Moviegoing Marvin Compares Cinema Badasses

December 11, 2007

During the last week, I have learned an extensive life lesson on movie badassess. Thankfully, I have been graced with quality badassess I can look up to for inspiration; guys like Travis Bickle, Ah Jong, and Fievel Moskowitz taught me not to take shit from anybody and to fight back when applicable.

I'm not sure if it's every guy's dream to be a true badass and fuck shit up for a reason like Ash or something, but we're always drawn to these heroes of the silver screen.

So, I watched Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai last night. I've been wanting to watch this movie since forever, and I have never suffered a case of badass blue balls like I did when I went to bed. Thankfully, I was able to alleviate the lack of badass by jerking off onto a VHS copy of Shaft, but that won't stop me from complaining about this travesty of a film.

Forest Whitaker, who can be a badass on his own accord, failed miserably in this movie. He plays this loner type from the hood who takes care of pigeons and is also a hit man for no reason whatsoever. He has katanas and shit but never uses them, which is a direct violation of badassery (bylaw 13.2.41: must use melee weapons if and when applicable). Instead, he just uses two boring silenced 9mms to kill a group of about ten fat, old, inept (redundant; all old people are inept as are all fat people - ed. note) mafiosos that might be the least threatening bad guys in movie history. These guys are all in their 60s (or older yet) and struggle going up stairs, let alone being able to kill one dude.

One FAT dude, might I add. Notice below.

The only thing he's going to cut with that sword is his sandwich in half

I can't believe that they had a fat dude play a samurai. I thought being a samurai was all about being honorable and deadly and having a svelte physique, ideal for killing mother fuckers. Instead, he's honorable, deadly, and fond of cheeseburgers. Very unconvincing, to say the least, that we have a fat black guy play a samurai. It's like having an armless guy play a trapeze artist. Or Fergie playing a role as a hot chick. Or Tom Cruise playing a Samurai.

So this fat, black guy goes out and chases even fatter, slower, and older gangsters and kills them. The main boss of the crew faces Ghost Dog (which is Forest's dumb name) and says I've been expecting you. They stare at each other for like seventeen minutes and then Ghost Dog shoots him. It was less climactic than sex with me.

After Ghost Dog kills someone, he, in the most pussy-esque way possible, spins his gun around like it's a sword before putting it away. It would piss you off so much if you saw it, I swear.

The other ninety percent of this movie is Ghost Dog driving around in a stolen luxury sedan and bad poetry. Ghost Dog's obese ass drives around a Mercedes for like twenty minutes, and it leads nowhere. The director must have had a nine minute movie that he had to fill with suicidally pointless driving scenes. Then there's horrible fucking quotes from some ancient Japanese shit that are completely out of context and of no significance whatsoever. Let's say Ghost Dog kills some dudes. Right afterwards, you'll see something like this fade in to the picture and be read by Ghost Dog while he has food in his mouth.

"The first flake of snow had fallen on the summit of the mountain, and the samurai knew the battle that would ensue would be reminiscent of his ascension. Even when his opponent has four heads, the samurai knows that his sword only glimmers in the afternoon."

I shit you not. That's all the movie is. Fucking terrible, intensely boring and completely devoid of badassness (excluding a cameo from the RZA).

While Ghost Dog was amongst as threatening as a field of petunias, Anton Chigurh from No Country For Old Men might be the ultimate badass.

In fact, the protagonist of the movie asked, "Who's this guy supposed to be, the ultimate badass?" in reference to Chigurh.

Basically, No Country For Old Men is the best movie I've seen in at least three years. It is movie making so fine, Hitchcock would be proud. I could sit here and go on and on about how it was the perfect movie, I won't spoil it for those that haven't seen it (like Johnny, for example).

I will, however, give credit to Javier Bardem as he played the best badass of this millennium. Anton Chigurh is a simple character at best. He scares the shit out of people with his haircut and deep man voice, he has no morals whatsoever and kills anyone loosely affiliated with his target with a silenced shotgun.

More badass than a barrel full of John Rambos.

Having no regard for human life is pretty much the most badass thing a badass can do. Even ruthless killing machines, like Beatrix Kiddo, will only kill those that deserve to be killed. Badassess like Chigurh are rare and extremely appreciated. We don't want characters to walk around solving complex dilemmas of righteousness and internal struggles while trying to keep the family together. We want you to indiscriminately kill anything that gets in your way in the most efficient manner possible.

Anton Chigurh might be my favorite badass ever. Not only is he a finely tuned killing machine, he's Hannibal Lecter smart and Indiana Jones resilient. I've been having nightmares of Chigurh hunting me down since I saw the movie and I couldn't be happier.

Wreck Marvin's mom's sweet vag again here.