What was this?

*Part of a retrospective i'm doing on 1986, which is part of a larger review/ranking series on the 80's

8 MILLION WAYS TO DIE MOVIE REVIEW (TRISTAR, 1986)

“8 Million Ways to Die” bills itself as one of those hardboiled detective thrillers but the only mystery here is what the hell happened? About the best thing about it is Jeff Bridges as a cop who loses his whole life to alcoholism over the guilt of killing a man in front of his whole family. He sobers up but the character continues to remain vulnerable to the more traumatic side of investigations and Bridges makes good use of that.

The mystery sucks though. Like it’s pretty shocking just how one-dimensional this all is. Scudder (Bridges) somehow gets involved with a call-girl (Alexandra Paul) who says she knew him while he was on a 6-month bender. How they met or the nature of the relationship is never conveyed. She’s meant to be sexy and flirty but instead she literally says this line during a night together: “I love how the streetlight makes my pussy hair glow in the dark.”

Anyway, she’s having problems with a pimp, a man whose quickly disposed of as a suspect when she ends up murdered and Scudder has nothing else to do but investigate as a civilian. From there the movie really only gives us one villain (Andy Garcia, with a terrible pony-tail and even worse Cuban accent, which is odd, since the actor’s Cuban), a romance (with Rosanna Arquette) built around pointless dialogue, Arquette either screaming or shouting, or her puking in Bridge’s lap, and probably worst of all, a final confrontation of shoving and yelling that seems both endless and chaotic.

This is a movie with no tension, no twists, and no reason to detect anything because it pretty much lays it all out there. What was this supposed to be?

Grade: 2 out of 4

If you liked this, check out my facebook page for more, and some newer reviews as well. Feel free to join: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1539592586087385/