Bovie Movie

Love, treachery, and broken furniture are the hallmarks of this rollicking action drama. Dalton (Patrick Swayze) has a Ph.D., but rather than make a living teaching Socrates at some university, he’s opted to become a top-drawer “cooler” — an expert barroom bouncer who can break up fights without getting himself killed in the process. Dalton is hired to keep the peace at the Double Duce, a rough-and-tumble honky tonk in Jasper, Missouri, where beer-soaked free-for-alls are a nightly event. Dalton is hurt on his first night on the job, and he is patched up by “Doc” Clay (Kelly Lynch), a beautiful woman working as the town’s physician. Dalton and Doc immediately hit it off, but Dalton learns that another man, Brad Wesley (Ben Gazzara), already has his eye on her. Wesley is a man used to getting his way; he’s an extortionist and crime boss who has nearly everyone in Jasper under his thumb, and he sets out to teach Dalton a lesson, while Dalton is determined to clean up the town like he breaks up brawls at the Double Duce. Sam Elliott plays Dalton’s mentor Wade, and Red West, a one-time member of Elvis Presley’s “Memphis Mafia,” appears as Webster; Canadian blues-rock guitarist Jeff Healey leads the Double Duce house band.

Tom Cruise juggles Martini shakers and ice cubes as the materialistic Brian Flanagan, a bartender who drops out of school to search for the perfect “rich chick” who will bankroll him into luxury. Brian meets up with bar veteran Doug Couglin (Bryan Brown) and they put together a dance-duo bar-tending act, taking five minutes to a mix a drink as they dance and toss gin bottles behind the bar to cutting-edge rock music circa 1988. The patrons, instead of demanding the booze, are dazzled by their antics and cheer them on. As a result, the bartenders become wildly popular — in particular, Brian, who finds the bar babes falling all over each other to hop into the sack with him. As a result of their bar-tending success, they get hired to tend bar at a swanky disco, but there Brian and Doug have a falling out, and Brian takes off for Jamaica. There he meets vacationing New York City waitress Jordan Mooney (Elisabeth Shue) and the two fall in love. But then Brian meets rich New York fashion executive Bonnie (Lisa Banes) who wants to take Brian back to Manhattan with her to become her drink-mixing stud. When Jordan sees this, the love affair is put on hold. But not for long, as pangs of consciousness begin to filter through Brian’s drunken haze.