Mad Dog and Glory ««
R, 97m. 1993
Cast & Credits: Robert De Niro (Wayne), Bill Murray (Frank Milo), Uma Thurman (Glory), David Caruso (Mike). Screenplay by Richard Price. Directed by John McNaughton.
In the monthly issues of Premiere magazine is an article listing movies coming soon to theaters. In the March 1993 issue, the writer said in his opinion of Mad Dog and Glory, “Release keeps getting pushed back. Hmm.”
Hmm indeed. The film’s studio, Universal Pictures, started showing trailers of the movie during the summer of 1992 and was scheduled to release it that fall. The film didn’t get released nationwide until now and like that writer, I also wondered why.
Now that I have seen Mad Dog and Glory, I can think of one possible reason. Perhaps the studio didn’t have a lot of faith in the picture to begin with.
The film is about a hesitant, sensitive police detective named Wayne but nicknamed “Mad Dog” (Robert De Niro) who saves the life of clean cut, cynical mobster Frank Milo (Bill Murray) during a convenient store robbery. Milo, who doesn’t exactly appreciate the gesture, eventually pays Wayne back by letting him have his girlfriend, Glory (Uma Thurman), for a week. Problems arise, however, when Wayne realizes he is falling in love with the woman and wants to marry her.
The idea of having Murray as a straight laced mobster and De Niro playing the nice guy cop who can’t quite stand up for himself sounded great. I felt this was another chance for Murray, whose only dramatic role was his directorial and starring effort in 1985’s remake of The Razor’s Edge to do something more than just comedy.
I loved the way the movie began. The two characters seem to hit it off as good friends. Frank, who does a stand-up comic routine telling cop and Mafia jokes at his own nightclub, gets some tips from Wayne on what is funny. Once the two have drinks together, they begin to let their real feelings show.
“I wish I was handsome,” Wayne tells his new found acquaintance. “I wish I was brave.”
Here, the two reveal they would rather be leading different lives. Murray’s character, who is not in the film as much as De Niro’s, makes this apparent with his comic routine. De Niro’s Wayne, on the other hand, thinks he’d be happier taking photographs.
Wayne, however, can never bring himself to stand up to the wife beating husband who lives across the hall and is also a cop. Whenever he gets into a life threatening situation, Wayne cowers and then regrets his actions. Every night, he comes home and watches a couple in another building make love wishing it was him with the woman instead of the husband. When Glory asks Wayne to put his arm around her in one scene, he acts as though this was his first date.
The problem is I had a real hard time figuring out if the film’s characters cared for one another. Thurman’s character went from one extreme to the next. Was she really turning to Wayne for help so she can get away from Frank? Or is she just using him so she can get on with her own life? By the time the film ended, I was left with only a vague impression about how Glory and Wayne felt for each other and even after that, I still wasn’t sure.
Mad Dog and Glory was directed by John McNaughton, whose first film was the controversial and unsettling Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986). This is really his first theatrical film since “Henry” was slapped with an X rating by the Motion Picture Association of America for its graphic content and went straight to video.
It didn’t take me long to realize McNaughton still likes to focus on blood and gore close up, just as he did in his first movie showing bodies of decapitated women. Mad Dog and Glory opens with a grisly murder scene and watching it, I asked myself was this supposed to be another film about a serial killer or a love story?
Turns out it is neither. Mad Dog and Glory succeeds in its first half as an interesting character study but when it comes to being about relationships in its second half, the movie fails miserably.
The film, however, does offer a unique twist of irony, which comes from Murray’s Milo himself.
“We’re two people who’d much rather be somewhere else,” he tells Wayne.
For me, that statement sounded like a fitting epitaph. At the time I saw this film, I was burned out working in my retail job renting and selling movies to people at the video store.
So like Wayne and Frank Milo who hated their professions, I, too, sat there in the theater wishing I was doing something else.
©3/11/93
R, 97m. 1993
Cast & Credits: Robert De Niro (Wayne), Bill Murray (Frank Milo), Uma Thurman (Glory), David Caruso (Mike). Screenplay by Richard Price. Directed by John McNaughton.
Hmm indeed. The film’s studio, Universal Pictures, started showing trailers of the movie during the summer of 1992 and was scheduled to release it that fall. The film didn’t get released nationwide until now and like that writer, I also wondered why.
Now that I have seen Mad Dog and Glory, I can think of one possible reason. Perhaps the studio didn’t have a lot of faith in the picture to begin with.
The film is about a hesitant, sensitive police detective named Wayne but nicknamed “Mad Dog” (Robert De Niro) who saves the life of clean cut, cynical mobster Frank Milo (Bill Murray) during a convenient store robbery. Milo, who doesn’t exactly appreciate the gesture, eventually pays Wayne back by letting him have his girlfriend, Glory (Uma Thurman), for a week. Problems arise, however, when Wayne realizes he is falling in love with the woman and wants to marry her.
The idea of having Murray as a straight laced mobster and De Niro playing the nice guy cop who can’t quite stand up for himself sounded great. I felt this was another chance for Murray, whose only dramatic role was his directorial and starring effort in 1985’s remake of The Razor’s Edge to do something more than just comedy.
I loved the way the movie began. The two characters seem to hit it off as good friends. Frank, who does a stand-up comic routine telling cop and Mafia jokes at his own nightclub, gets some tips from Wayne on what is funny. Once the two have drinks together, they begin to let their real feelings show.
“I wish I was handsome,” Wayne tells his new found acquaintance. “I wish I was brave.”
Here, the two reveal they would rather be leading different lives. Murray’s character, who is not in the film as much as De Niro’s, makes this apparent with his comic routine. De Niro’s Wayne, on the other hand, thinks he’d be happier taking photographs.
Wayne, however, can never bring himself to stand up to the wife beating husband who lives across the hall and is also a cop. Whenever he gets into a life threatening situation, Wayne cowers and then regrets his actions. Every night, he comes home and watches a couple in another building make love wishing it was him with the woman instead of the husband. When Glory asks Wayne to put his arm around her in one scene, he acts as though this was his first date.
The problem is I had a real hard time figuring out if the film’s characters cared for one another. Thurman’s character went from one extreme to the next. Was she really turning to Wayne for help so she can get away from Frank? Or is she just using him so she can get on with her own life? By the time the film ended, I was left with only a vague impression about how Glory and Wayne felt for each other and even after that, I still wasn’t sure.
Mad Dog and Glory was directed by John McNaughton, whose first film was the controversial and unsettling Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986). This is really his first theatrical film since “Henry” was slapped with an X rating by the Motion Picture Association of America for its graphic content and went straight to video.
It didn’t take me long to realize McNaughton still likes to focus on blood and gore close up, just as he did in his first movie showing bodies of decapitated women. Mad Dog and Glory opens with a grisly murder scene and watching it, I asked myself was this supposed to be another film about a serial killer or a love story?
Turns out it is neither. Mad Dog and Glory succeeds in its first half as an interesting character study but when it comes to being about relationships in its second half, the movie fails miserably.
The film, however, does offer a unique twist of irony, which comes from Murray’s Milo himself.
“We’re two people who’d much rather be somewhere else,” he tells Wayne.
For me, that statement sounded like a fitting epitaph. At the time I saw this film, I was burned out working in my retail job renting and selling movies to people at the video store.
So like Wayne and Frank Milo who hated their professions, I, too, sat there in the theater wishing I was doing something else.
©3/11/93
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