Murphy's Law

Murphy’s Law (1986)

Runtime: 100 minutes

Directed by: J. Lee Thompson

Starring: Charles Bronson, Kathleen Wilhoite, Carrie Snodgress, Lawrence Tierney

From: MGM/Cannon

Here’s another movie I saw due to the fact that I still get Showtime channels for free, for goodness knows what reason. Hey, it’s my cable provider’s mistake… what they don’t know won’t hurt them, right? Here’s one of the movies that Bronson did for Cannon and Golan-Globus back in the 80’s. A few of them were directed by Thompson and from what I understand, their quality varies, but here, one thing certainly stands out.

Bronson plays a troubled cop, Jack Murphy-who you quickly learn follows only one law, which is “Don’t F*** With Jack Murphy!-who is troubled because he just got divorced from his wife, who not only already has a new man but also dances at the type of sleazy yet upscale 80’s strip clubs you only saw in 80’s films. When I say troubled, I mean that he loves the bottle, has trouble getting out of bed in the morning, AND pretty much stalks his now ex! Meanwhile, a woman named Joan (Snodgress) is on the hunt for Jack and she tries his best to screw up his life. I don’t think that’s really spoiling anything, as real early in the morning you see her gun down Tierney, who I am sure most people remember now from his role in Reservoir Dogs as Joe Cabot.

Through reasons that I won’t get into, Bronson ends up teaming up with a young punk teenager who he earlier busted for attempting to steal his automobile (a fine mid 80’s Oldsmobile, which you may think is an oxymoron)… he thwarted her by throwing a bag of groceries at the windshield. No, really. Anyway, he teams up with the girl, Arabella McGee (Wilhoite) and it’s a rather contentious relationship, to say the very least. They go through a variety of adventures and misadventures as not only do they deal with Joan and her devious scheme, but the Mob also gets involved.

What is the most distinctive thing about the movie is that for some bizarre reason, Arabella’s near-constant insults directed towards everyone else are just astounding, and I don’t really mean that in a good way. I mean, she actually spouts phrases such as “butt crust”, “suck a doorknob, you homo”, “monkey vomit”, “dinosaur dorks”, and “spermbank”. I mean, some of her comments are vulgar but most of them are just extremely goofy. But, the character isn’t quite as loathsome as you might expect. She even says at one point that she “digs older men”, but don’t worry, the then sexagenarian Bronson doesn’t get it on with a girl who age-wise could be his granddaughter. At least, it doesn’t happen on-screen. Who knows, though, maybe off-screen they did bump and grind!

The movie overall isn’t some sort of underappreciated gem by any means, but it’s a competent 80’s drama/action flick, with at least something unique in that the villain was a revenge-driven woman. It’s usually not boring at all, and if nothing else you can laugh or be befuddled at most of the insults that come out of Arabella’s mouth, or why the movie’s writers thought that those sorts of one-liners were the way that punk 80’s kids actually talked.

I'll be back Monday night with a new review.