Best Bad Action Movies #3: Stone Cold

Here we are: The Top Three BAMs! These are the absolute cream of the crop in all of their ludicrous glory/hilarity.

Year 1991
Stars The Boz (aka Brian Bosworth)

Plot Joe Huff (Boz, The) is serving a suspension handed down from the police force (for insubordination) when the FBI comes in and offers him an undercover job (becoming John Stone) to infiltrate the notorious (possibly white supremacists?) Brotherhood biker gang and take them down.

Pictured: The Boz with director Craig R. Baxley

Highlights If nothing else, the one glorious feature of Stone Cold is the liberal use of exaggeration throughout the action scenes. Every BAM exaggerates (it is a prerequisite), but few do it finer than Stone Cold. Any fight in this flick features several hits that would end any such contest in reality, but are commonly brushed off by the parties involved – THEN comes the definitive punch/shot/clobbering that ends the contest. You will know when this such contact happens, as the dude getting the business end of it flies a distance that can be best measured in yards. Whether someone is getting kicked, punched, thrown, or shot – you best expect them to transverse a great distance before crashing into something, flipping, or hitting something that explodes. And yes, it never gets old. … This movie was a vehicle to kick-start The Boz’s career. (The next flick he starred in was released five years later and was a TV movie.) This romp tries so hard to push The Boz as the ultimate bad ass. Within the first few scenes you watch him break up possibly the most absurd grocery heist (I understand the competition is slim this side of Cobra), feed his five foot lizard (who freely roams around his condo), flaunt a naked girlfriend in front of his new FBI partner, walk around in bikini undies, and of course, we instantly learn that he serving a suspension for insubordination – the most play-by-your-own-rules-cool violation. At every turn in Stone Cold, the director/producer is trying to force-feed you how absolutely tailored The Boz is to be the next great alpha-male action star. Hell, his way of “infiltrating” the Brotherhood is to piss off everyone in the gang – especially the head honchos – for little reason other than to look tough. If you have never heard about The Boz, once upon a time, he was one of the most hyped players coming into the NFL (not even hyperbole there) and then his pro career lasted all of 24 games. He was a beautiful flop. … Random boobies! Stone Cold has no problem flaunting mammies throughout its 92 minutes. … As I just mentioned, this flick clocks in right at that magical BAM-time of 90 minutes. Most BAM makers knew exactly how long a BAM could hold one’s attention. … As good as Kurt Russel’s mullet was in Tango & Cash, The Boz takes it to another (very necessary) level. … The Brotherhood have a Nazi-style “SS” on their crest. There are also a couple of swastikas (swastiki?) here and there in the movie and all of the members are white, but their is no mention of them being white supremacists. I know that this movie flirted with the NC-17 rating, so my only guess is that they cut that angle to get the R rating. Too bad, as white supremacy would have been one more ridiculous ingredient to add to everything else the gang was involved in (prostitution, murdering, racketeering, drugs, etc). … The FBI recruits Joe Huff to go undercover and infiltrate a biker gang because he has made the most biker-related arrests. Huh. Would that not make him the most recognizable – forget it. … There are silly continuity problems galore -especially things exploding before contact. … Finally, the action is well distributed across all types of actio – specializing in unlikely explosions.

John Stone jumping on a car with mobsters in it. Oh yeah, did I mention the mob is in this movie too? Well, they are. Why not?

Drawbacks While having a choice name and being inherently evil, Chains (Lance Henriksen) misses the mark as the ultimate BAM villain. He just needed a bit more craziness or personality. It is not a plus when the main villain’s side kick, Ice (William Forsythe) out shines him. … There was one scene where a bike crashed and did not blow up. What’s up with that?

Best Take It would be easy to go with the grand finale here, as it makes much of what comes before it seem believable, but I am going with the opening scene. The movie begins with three dudes robbing a grocery store. The head bad dude starts off by staring right into a security camera, then blasting it with a shotgun (obviously unaware of how recording works). Then the three of them shoot up the place for unknown reasons. Enter: Joe Huff, casually strolling into the store with a shopping cart. (Is he too cool to take on the baddies right away? Yup, shopping for cans of tuna comes first.) While clearly entering through the front and the baddies being at the registers in the front, they first notice Joe when they hear the squeaking of his shopping cart’s wheels in the tuna aisle. Joe Huff then disposes of the three in hilarious, over-the-top fashion. (Technically, the third disposes of himself.) The second and third baddies introduce the audience to the low gravity atmosphere that is present in most of the movie – as they fly through the air and crash into grocery store displays. How does the scene wrap up? The Boz quips, “Clean up in aisle four.” Hiyo!

That is one finely sculpted mullet.

Justification A new or used copy of this DVD will run you $20+ on Amazon. No doubt much of this is due to a limited number of copies being printed. Yet, another reason has to be people’s willingness to drop that kind of cash in order to have it readily available when they are drinking with friends and feel like a couple hundred laughs. This epic flop is a pure joy to watch. It is definitely top-three BAM worthy, even with its lack of a top-notch ridiculous villain.

Next Up? I thought he’d be bigger.

Below is the first ten minutes of Stone Cold. Unless you are on the verge of finding a cure for our awful two-party system or making a quiche, check out the first three and a half minutes. Bonus, watch the opening credits to see how rad the Brotherhood are. They play by no rules.