Oh, Norman Mailer - acclaimed author, won more prizes than you can count in one minute, and occasional maker of films (a number of them basically like shoots in a weekend with friends in his living room, or so I've been told, I haven't seen the Eclipse box-set yet of his other works). In 1987 he was given carte blanche, via Cannon films and producer Francis Ford Coppola, to take his windy, warped novel that poked fun at pot-boilers and crime fiction (film noir especially) and made it into a movie. And the results are completely befuddling.I think a lot of it comes down to plot logic. In that, this doesn't have that much. Sure, we follow along Ryan O'Neal as he is trying to figure out a mystery involving a lost woman, an old affair, and, uh, other things. It even has one of those plot-framing devices that opens the movie, where O'Neal is telling his story to father(?) Lawrence Tierney and then this just... disappears for a LONG stretch of the film, to the point where I forgot it was even a thing. There's also Isabella Rossellini (in seemingly the one performance playing it straight, or trying to), and another actor - damn if I forget his name - who is a cop that often appears wigged out (probably on coke, who knows it was the 80's).I wish I could explain what happens in this movie and why it's so f***ed up, but it just boggles my mind! So much of it comes down to Mailer not really being able to transition his dialog, which probably worked OK on the page (and even there one wonders if it was still questionable), to the format of the screen. People just... don't talk like this! The verbiage is off the charts in this one - but there are moments where, I THINK anyway, Mailer knew he had something really warped and just went for it. The scene that I know I'll never forget and many others haven't is when Ryan O'Neal's character discovers a letter from a woman from his past, it gives him some crucial, heartbreaking information, and then he just bursts with "OH MAN, OH GOD, OH MAN" for about 15 minutes as the camera pans around him in a dizzying effect. If this was meant for comedy then it's genius on par with the Zucker brothers or Mel Brooks. If it's supposed to be in any kind of Earth reality, it's a disaster-zone.But oh, what a watchable movie made of WTF. Part of what helps is that it is competently shot and edited, and the performers, alongside those I mentioned Penn Jillette and Frances Fisher pop up, are trying to give it their all and be true to the material. But by being true to it means showing how completely nuts it is. Maybe the most golden part of the experience is the theatrical trailer for the film itself, where Normal Mailer on camera reads the mix of reviews - the good, the bad and the 'Uh say what' - and that makes me happy alone the movie was made. I have a feeling doing a double feature of this and another 1987 Cannon films art-house release, Godard's King Lear, could be just the thing to make you go run for the hills... or break your brain laughing. It may be awful, but it's awful in a spectacular way.

Ryan O'Neal's infamous "Oh Man Oh God" moment, while awful and embarrassing, taken on its own accord.. linked all over the Internet and embedded below this review... within context of an equally bizarre vehicle, just sort of comes and goes, coinciding with a cheesy spinning camera-glide in this Neo Noir thriller with little thrills, tons of intentionally pulpy dialogue that Norman Mailer, who directed based on his novel turned screenplay, purposely borrows from the likes of Raymond Chandler and Mickey Spillaine… Although there weren't many cocaine addicts written about back in those dime novel days; at least not for an aimless anti-hero to be involved with without a second thought. Enter O'Neal's low-rent ex-con writer, Tim Madden, literally counting the days with shaving cream on a mirror of his missing wife's beachfront mansion...We begin as Tim finds his dad sitting reposeful in the living room, and Lawrence Tierney, a man who reigned genuine terror in the true crime flicks of yesteryear (and would growl in RESERVOIR DOGS a few years later), actually has a reason to be bald-headed: His surprisingly subdued, world-weary Dougy Madden is suffering from the after-effects of chemotherapy. The conversations with his son, including banal dialogue seeming like ad libs from a macho actor's workshop (TIERNEY: "Your mother was delicate, she spoiled you a lot" O'NEAL: "Well I did my three years in the slammer standing up, no one made me a punk" TIERNEY "Good for you... I didn't want to ask") is how, instead of the usual narration, we're provided exposition through this steamy, uneven tale centering on O'Neal trying to figure out how the severed skull of a woman got buried in the woods, and why he knows the exact location. The sporadic O'Neal/Tierney wordplay is performed good yet awkwardly leads to each flashback sequence: a keyword is repeated at the end of the present time and the start of the backstory... just in case you missed it. A sort of Film Noir for Dummies. And Mailer throws in a score of naked bodies and taboo subjects that end up serving as wallpaper.The second-billed and not very important "one that got away" ingénue Isabella Rossellini aside, if any particular dame steals the picture it's femme fatalle Patty Lareine. Actress Debra Sandlund (now Debra Stipe) chews scenery without chomping too loud, knowing just how to play kitsch unlike O'Neal in his "Oh God" moment or Wings Hauser, who goes his usual overboard after being subtle for most of the film.The real problem with TOUGH GUYS is the direction by Norman Mailer, but that's not exactly true… For DANCE doesn't seem like there's any real direction at all. As if the actors are performing in a vacuum; their characters exist on a treadmill course throughout the gorgeous New England beach locale. And while O'Neal has lived to regret his performance, it's not that god-awful, and he's a comfortable enough shoe to trudge along the muddled plot line: For when our man vanishes for twenty long minutes, taken over by tormented simpleton John Bedford Lloyd as… someone's crazy lover… what was once aimed downhill reaches rock bottom, with vengeance.

Norman Mailer used to mean something, literary-wise. He was a Big Noise back in the fifties and sixties trying to be the heir apparent to his hero Hemingway, but since Mailer was really just a small-statured city boy with no interest in the outdoors he resorted to games of thumb-wrestling and head butting men (and assaulting women) instead of hunting and traveling. Like this movie, Mailer is a juvenile, woman-hating, gay-hating, faux-tough guy obviously obsessed with his fragile masculinity. Decades of hype and bad writing and activities (including the notorious Abbott disaster) have reduced his noisy reputation to virtual silence. He has become as pathetic as this movie, based on another one of his terrible novels. Granted this film is more coherent than his previous directorial attempts way-back-when (i.e. 'Wild 90,' 'Maidstone') there is still no reason to give it any more credibility considering its supreme awfulness. Of course, there IS the 'Showgirls'-like aroma of a risible good time to be had for those inclined to cheer on the execrable disasters of filmmakers who thought they were making something worthwhile and were so very wrong. For other viewers this is a stupefying experience mirrored by the consistently haggard look of Ryan O'Neal throughout. Like Spike Lee, Mailer MUST include his obsessions on screen. Ala Spike, consider this a 'Norman Mailer Joint.' That means you will hear men grousing to other men about "being men" and "not being fags" and how spiteful and cruel all women are, and it will be spoken in purplish film-noir-meets-gym-locker-room dialogue (my favorite: "Don't tickle my stick.") There will be countless scenes of women degrading themselves for no reason or men complaining/crying because those ruthless harpies have emasculated them. Since it's directed by a rank amateur, naturally the actors look either lost or unhinged. In short, this film, like its author, is an embarrassment.

I always quote this as one of my two favorite movies (the other being "The Ninth Configuration"). Like that film, it's unpolished, awkward and brilliant.Ryan O'Neal, a brilliant empty vessel, as in "Barry Lyndon", is the perfect receptical for Mailer's essentially passive protagonist. Grotesque, awkwardly paced and fascinating, this should be considered manditory viewing.Mailer's hand is so heavy and the film feels so writerly that the experience is play-like and unusual. This exploratory quality is to be hugely prized (see "Kids", "Ninth Configuration", "Safe", "Dancer in the Dark" to see vastly different but equally praiseworthy examples of what can happen when Hollywood outsiders are allowed access to decent budgets and distribution).