Movie 78: Mad Dog And Glory

Wayne “Mad Dog” Dobie (Robert De Niro) is a timid cop with an ironic nick name who rarely draws his gun. When he’s caught up in a grocery store robbery he saves the life of Frank Milo (Bill Murray), a mobster and a stand up comic. The two become sort of friends and Frank gives Wayne Glory (Uma Thurman) for a week as a very awkward present.

This is a role reversal for the two male leads and essentially a character piece. Its also a lot more star packed now than it was at the time with the three I already mentioned and David Caruso as De Niro’s partner.

To get the tone of the movie out of the way before I talk about the performances, it has a good first half hour, a bit of a saggy middle then a very good last half hour. Unfortunately for that middle section I was wishing they’d made another movie. Mad Dog and Milo spend the night out on the piss basically. Mad Dog loves taking pictures, Milo does some stand up. They’re two guys on opposite sides who wish they were doing something else in their heart of hearts. A full on character piece with these guys would have been great, though I didn’t buy Murray as a gangster at this point, then the Glory thing kind of derails it for a while.

De Niro is very good in this, giving a discrete performance as an unremarkable cop. The relationship between him and Glory is believable and there’s one very awkward sex scene and another very realistic one. I know he’s a method actor, but I’m pretty sure it’s Jack Nicholson that’s claimed that he never faked a sex scene so I doubt he actually did it with Thurman. I wouldn’t be all that shocked if it turns out they had though. There’s a lot of little character moments for Bobby here and as expected of early 90’s De Niro he handles them well.

There’s not much to say about Uma’s Glory really. She’s good, but that’s all really. Vulnerable for the duration.

Murray really sold me after the first hour. He’s absent for quite a while and in the first Milo scenes it’s just Bill Murray really. He doesn’t have to be anything but nice. But when he has to flip that switch and be the nasty mob guy he really flips the switch. Bill Murray is fucking SCARY at times in this.

And Caruso… CSI Miami isn’t my favourite. I’m not actually a big CSI fan, but his character in that is a bit of a joke with the shades before the credits and the almost constant posing. I can only remember seeing him in two movies, this and Rambo. He’s a cop in both. And you could technically treat that as the CSI Miami characters career. He doesn’t have much to do in Rambo. Here he’s a guy who doesn’t take any shit and is a good partner. It’s actually the most likeable I’ve seen him. There’s a few lines that could have had a pause inserted then been followed with a YEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHH! But that’s the script. His performance on the whole is spot on and he’s a very enjoyable side character.

Reading the trivia they changed the characterisations of Mad Dog and Milo a bit after audience reactions which is a shame. They also added some stuff for Glory to make her more sympathetic, which I have less problems with. I’d love to see the pre-test screening version to see how Milo came out in that though as it was nice seeing Murray get a chance to stretch some nasty muscles.

Worth a look, and it only cost me a quid or two out of Morrisons.

Next up: Righteous Kill. More De Niro then.