Bad/awesome flixxx review: Stone Cold (1991)

"This may be a rag to the walking dead out there, but *this* is my flag, my cross, my church. And these colors don't run... If they hit the ground even in a fight, I will peel your skin off with a knife dipped in shit." - Chains

"The devil was a rebel angel. If you want to fuck with the living, you'll have to learn to fuck with the dead!" - Chains

"Imagine the future, Chains, 'cause you're not in it." - John Stone

Now THIS is more like it! In the "tough cop" action genre a la COBRA, we have ex football player Brian Bosworth in his first (and last) starring role. The Boz is a great cheezeball action hero and the flick has an amazing supporting cast. William Forsythe and Lance Henrikson! Also Sam Macmurray (who was in RAISING ARIZONA with Forsythe) plays the Boz's partner. This movie is significant to me for a few reasons: #1, I've never seen Lance Henrikson smile in any other movie. He does in this one, until he shaves his mustache off, and then its back to snarling and frowning. And #2, while watching, I realized even though it's not mentioned at all on the IMDB or the Wiki page for this movie, its a direct remake of the Australian movie STONE (1974). Its rewritten a bit, but it is totally a remake. Undercover cop named Stone infiltrates motorcycle gang. In this one he's trying to nail the gang who may kill a politician, in the original he's trying to save the gang from someone who killed a politician. So- all of that and more in STONE COLD!!!





Just like Stallone in COBRA, this one starts out with a robbery in a grocery store. And just like Stallone, the Boz delivers punishment and has to face a mad sergeant after its over and there's tons of damage, to which he replies: "cleanup on aisle 4." Cute. There are certain rules you should follow when robbing a place of business. #1 LOCK THE FUCKING DOORS. If you aren't going to keep a lookout up front so that unsuspecting badass off duty cops can just roll right in, you may wanna lock the doors, and pretend like they're closed. #2 DON'T CALL EACH OTHER BY YOUR REAL NAMES. Yelling out "hey charlie, go see what's up!" isn't doing anything to protect your identity. Make up a code name or something. Like the dudes in the motorcycle gang. CHAINS! Are you serious? When I was in middle school, we used to laugh about what the best jail name would be. "Snake" would be the obvious choice, but what about "Knife"? Maybe with no "k". Just "Nife". I remember my buddy Myron used to say his would be "Chains", and we would laugh uncontrollably. But I guess that is a viable option. The first thing you see is the robbers looking into the video camera that is watching them and one (the leader) yells "YEAH, LET'S GO!!" And then he starts machine gunning an end cap of Ritz crackers! That's how you start a movie!



He's just machine-gunning away and then he yells "I LOVE IT!!", and his buddy yells, "YEAH! BIG FUN!!" HA! No shit! That is seriously what came out of his mouth. Ok, so totally oblivious to what is going on, the Boz rolls in and starts eating chocolate off the shelf. When one of the robbers sticks a shotgun up to his temple, he fucking elbows him and blows him away. Then he blows another one away, and then the last guy slips on some syrup and flies upside down back first into a huge display of cans. Awesome. Then the Boz splits after taking them out. He's already on suspension for using to much force or destroying too much shit a la DIRTY HARRY. But the feds make him an offer that they won't let him refuse. Yep- blackmail. If he doesn't infiltrate a local Mississippi motorcycle mob that reportedly killed a preacher they'll turn his 2 week paid suspension into a 6 month suspension with no pay. Bummer. So he bites.



The Boz invents John Stone and befriends the head of the gang Chains (Henrikson) much to the dismay of untrusting Ice (Forsythe). The gang is wild as Hell and they have wild motorcycle gang parties that look like they're more out of the 60s than now. The titty bar they hang at is called Tit For Tat. I don't know why I thought that was relevant. Stone goes through initiation in the gang by "murdering" someone that betrayed the "Brotherhood". Instead of really killing him, they just ship him off to wherever he's from and tattoo his ear tat on a fake ear. Then they steal a bunch of drugs that Stone hooks them up with to gain their trust. Ice figures out Stone is a cop and that gets him "iced". Yeah. Then Stone convinces Nancy- his bitch that was given to him by Chains- to turn evidence on the gang. The goal that the Brotherhood has in mind is to get their buddy off of death row and kill the governor who is seeking the death penalty against their boy.



In the end, the og guy Stone was supposed to kill shows back up, rats Stone out, and then they kill Nancy to hurt Stone. Then they plan to strap a bomb to Stone and drop him into the courthouse during the trial to blow it up by helicopter. Stone escapes though and fights the pilot and gets the chopper low enough to jump out. Chains dressed like a priest knifes someone and starts a ruckus in the courtroom. In the scuffle the governor is killed. But then Stone starts killing everyone. He lets a motorcycle charge him, then pulls a matador and the motorcycle flies out the window and lands inside the helicopter blowing it all the Hell. Stone then beats up Chains, and he's taken into custody, but he gets a cops pistol and almost kills Stone til his pussy-ass partner pulls a gun and blows Chains away. End of story. Should you? Hell yeah. Its a great, cheesy, action sandwich.