New On Netflix: Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man

Any movie that features an extended sequence of Mickey Rourke decked out in leather and motorcycling through the desert / industrial wasteland that is the dystopian future of 1996 set to Bon Jovi‘s “Wanted Dead or Alive” can’t be all bad, right? Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man was a critical and financial failure upon its release in 1991, but its champions will tell you that’s just because no one “got it” back then (yeah, it’s one of those movies). While it may not have anything resembling a clarity of vision, haphazardly knocking its plot and characters around as it struggles to find the right tone (and genre), the movie is nonetheless entertaining, with Rourke and Don Johnson robbing a bank to keep a friend’s bar from being replaced by a skyscraper and getting involved with a new designer drug called “Crystal Dream.” It’s all a bunch of nonsense, but it may inspire you to take up biking and / or smoking. And all great movies should inspire us in some way, right?