Tough Guys Don’t Dance ** (1987, Ryan O’Neal, Isabella Rossellini, Debra Stipe) – Classic Movie Review 10,757

In difficult circumstances, Ryan O’Neal does well as a blacking-out alcoholic writer, 40-something ex-con Tim Madden, who may have killed during a drunken bender, in this wobbly but always intriguing 1987 movie Tough Guys Don’t Dance, directed by its writer, Norman Mailer, based on his own novel.

His father Dougy helps him try to unravel the mystery after he wakes from a two-week bender to find a pool of blood in his car and the severed head of a blonde woman in his marijuana stash.

Lawrence Tierney is great as O’Neal’s brusque dad Dougy and Isabella Rossellini is an asset, too, as vengeful femme fatale Madeleine Regency, Madden’s former girlfriend, and Wings Hauser scores as the psychotic new Provincetown police chief, Captain Luther Regency.

Tough Guys Don’t Dance could seem infuriating and pretentious, possibly frustrating as it defies slotting into the darkly comic neo noir crime thriller is seems to be, but its weirdness makes it a bit of a one-off – fortunately.

Also in the cast are Debra Stipe [Debra Sandlund], Wings Hauser, John Bedford Lloyd, Penn Jillette, Frances Fisher, R Patrick Sulllivan, John Snyder and Clarence Williams III.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,757

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