Most Rewatchable Scene
The Torchy's scene
In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 00:21:27Read transcript
- The field is narrowed to the hotel shootout, now with the bonus of the Breaking Bad actor, Torchy's, Jack visiting Eddie in prison, the Reggie Hammond and Jack Cates fight, and the Busboys scene where Eddie phones Jack from Roman's; a tangent recalls the Busboys' two songs, their Delirious opener and Eddie trying to prop them up.
- It has to be Torchy's: the setup and the scene itself never get old, from the drink-order exchange to 'I'm your worst fucking nightmare', one of the best four minutes ever in a movie; the cutaways to Nolte deciding whether to jump in and glancing up when the glass breaks, the patron who ran because he is on parole, and the whole thing as an assertion of power over a room with nothing like it in movie history.
- A comparison to Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, watched with a daughter two weeks earlier as the moment you knew she would be the biggest star in the world; the difference is that other variations of Roberts have come along, while there has still never been another Eddie.
- The hotel shootout is grimy and gruesome, 'probably 10 too violent' as transcribed, from a 1982 to 1983 stretch when Death Wish sequels and horror pushed the envelope; Gans is written as so psychotic that he loves shooting cops, not as a serial killer, just a convict who hates cops.
- For the prison visit there is a deleted scene sometimes restored when basic TV needs to stretch the runtime, Nolte walking and talking about rolling the dice on this crazy Gans before seeing Reggie; it is surprising it was cut since the film is so short, with so much spent on the two early shootouts that it is essentially a fifty-minute movie once Eddie Murphy arrives.
- The Busboys apology scene is beautifully edited with great music, Reggie happy at a bar with women after spending the whole movie trying to get laid while Jack veers his 1964 Cadillac around corners and rams into things; Torchy's is confirmed as the pick before moving on.