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.

Two men cut off from the world in different ways become unlikely friends and protectors in this offbeat action drama. Danny (Jet Li) is a physically powerful but emotionally stunted man; never given any sort of proper education, Danny has learned little in his lifetime but how to fight, and his minder, Bart (Bob Hoskins), treats him more like a guard dog than anything else, using him in illegal no-holds-barred brawls that earn Bart plenty of money but only reinforce Danny’s violent alienation. When Bart is injured in an auto accident, Danny is left to fend for himself, and stumbles upon Sam (Morgan Freeman), an elderly piano tuner who has lost his sight. Sam is the first person to treat Danny with kindness, and the music he plays soothes the troubled soul of the fighter. However, Danny’s fighting skills soon come in handy when Sam runs afoul of a pack of small-time crooks who believe he knows too much about their operations.

Can a new marriage survive meddling friends, disapproving families, and some of the worst accommodations in Europe? That’s the question posed in this broad comedy. Tom Leezak (Ashton Kutcher) is a regular guy who likes sports and beer and tries to make ends meet working as a nighttime radio traffic reporter. Sarah McNerney (Brittany Murphy) is a beautiful young woman from a wealthy and privileged family who is trying to make a name for herself as a writer. Tom and Sarah have seemingly nothing in common, but that doesn’t stop them from falling in love. Sarah’s family doesn’t much care for Tom’s boorish ways, and Tom’s buddies think Sarah is too highbrow for him, but, if anything, this makes the couple all the more determined to be together, and they decide to get married and head off to Italy for a month-long honeymoon despite the pleas of those closest to them. However, even after the knot is tied, Sarah’s former beau, Peter Prentiss (Christian Kane), is dead set upon breaking up the happy couple, though as it turns out, a seemingly endless stream of bad luck and post-marital jitters may do the job for him. Just Married was written by Sam Harper, who claims to have loosely based the script on his own experiences on an ill-starred European honeymoon with his wife; fortunately, the couple’s marriage survived the experience.