Thursday (1998)

Written & Directed by Skip Woods

Casey (Thomas Jane) has the perfect suburban life complete with a beautiful wife, soy milk in the fridge, a second fridge with beer, a cow mailbox, a job as an architect, and the prospects of adopting his first child. But he didn’t always have the perfect life, and when old friend Nick (Aaron Eckhart) shows up, his past life starts to come back to bite him. In this film which features actors that look quite a bit a like playing the long lost friends, it is no holds bar. Writer/director Skip Woods lets the curse words and the blood flow endlessly. And he lets the film breath with just enough wit, quirk, and violence to evoke Quentin Tarantino.

Casey used to be a drug dealer in L.A. Nick still is. So when he shows up to Casey’s house in Texas with a suitcase full of dope, Casey quickly disposes of it while Nick is “running some errands”. As you may have guessed, however, this is no normal Thursday. Casey is soon visited by an eclectic bunch of visitors which includes Michael Jeter, Paulina Porizkova and even Mickey Rourke. The proceedings are outrageous and so is the fun in this film once the set up is done and the fun is allowed to begin. The many guests to Casey’s suburban house are quite insane and are all after one thing: the money Nick brought to the house. Wait, I didn’t say anything about money. Exactly, and Casey doesn’t know about it either, which makes his case that much more helpless. Good thing he has experience as a criminal before.

With all the dumb violence and the quirkiness to go along with it, the first thing I thought about was Quentin Tarantino and with this film releasing in the late 90s it is not a stretch to say it was influenced by films such as Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction. The only difference is those films are more serious and have much better dialgue, but then again, Tarantino seems to be the master of great dialogue, so I’m not trying to slight this particular film.

But at the end of the day, it seems like this is just a cheaper version of Tarantino, and unlike some, I am not in love with the guy, though seeing something like this makes me respect his craft that much more. No, this is not a great film, but much like the other films I saw today (Safe Men, Heist) it was a fun ride, which certainly featured some unique laughs and situations.