to what appears to be his room in the compound where he and Ice argue over the legitimacy of The Boz for the fifteenth fucking time. And then we finally arrive with The Boz as he walks into a public washroom to meet with Lance, who tells him that between the fake hit that they pulled off and collections that The Boz was witness to, they’ve got enough to convict the Brotherhood of racketeering. But that’s not enough for The Boz. He says they can take the Brotherhood and the mob in one shot. All he needs three dozen drums of P2P, transportation, and an agent willing to play the role of his drug mule. And just to sweeten the deal, he also promises a witness: Nancy.

But just when something almost approaches the vicinity of making sense, we get thrust right back into the darkness of the arbitrary as we see a large group of the Brotherhood roll up to a checkpoint created by the DA’s sworn clampdown, where they are greeted by two military men who simply ask to see their papers. I’m not exactly sure how a DA has any kind of authority to be using the military, but then I’m not really sure what the hell papers they’re referring to either. Do you need a permit to be that greasy in this particular state? Of course, rather than cooperate with the most basic of requests, they kidnap the two guys and put them in wooden makeshift coffins back in the compound. Chains then shoots them dead and orders them to be delivered to the DA as a campaign contribution while Nancy freaks out, calling him an asshole. When you’re not only the “bitch” of a biker gang’s leader, but have also been performing extortion scams for him, I’m pretty sure this isn’t the first shitty thing you’ve ever seen him do. But it doesn’t stop there, as after Chains sends Nancy away and declares that he needs a new bitch, Gut then objects as well, saying this isn’t the Brotherhood that he joined and that killing someone in cold blood just ain’t right. Seriously, what the fuck? I have a harder time swallowing the suggestion that these two thought they were in a glee club rather than a hardened douchebag biker gang than I would have chugging a new flavor of McDonald’s milkshake simply named “scabs”. When Gut goes even further and tells Chains that he’s out of line, Chains counters the argument by shoving his hand into the spinning front wheel of a revved up motorbike, which apparently turns it into a makeshift table saw. Touché.

Later that night, The Boz returns to the compound to find Nancy standing outside by herself. After telling him all about the previous events of the day, she remarks that she should have left before D-day, the big event that Chains is planning and needs all his money for. Of course, she doesn’t know anything more about it, but when The Boz tries to push her further for details, she asks why he’s asking so many questions. As he stammers out an excuse, she loses interest and says that she’s leaving for good. But since he can’t lose his prime witness, The Boz tells her she shouldn’t go, as she knows all too well that will mean that they’ll hunt her down and kill her. I can’t really see why they’d bother to take the time, but sure, why not? Instead he offers to take her with him when he leaves himself, which for some unknown reason she finds so touching that they start to make out right then and there. And with that, the three men watching this all threw up in their mouths a little. It’s a good thing we weren’t drinking a Mountain Dew at the time, or we could have been killed. Not from the scene, mind you, but just because Mountain Dew is a lethal combination of stomach bile and pig swill.

Later as we see the cops unload the dead bodies delivered to the DA’s house just as Chains had ordered, The Boz takes Nancy to lunch where he receives an urgent message from Lance, who has cleverly disguised himself as a guy who looks like he has no place being their waiter while he hands The Boz a bill with a note scrawled on it. The Boz makes some shitty excuse about having business to take care of and leaves Nancy there to meet Lance in the location requested. But as he leaves the place, Ice sees him and gets suspicious for no discernable reason. A few moments later when The Boz pulls his ridiculously loud Harley into a parking lot where Lance is waiting, which seems like the last thing that you want to be driving when you’re trying to be sneaky, he’s told that because of the dead troopers found, he’s going to be pulled off the case. But that’s no problem for The Boz, the manly man of all men, who simply declares that whether he has permission or not, he swears that he’s going to see this case through to the end. But just then Ice unloads at him and Lance from across the street before tearing off on his bike with cops and The Boz chasing him. Ice easily disposes of the cop with his automatic weapon, leaving only him and The Boz to play a shitty game of douche and mouse. But despite killing faceless cops only moments earlier, Ice somehow manages to miss The Boz when he pulls directly in front of him, about 15 feet away, which is actually quite a feat. They race for what feels like for-goddamn-ever until The Boz pulls up next to Ice and slams into him, causing his opponent to swerve off and run into a fucking car head on at full speed, exploding on impact. And yet, despite the fact that the force of the collision should have throw him like a ragdoll to be brutally battered by the merciless pavement or barbequed to flame-broiled perfection by the substantial explosion if he had somehow managed to stay on his bike, he actually ends up lying peacefully on his back on the ground a short distance away with nothing more than a slightly dirty and bloodied face, even having the wherewithal to curse at The Boz for being a cop before he dies. I’d call bullshit, but I’d just end up shouting my way through the entire movie. Fare thee well, Ice. We hardly knew ye.

As the movie turns back to the compound, Nancy receives the call from the police informant looking to give Chains the results of his query. He’s not there, of course, but since the woman recognizes Nancy’s name, she passes the information to her, telling her that the dude that they inquired about is linked in their systems to a cop named Joe Huff. When The Boz gets back later, she confronts him and accuses him of being a cop. Clearly upset, not as much by the fact that The Boz is a cop as much as the fact that she actually made out with a dude named Joe fucking Huff, Nancy waits until The Boz returns later that day and outright accuses him of being a cop. To his credit, he realizes how limited his own intelligence is, so rather that try to dance around the issue with some half-assed excuse, he flat out admits to it and just walks away. And his gamble seems to pay off, as Nancy still hasn’t ratted him out later that night when the entire gang gathers to put Ice on his bike, hoist him up on a platform, and give him a proper Brotherhood funeral. What is a proper Brotherhood funeral, you ask? Glad you asked. Chains insults him for a little while before getting up on the platform with him to awkwardly make out with his corpse before setting him on fire. And with that, I officially no longer want to be cremated when I die.

Later that night, or possibly another night, or likely not set to any given timeline since no one gives the slightest bit of a shit, The Boz meets with Cunningham, Lance, and a random FBI agent named Martinez that has volunteered to work with him on the sting so that they can arrange the drug deal the following night. And after a very brief conversation it apparently cuts directly to the next night where Martinez drops off the truck with The Boz, Chains, and a small contingent of the gang. Just to make things seem even more real, Martinez then plays out the act of demanding more money for the delivery, only for The Boz to gun him down for acting like a punk. Of course, if anyone had taken so much as 2 seconds to notice the distinct lack of blood or holes in his chest, they might have checked his pulse, realized that he was quite alive, and the whole thing would have completely backfired. They get lucky however, as instead they all ride off to make the deal with the Italians. But rather than meeting at the designated place where the FBI are waiting to spring the trap and arrest them all, the band of merry cockmongers ends up guiding The Boz onto an alternate route, stopping at an unknown location where they meet up with Chains and the Italians. Seeing as he obviously has no credible grounds to object to the change in plans, The Boz simply leaves Chains to complete the deal. He gets on his bike, which I’d love to know how it got to this mystery location since he was driving the rig and didn’t know about it, and meets Lance to explain not only how he managed to fuck everything up, but also to warn that someone mentioned something about hitting the DA.

Faced with being responsible for letting 3 dozen drums of illegal downloading onto the streets, The Boz goes back to finds two Italians driving the truck and does the only reasonable thing that a man of action can do. When they refuse to pull over, he shoots the connection between the truck and the trailer, causing them to break away from each other and the trailer to drift into a nearby gas station, causing the entire goddamn thing to go up in a massive fireball. And while the scene ends there, I’d like to take this opportunity to relay a somber message on behalf of The Boz to the family of the old couple who owned that Mom-N-Pop station: fuck you for getting in the way of my extreme justice. Next time trying making sure that you’re not sleeping like idiots in the path of my highly destructive rage. Assholes.

At this point the movie has meandered all over the goddamn place like a one legged man with an inner ear infection for quite long enough, so at last the plot finally begins to set up it’s dramatic conclusion and hopefully get to something that remotely resembles a fucking point. The preparation for the final showdown begins the next day when an ex-military member of the Brotherhood, brilliantly named AWOL, arranges with an old friend in the service to “borrow” a helicopter. And at the same time, The Boz returns to the compound where he’s taken straight to see Chains. At this point it’s obvious that he’s been made as a cop, but rather than discovering that Nancy had squealed on him – because let’s face it, The Boz couldn’t make a woman squeal with an oil tanker of lube and a nuclear powered vibrator – he actually comes face to face with the dude that he claimed to have killed whom had happily returned to Chains to recount the tale of his FBI kidnapping. Of course, Chains shoots the dude dead on the spot anyways, so his loyalty didn’t do him much good. But at that point, Chains decides that instead of killing The Boz, he’d rather break his heart, so he turns and shoots Nancy in the head. Faced with the death of the woman that he spent all of maybe 5 hours alone with and had kissed once, The Boz freaks out only to have Chains puts the gun to his head, pulling the trigger to reveal that it’s empty. Damn. Better luck next time. The gang then reveals that they plan on killing the DA tomorrow as they hold The Boz hostage and prepare a bomb that he will be strapped to for the purposes of creating a diversion that will rain steroid-filled blood, partially digested pork rinds, and a palpable lack of redeemable qualities all over the city.

Exhibit E: All That Build Up For This? Seriously?

But with that, the time for not quite explaining what the hell is going on properly is over, and the time for action has begun. So the last day of the DA’s appeal to the Supreme Court to have Trouble executed begins, we see Chains disguised as a priest as he sneaks through a checkpoint of the military perimeter guard set up outside of the courthouse. At the same time, AWOL and another biker head towards the area in the helicopter with The Boz and The Bomb secured in the back seat. As they approach, AWOL reveals that the plan is to strap the bomb to him and throw him out when the countdown reaches 20 seconds, creating a distracting explosion. Yes, you heard that correctly. Not only are they starting the countdown on the bomb’s timer before they actually strap it to him, but they’re waiting until there’s only 20 seconds left to do so. That, my friends, might be the dumbest fucking plan that I’ve ever fucking heard. I can’t even fathom how you could possibly think that would actually work as intended. And as even a six month old fetus could tell you would happen, when they reach their destination and the timer gets down to the 20 second mark, The Boz breaks free of his bonds before they have the chance to strap the bomb to him and starts a life or death struggle with the nameless biker that lasts much longer 20 goddamn seconds. Finally The Boz manages to strap the bomb to the dude and kick him out of the helicopter just seconds before it explodes. He then grabs AWOL, and tells him to take him to the courthouse.

While all this drama is taking place in the clouds, the Supreme Court rules in favor of the DA and sentences Trouble to be executed. I would have loved to have heard the legal argument for that, but again, that’s the least of this movie’s problems. Right t that point, after killing Martinez who just happened to be sitting in front of him, Chains stands up in the gallery and pulls out two guns, opening fire on the judges and any random people around him. Naturally at that point, all hell breaks loose and the movie again starts to jump all over the damn place like a humming bird with Attention Deficit Disorder. First a truck tears its way past the military perimeter in the commotion created and unloads a bunch of bikers and their bikes directly into the courthouse. Then it jumps back to Chains, who after killing all the guards, soldiers, and a large number of civilians around him, frees Trouble and turns his attention to the DA. As he begs for his life, Chains replies with a rebuttal that you just know that had been practicing in front of his mirror for the last month before finally shooting him dead:

Chains: “This reminds me of my father’s last words – don’t son, that gun is loaded!”

With the execution carried out, the movie then jumps back to the elite force of bikers, and by elite I mean that they can read at a fourth grade level with crapping themselves and killing a hooker, still riding randomly around the courthouse before cutting to a shot of staggeringly random stupidity. The driver of the truck that dropped them all off runs up and jumps through a plate glass window for no reason particular reason other than perhaps trying out for the Olympic team, landing in an office, only to be shot to death by cops who nail him through the window he just broke. If anyone can tell me a single possible use for that scene, I’d hate to hear it because that means that you’re as insane as the director, so maybe just keep your mouth shut before a squad of men in white coats comes to take you away. Just then the helicopter comes flying at the courthouse as The Boz tries to get AWOL to land, while Chains and Trouble are finally found by the elite bikers, who pick them up and take off again. But once The Boz realizes that none of his threats are going to result in AWOL landing the helicopter any time soon, he simply jumps the fuck out of it, falling about two stories above the roof of the courthouse before smashing through a skylight and falling another two stories to the marble floor. But since this is The goddamn Boz, he immediately gets up and kills a biker who happens to be standing right there, as four stories, glass, and marble aren’t enough to make him break wind, let alone his bones. But now that The Boz has made his way into the building with all the ease of a kidney stone, he wanders around killing random bikers as he goes. The highest profile of these is our old pal Mudfish, who is holding civilians hostage in a room with Gut, who is once again screaming about how this is going too far. Yeah, when you’ve helped to carry out an semi-elaborate plan to kill an innocent public official, that’s completely kosher. But if you happen to knock off a few of his secretaries along the way, you’re a complete turd swizzler. Gut tries to redeem himself, however, throwing himself in the line of fire when Mudfish sees The Boz coming. But that ultimate, selfless sacrifice goes literally without notice, as The Boz ignores him and simply blasts Mudfish right out a window 6 feet behind him like he just hit him with a truck. And just in case you were concerned and wondering if the hostage that Mudfish was holding captive got away, rest assured that she magically disappeared altogether, so it’s kind of a non-issue in a mentally challenged kind of way. But that’s all just a sideshow to the big top event that is the showdown between Chains and The Boz. And as the random bikers swerve around another corner, that’s exactly what we finally get. Perfectly happy to allow the fodder to do its job first, Chains gets off the back of the bike and tells the random biker to go ahead and try to take him out. And when faced with an opponent with an automatic rifle, this intellectual heavyweight decides that the best course of action is simply to charge him with his bike. Fuck, what could possibly go wrong? Oh yeah, right…The Boz simply shoots him and gets out of the way of the passing bike. But what takes this whole exchange from ridiculous to shitterific is that once it sails past him, the bike rockets out a window at the end of the hall and flies outside where it smashes into the helicopter, which AWOL just happens to be hovering in the neighborhood, casually hanging out before he goes up in a massive fireball. Words can’t express the awesome.

With the distractions finally out of the way, Chains and The Boz begin their fight, which is admittedly extremely lopsided when you consider that if Lance Henrikson was as old as he looks he would have been dead 10 years ago, while The Boz clearly chugs steroids like he’s doing a keg stand. So after grappling very briefly, Chains is summarily dumped to the floor where he tries to slowly crawl towards his gun. But before he can grab it, The Boz picks him up by the hair and punches him down the large marble staircase at the center of the building. Not quite finished, however, he follows Chains down and picks him up again, puts a gun to his head, pulls the trigger just to find that the gun is empty. Satisfied that the circle of life is complet, The Boz lets Chains go, watching him fall limply down the stairs, clearly turning into a stuntman that looks nothing like Lance Henrikson. And just like the beginning of the movie, it’s at that point that the army and FBI storm in and take control of the building, securing Chains. But anyone who’s ever watched an action movie knows there’s room for at least one more cliché. So as the cops hold Chains in place and try to slap handcuffs on him, he manages to grab a gun from one of them, which he immediately aims towards The Boz. But before he can give us what would have been the perfect ending to this movie, Lance pops up out of nowhere and shoots him dead. As everyone stops to wonder where the fuck he came from, he calmly delivers an absolutely confusing gem:

Lance: “Hey partner. It’s time to turn it on.”

I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean since the action has concluded, but apparently The Boz took that to mean that he should be preheating his stove, as at that moment he suddenly turns and strides away. And as the credits roll, we continue to get a long shot of The Boz exiting the building, walking towards the camera with his shirt open. This goes an insanely long time FOR NO GODDAMN REASON. After ninety hilariously painful seconds, this ends with him stopping just after a crowd of random civilians and just looking off past the camera. You can almost hear his inner monologue: “Wait, which way is my house?”

The Verdict:

Donkey: One of the truly great failing vehicles for a complete failure of a movie star, Stone Cold is as unrelenting in its march towards complete stupidity as it is towards obscurity. After all, now that we’ve looked at the overall story arc, let’s take one last minute to review: An idiot biker decides to blatantly murder a holy man for no reason whatsoever, so the leader of his bike gang decides to pool all of his money and resources into an ultimate revenge scheme, consisting of breaking into a courthouse and killing a district attorney. That’s it. That’s the fucking point of this story. What the hell did Chains plan on happening even if everything went according to plan? Do you think you can kill scores of innocent civilians and government agents and just stroll back to the clubhouse for a nice long vacation? And the best part of the entire affair is that since he didn’t so much as a single person but himself, if The Boz hadn’t been involved in any way whatsoever, Chains would have simply carried out his plan and had his entire gang summarily destroyed regardless. So unless you’ve never heard of someone who’s ever sat next to a guy who’s read a good story, you would have to know that this is goddamn ridiculous. And Brian “The Boz” Bosworth has to be one of the absolute worst action heroes ever to flex his well-oiled man-tits in our direction. The reanimated corpse of Ted Knight stapled to an unwilling Ted McGinley would have combined to make a more charismatic character than this guy. But again, that’s what makes this entire affair so goddamn hilarious. It’s not quite one of the truly elite, but it’s close. I give this movie four and a half stomach turning bikini briefs out of five improbably low-impact head on collisions.

What We Learned:

Donkey: The American legal system apparently works a lot faster than I thought it did, considering that Trouble killed a preacher, was caught, tried, and then convicted all within The Boz’s three week suspension period. That’s rather impressive.

Don’t forget to check back every Sunday for a new fresh review! Next week shittymovienight.com presents: Our sanity, gag reflexes, and ball strength will all be put to the test as we endure the double dong punch of…DOUBLE IMPACT.

Back To The Main Page.