OK, youre a stalwart action hero. Your black partner has been killed three days before retirement, and your estranged wife has been abducted, forcing you to admit that you loved her all along. Its time to single-handedly storm the sneering drug-lords lair inside a hollowed out volcano, and wreak bloody revenge. Now follows an arming scene worthy of the Iliad: your shirt is doffed, and a bulging bandolier, festooned like a Christmas tree with grenades, adorns your manly torso. A clip is slammed grimly into your large machine-gun, and an enormous knife slides into your boot sheath with a "thunk". Buckles are buckled. Straps are strapped. Payback looms ominously like an ominous looming thing. But wait. Havent you forgotten something? No hero worth his salt can set forth without an armamentarium of witty quips, pithy one-liners, and other assorted bons mots. Esprit descalier just wont cut it here, no Gosh, I wish Id told Caesar "Youre history." from Brutus. What follows will hopefully prove a fount of inspiration for the aspiring bad-ass.
007 {Sean Connery} in Goldfinger: tips would-be assassin into a bathtub, throws an electric heater in after him, and deadpans “Shocking.” This probably started the whole trend.
Dutch Schaefer {Arnie} in Predator, upon discovering their invisible alien tormentor has left a trail of glowing green blood: “If it bleeds…we can kill it.” Positively Nietzschean {OK, you try and spell it} in its grim pithiness.
Dirty Harry Callaghan {Clint Eastwood} in Sudden Impact: “Go ahead. Make my day.” Uttely catchy, but utterly chilling in its implications. This man enjoys his work.
Ash {Bruce Campbell} in Army of Darkness, upon being goaded by his evil doppelganger for being a “Goody goody two-shoes”, sticks his shotgun up his evil doubles nostrils and snarls "I aint that good." before pulling the trigger. Worth the money just to see Campbell`s expression as he delivers the line.
I always liked what Sam Spade said to the prosecuting attorney in The Maltese Falcon: “Dead gamblers don’t have friends.”
Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca played the best tough guy with a heart of gold, especially when he let the young Bulgarian guy win at roulette in order to preserve his wife’s honor: No really great lines here, but a great scene. Waitaminute. Bogie asks Emile the croupier how well the house is doing and Emile replies: “A couple of thousand less well than I expected.” A classic scene from the best movie of all time.
Jack Burton (Kurt Russell) in Big Trouble In Little China: “Sonnuva bitch must pay!”
Also Jack Burton: “Lo Pan? Which Lo Pan? Little old basket case on wheels, or the ten foot tall roadblock?”
Ash (Bruce Campbell) in Army of Darkness: “All right you primitive screwheads, listen up. See this? This is my BOOM STICK!”
Mr. White (Harvey Keitel) in Reservoir Dogs: “You shoot me in a dream, you better wake up and apologize.”
Mr. Shhh (Steve Buscemi) in Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead: “A choice. You could tell me where Earl Denton is. Or you could tell it to the worms.”
Jimmy “The Tulip” Tudeski (Bruce Willis) in The Whole Nine Yards: “It doesn’t matter how many people I’ve killed. What matters is how I got along with them when they were alive.”
Ramón Rojo (Gian Maria Volonté) in Fistful of Dollars: “When a man with a .45 meets a man with a rifle, the man with the pistol is a dead man. That’s an old Mexican proverb. And it’s true.”
Tuco (i.e., “the ugly”) (Eli Wallach) in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: “When you have to shoot, shoot; don’t talk.”
Professor Henry Jones (Sean Connery) in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: “It tells me that goose-stepping morons like yourself should try reading books instead of burning them.”
Roy Scheider in 52 Pick-Up: “Something about your face makes me want to slap the shit out of it.”
Jack Burton (Kurt Russell) in Big Trouble In Little China: “Sonnuva bitch must pay!”
Also Jack Burton: “Lo Pan? Which Lo Pan? Little old basket case on wheels, or the ten foot tall roadblock?”
Ash (Bruce Campbell) in Army of Darkness: “All right you primitive screwheads, listen up. See this? This is my BOOM STICK!”
Mr. White (Harvey Keitel) in Reservoir Dogs: “You shoot me in a dream, you better wake up and apologize.”
Mr. Shhh (Steve Buscemi) in Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead: “A choice. You could tell me where Earl Denton is. Or you could tell it to the worms.”
Jimmy “The Tulip” Tudeski (Bruce Willis) in The Whole Nine Yards: “It doesn’t matter how many people I’ve killed. What matters is how I got along with them when they were alive.”
Ramón Rojo (Gian Maria Volonté) in Fistful of Dollars: “When a man with a .45 meets a man with a rifle, the man with the pistol is a dead man. That’s an old Mexican proverb. And it’s true.”
Tuco (i.e., “the ugly”) (Eli Wallach) in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: “When you have to shoot, shoot; don’t talk.”
Professor Henry Jones (Sean Connery) in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: “It tells me that goose-stepping morons like yourself should try reading books instead of burning them.”
Roy Scheider in 52 Pick-Up: “Something about your face makes me want to slap the shit out of it.”
Okay, this is slightly off, but in the book “I, the Jury” by Mickey Spillane, at the very end, he shoots the woman he loves, because she killed his friend. As she’s dying she say’s “How could you?” He says
Silent Bob (Kevin Smith) in Dogma after he throws Bartleby (Ben Affleck) off the back of the train. Said to some passengers on the train,
“No ticket”.
dead0man