Review of Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991) by Michael T — 11 Jul 2015

This 1991 film is set in the near future (1996) and has some Sci-Fi elements and predictions that didn't come true (a second major international airport in L.A. County located in Burbank). The film was not a great success.

Its not a bad little action flick with Rourke playing "Harley Davidson" a bad-ass biker and Don Johnson playing the "Marlboro Man" a former rodeo cowboy with dilapidated boots. When greedy bankers try to foreclose on their favorite bar, our heroes and their buddies rob an armored truck to try and pay off the bank; they plan on robbing the bank in question.

Instead of cash, they get a shipment of high-tech drugs and are being chased by a squad of ice-cold assassins wearing long Kevlar-laced trench coats, wielding Austrian Steyr AUG assault rifles, and being led by Daniel Baldwin.

Rourke is good at the begging of a fallow period that saw him retreat from movies and stop getting leading man roles; Johnson is an underrated actor and puts in a credible performance here. Its diverting and their are lots of performers who went on to bigger things in the 1990s (Baldwin, Vanessa Williams, Tia Carrere, Tom Sizemore, etc.

). The soundtrack is 1980s Hair Metal which was still very popular at the time; after this movie's summer release in the Fall of 1991, Nirvanna would release Nevermind and the Hair Bands of the 1980s would soon disappear in a wave of Grunge.