Line #20 Film/HarleyDavidsonAndTheMarlboroMan


1	[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Harley_davidson_and_the_marlboro_man_movie_poster_6985.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:250:So much macho, it might [[TestosteronePoisoning make you sick]].]]
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4	''Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man'' is a 1991 action film, starring Creator/MickeyRourke and Creator/DonJohnson. The film was written by Don Michael Paul and directed by Simon Wincer.
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6	Set in the then-future of 1996, Harley Davidson meets a life long friend, a cowboy who is nicknamed The Marlboro Man and they later plan a bank robbery to help save their friend's bar from being foreclosed and replaced with a skyscraper. However, after they rob a bank's armored car, they discover the cargo they stole is the designer drug Crystal Dream, not money. Chance Wilder, who is a bank president involved in drug dealing, demands the return of the drugs. A series of increasingly deadly encounters ensue as heavily-armed assassins hunt for Harley and Marlboro, and the film continues to detail their attempts to escape with their lives.
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8	!!Tropes associated with this work:
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10	* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: Made in 1991, it's set in 1996, so technically it's five years into the future from when it was made.
11	* TheAllegedCar: Marlboro's first bike that we see him own in the film has a very faulty ignition. After Harley and Marlboro take turns testing [[HandCannon the Desert Eagle]] Harley gifts the latter "putting the bike down", Marlboro goes and steals the bike of the man who took his girlfriend Virginia. We also have a rare case of The Alleged ''Shoes'' in Marlboro's cowbow boots.
12	* BadassBiker: Both our heroes. Jack Daniels as well.
13	* BadassBoast: Harley's "Better to be dead and cool... than alive and ''uncool''." Later used as an IronicEcho when Harley tells Marlboro he'd rather [[ScrewThisImOuttahere run away and live than face the assassins]] and Marlboro throws this line in his face.
14	* BadassLongcoat: The villains all wear long black coats that not only conceal the assault rifles they carry, but are also BULLETPROOF.[[note]]Mostly. The first two mooks are killed by a spray of machine gun fire at relatively close range (though it might have been an accidental headshot) and a shotgun blast (though again, might be due to pellet spray hitting the head). The remaining three, however, all explicitly require headshots to take down.[[/note]]
15	* BerserkButton: Harley insulting Marlboro's dead father out of frustration merely annoys him. [[BigBad Chance]] insulting Marlboro's father for real is grounds for a NoHoldsBarredBeatDown
16	* BigDamnHeroes: The gang would have been subject to a TotalPartyKill during the robbery if Jack hadn't shown up at the last minute and sent his bike careening into the assassins.
17	* TheBigGuy: Jack Daniels. Fittingly, he's played by Wrestling/BigJohnStudd. Harley and Marlboro lampshade it in his first scene.
18	--> '''Harley''': "Does he look like he's gotten bigger?"
19	--> '''Marlboro''': "...Maybe a little."
20	* TheChanteuse: Lulu Daniels, as played by Music/VanessaWilliams.
21	* ChekhovsGun: Marlboro's duct-taped cowboy boots. Harley calls him out on this, saying he should get a new pair. Later, one of the assassins holds to Marlboro's boots when they're both hanging from a ledge and... whoops.
22	* CoolOldGuy: The owner of the Rock n' Roll Bar, who also acts as a surrogate father figure for Harley, Marlboro, Jack and Jose.
23	* CoolShades: Harley constantly sports a pair.
24	* CorporateWarfare: [[RobbingTheMobBank Unfortunately]] [[UnintentionallyNotoriousCrime for our heroes]], it turns out that the Great Trust Bank has a team of hitmen at its beck and call to secretly (and [[MultipleGunshotDeath brutally]]) eliminate thieves. Said hitman squad is equipped with top-of-the-line weapons and [[BadassLongcoat armored longcoats]], and although they don't end up using it (but [[BuyThemOff our heroes do]]), the helicopter that takes them around [[GunshipRescue has a concealed minigun]].
25	* CostumeInertia: Marlboro won't change his boots, even though they are older than dirt and the soles keep flaying off now and then, it doesn't matter, they are his father's. The old man probably also used the duct tape.
26	* CrapsackWorld: Being set TwentyMinutesInTheFuture, it features several motifs consistent with that trope, including protagonists who are rebellious anti-heroes, corrupt businessmen who operate without any civil oversight, increased crime rates (with police not acting either due to corruption, disinterest or being overwhelmed), new designer drugs, skyrocketing cost-of-living and the entire city of Burbank razed and turned into an airport.
27	* DeadpanSnarker: There's a lot of this going around this movie, but Marlboro is the most consistent in his snarking. Most prominently in his SnarkToSnarkCombat with Harley.
28	* DemolitionsExpert: During the robbery, Jose is in charge of blowing the back of the armored car open with C4.
29	* DestinationDefenestration: Harley's fight with Jack Daniels.
30	* DisneyVillainDeath: Chance falls to his death after Marlboro's boot peels off.
31	* TheDragon: Alexander.
32	* FantasticDrug: The hallucinogenic neurotoxin "Crystal Dream", which is taken through the eyes.
33	* FairCop: Virginia Slim.
34	* GratuitousJapanese: Chance is seen having a video conference with Japanese business partners. Roughly half of his dialogue is made unintelligible by a combination of his accent and speaking [[MotorMouth way too fast]].
35	* GunshipRescue: Tom the chopper pilot rescues our heroes when they're about to be shot by Chance's guards in the climax... By tearing apart Chance's office with his helicopter's built-in minigun.
36	* HandCannon: Both of the main characters are armed with ''biiiig'' guns; Harley Davidson has a custom Ruger Super Blackhawk in .454 Casull, and Marlboro packs a .44 Magnum Desert Eagle.
37	* HeelFaceTurn: Subversion. Tom the chopper pilot decides to help our heroes out in the climax despite being in the employ of the villains, but it's more because [[BadBoss his bosses were assholes to him]] and because [[MoneyDearBoy the heroes paid him]] than anything else.
38	* HenpeckedHusband: Jack Daniels, the gigantic biker that can pick up Harley and toss him around like a rag doll, turns out to be this to his wife Lulu. When he pulls a BigDamnHeroes entrance by [[MolotovTruck using his bike as an impromptu Molotov]] during the heist, he tells his friends he's ''not'' looking forward to explaining to Lulu what happened to his bike.
39	* HonorBeforeReason: Despite being an outlaw, Marlboro adheres to a strict code of honor. He rejects Harley's idea to run away when they're being hunted by the assassins, and later refuses to shoot an unarmed Chance despite everything Chance had done, both times because "It ain't right."
40	* ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy: Harley is apparently a graduate. According to Marlboro, it's because he first learned how to shoot with an overly-powerful gun, and thus never mastered the finer points of marksmanship.
41	* ImprobableAimingSkills: By contrast, Marlboro is capable of such feats as BlastingItOutOfTheirHands and popping off the gun belt for good measure.
42	* InstantMarksmanJustSqueezeTrigger: The Marlboro Man says "Squeeze the trigger, Harley. Don't yank it, it's not your dick. Squeeze it." In this case, however, there's no training taking place; the Marlboro Man is making a snarky comment on Harley's piss-poor shooting skills.
43	* ItWasAGift: The reason Marlboro continues to wear his shitty, worn-out, duct taped boots is because his father gave them to him before his first ever rodeo ride.
44	* ItsLikeIAlwaysSay: "My old man used to tell me, before he left this shitty world..."
45	* HugeGuyTinyGirl: Jack Daniels with his wife Lulu.
46	* JiveTurkey: Jimmy Jiles.
47	* ManBitesMan: Harley does this during his fight with Jack.
48	* NameAndName: Nickname and nickname, to be exact.
49	* NewOldWest: The plot is a gang of outlaw bikers robbing an armored car to save their favorite bar that represents the last bastion of an earlier day in a modern society. Replace the motorcycles with horses, the armored car with a train, and you have a western right there. The fact that one of the bikers actually is a cowboy, and the bar they hang out is frequented by a variety of cowboys and outlaws doesn't hurt matters either. It even ends with one of the heroes riding off into the sunset.
50	* NeutralFemale: Kimiko does absolutely nothing but stand and watch as her boss is, in order: held at gunpoint, beaten and bloodied, and sent careening to his death.
51	* NonActionBigBad: Chance is a CorruptCorporateExecutive who runs a bank and peddles drugs on the side. He can afford to ''pay'' other guys to do the fighting for him.
52	* OnlyAFleshWound (with a side of MajorInjuryUnderreaction): The Marlboro Man is shot in the arm twice: once in the forearm with a 5.56 assault rifle round and once in the shoulder with a massive .454 Casull round. In real life, that arm would probably have been damaged to the point of requiring amputation. At the very least, it would have been severely and permanently crippled. Marlboro's reaction to his injuries can best be described as "mild, bemused annoyance", and he is later seen competing in a rodeo, where he uses that arm as if nothing ever happened.
53	* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: The Marlboro Man's name (Robert T. Ellison) is thrown by a rodeo announcer in a quick line at the very end of the film. He's the only titular character that gets his real name said on-screen (unless we are to believe Harley's name ''is'' "Harley Davidson").
54	* PowerDynamicsKink: Robert is pulled over for speeding by his ex-lover Virginia Slim (who is a motorcycle cop), after which they spend a night together.
55	* ProductPlacement: Right there in the title. And we also have the characters Jack Daniels, Jose Cuervo and Virginia Slim.
56	* PutDownYourGunAndStepAway: [[TheDragon Alexander]] tries this when he captures Marlboro. Subverted when Harley attempts to take out the baddie with a well-placed shot, but is such a poor marksman he just ends up [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments shooting Marlboro in the shoulder]].
57	* RidiculousFutureSequelisation: A billboard is shown advertising a hypothetical fifth ''Franchise/DieHard'' film, ''Die Hardest V''. [[invoked]] HilariousInHindsight, as of 2013's ''Film/AGoodDayToDieHard''.
58	* RobbingTheMobBank: Turns out the armored transport van they robbed was carrying drugs instead of money.
59	* SacrificialLion: ''All'' of Harl and Marl's friends at the bar (minus Lulu) die when Alexander and friends come looking for them.
60	* [[SavingTheOrphanage Saving The Bar]]: A misguided attempt at this is what sets the plot in motion.
61	* SexySecretary: Chance's secretary Kimiko, as played by Creator/TiaCarrere.
62	* SmokingIsCool: Subverted and then played straight. Marlboro quit prior to the start of the film, but likes to keep a drag in his mouth out of habit. Finding out that Virginia is engaged gets him to demand a light from Harley.
63	* SoftWater: Harley and Marlboro jump off the roof of a hotel, fall at least ten stories and land in a pool without breaking anything in their bodies. Lampshaded, as Marlboro was certain they'd be smashed only to express genuine surprise when they do end up surviving.
64	* ThrowAwayGuns: Harley tosses his shotgun at a guard during the heist to distract him as he's charging at him (which makes Marlboro admonish him over it), and in the final confrontation Marlboro solves the problem of Chance being unarmed (he doesn't wants to shoot an unarmed man, you see) by tossing him an empty Desert Eagle and then charging at him.
65	* UnintentionallyNotoriousCrime: The idea was to steal an armored truck, and that is what was accomplished. Unfortunately, instead of cash, the gang stole a multi-million-dollar load of the hot new drug on the street, because the [[CorruptCorporateExecutive bank turns out to be its top distributor]]. The result: the bank sends its secret group of assassins to get the gang.
66	* TheVoiceless: Jose is a mute. Marlboro is responsible for interpreting his miming.

Context Film / HarleyDavidsonAndTheMarlboroMan