''Mad Dog Time'' (also known as ''Trigger Happy'') is a 1996 American ensemble

crime comedy film Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine ...

written and directed by

Larry Bishop Larry Bishop (born November 30, 1948) is an American actor, screenwriter and film director. He is the son of Sylvia Ruzga and comedian Joey Bishop. He has been featured in many Hollywood movies including '' Hell Ride''. Early life Bishop atte ...

and starring

Ellen Barkin Ellen Rona Barkin (born April 16, 1954) is an American actress and a producer. Her breakthrough role was in the 1982 film '' Diner'', and in the following years, she had starring roles in films such as '' Tender Mercies'' (1983), '' Eddie and t ...

Gabriel Byrne Gabriel James Byrne (born 12 May 1950) is an Irish actor, film director, film producer, screenwriter, audiobook narrator, and author. His acting career began in the Focus Theatre before he joined London's Royal Court Theatre in 1979. Byrne's s ...

Richard Dreyfuss Richard Stephen Dreyfuss (; born Dreyfus; October 29, 1947) is an American actor. He is known for starring in popular films during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, including '' American Graffiti'' (1973), ''Jaws'' (1975), '' Close Encounters of the ...

, Jeff Goldblum and

Diane Lane Diane Colleen Lane (born January 22, 1965) is an American actress. Born and raised in New York City, Lane made her screen debut at age 14 in George Roy Hill's 1979 film '' A Little Romance''. The two films that could have catapulted her to st ...

. The film is notable for the various

cameo appearance A cameo role, also called a cameo appearance and often shortened to just cameo (), is a brief appearance of a well-known person in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking ones, and are commonly ei ...

s, including the first, and final film appearance by Christopher Jones in over a quarter-

century A century is a period of 100 years. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word ''century'' comes from the Latin ''centum'', meaning ''one hundred''. ''Century'' is sometimes abbreviated as c. A centennial or ...

Plot synopsis

The story takes place in a mysterious underworld of swanky nightclubs where armed criminals listen to

Rat Pack The Rat Pack was an informal group of entertainers, the second iteration of which ultimately made films and appeared together in Las Vegas casino venues. They originated in the late 1940s and early 1950s as a group of A-list show business frie ...

music and hold shootouts from a seated position, behind desks. Mickey Holliday is the top enforcer for Vic, the mob boss, who is about to be released from a psychiatric facility. In his absence, Ben London has been running Vic's nightclub while Mickey has been romancing both Rita and Grace Everly, which is doubly dangerous inasmuch as they are sisters and Grace was previously Vic's girl. A rival, Jake Parker, recruits a number of hired guns in an attempt to seize power. Mickey kills the first to challenge him, Lee Turner. The next one brought in by Parker, identified as Nicholas Falco and supposedly the fastest draw of all, murders Mickey's close friend, Jules Flamingo, who is unarmed. A showdown is arranged and Mickey ends up eliminating both Parker and the apparently overrated Falco. Vic returns to resume his reign as mob boss. He brings with him a new enforcer, the "real" Nicholas Falco, the previous one having been an impostor. "Brass Balls" Ben London promptly challenges Vic for control of the organization (while singing "My Way" on stage in the nightclub) and is shot dead. Falco proceeds to gun down the remaining opposition, including "Wacky" Jackie Jackson, and is eager to shoot it out with Mickey Holliday once and for all. Mickey attempts to repair his relationship with Rita, who is furious that he has been seeing her sister on the side. Mickey finally confesses to Grace that he has been seeing her in the daytime and Rita at night. She also has been unaware that Vic is back in town. At a final confrontation held in a private office, Grace reveals that she is pregnant with Vic's child. Forced to choose between Holliday and Falco before they shoot it out, Vic sides with his old friend and Grace kills Falco. He and Mickey end up (apparently) living happily ever after with the Everly sisters.

Cast

* Jeff Goldblum as Mickey Holliday *

as Vic *

as Ben London *

as Rita Everly *

as Grace Everly * Gregory Hines as Jules Flamingo * Kyle MacLachlan as Jake Parker *

Burt Reynolds Burton Leon Reynolds Jr. (February 11, 1936 – September 6, 2018) was an American actor, considered a sex symbol and icon of 1970s American popular culture. Reynolds first rose to prominence when he starred in television series such as ' ...

as Jackie Jackson *

as Nicholas Falco *

Henry Silva Henry Silva (September 23, 1926 – September 14, 2022) was an American actor. A prolific character actor, Silva was a regular staple of international genre cinema, usually playing criminals or gangsters. His notable film appearances include ...

as Sleepy Joe *

Michael J. Pollard Michael J. Pollard (born Michael John Pollack Jr.; May 30, 1939 – November 20, 2019) was an American actor. He is best known for his role as C.W. Moss in the film ''Bonnie and Clyde'' (1967), which earned him critical acclaim along with nomi ...

as Red * Christopher Jones as fake Falco *

Billy Idol William Michael Albert Broad (born 30 November 1955), known professionally as Billy Idol, is a British-American singer, songwriter, and musician. He first achieved fame in the 1970s emerging from the London punk rock scene as the lead singer o ...

as Lee Turner *

Angie Everhart Angela Kay Everhart (born September 7, 1969) is an American actress and former model who appeared in several ''Sports Illustrated'' Swimsuit Issues in the 1990s and posed nude for ''Playboy'' in 2000. Early life Everhart was born on September 7 ...

as Gabriella * Billy Drago as Wells *

Paul Anka Paul Albert Anka (born July 30, 1941) is a Canadian-American singer, songwriter and actor. He is best known for his signature hit songs including " Diana", " Lonely Boy", " Put Your Head on My Shoulder", and "(You're) Having My Baby". Anka also ...

as Danny *

Rob Reiner Robert Norman Reiner (born March 6, 1947) is an American actor and filmmaker. As an actor, Reiner first came to national prominence with the role of Michael "Meathead" Stivic on the CBS sitcom '' All in the Family'' (1971–1979), a performa ...

as Albert *

Joey Bishop Joseph Abraham Gottlieb (February 3, 1918 – October 17, 2007), known professionally as Joey Bishop, was an American entertainer who appeared on television as early as 1948 and eventually starred in his own weekly comedy series playing a talk ...

as Gottlieb *

Richard Pryor Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor Sr. (December 1, 1940 – December 10, 2005) was an American stand-up comedian and actor. He reached a broad audience with his trenchant observations and storytelling style, and is widely regarded as on ...

as Jimmy the Gravedigger * Frank Licari as Vic's Guy

Cameo appearances

The writer-director's father,

, is seen briefly and speaks one word: "Hello." His character runs Gottlieb's Mortuary; Gottlieb being Bishop's real name. Richard Pryor appears as Gottlieb's sidekick, Jimmy the Grave Digger. Despite his character being mentioned throughout the film, he is in only one scene, and speaks a few lines. He is shown in a wheelchair, and his voice is garbled. His physical deterioration was obvious at the time the film was made. This would be Pryor's second to last film appearance. One scene irrelevant to the plot features Rob Reiner as a limo driver, explaining his humorous philosophy on life to Dreyfuss. Reiner and Larry Bishop were once professional comedy partners.

Critical reception

The film was not well received by critics on release.

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

gave the film a rare zero-star rating, noting:

''Mad Dog Time'' is the first movie I have seen that does not improve on the sight of a blank screen viewed for the same length of time. Oh, I've seen bad movies before. But they usually made me care about how bad they were. Watching ''Mad Dog Time'' is like waiting for the bus in a city where you're not sure they have a bus line. ... ''Mad Dog Time'' should be cut into free
ukulele The ukulele ( ; from haw, ukulele , approximately ), also called Uke, is a member of the lute family of instruments of Portuguese origin and popularized in Hawaii. It generally employs four nylon strings. The tone and volume of the instrumen ...
picks for the poor.

Roger Ebert and partner

Gene Siskel Eugene Kal Siskel (January 26, 1946 – February 20, 1999) was an American film critic and journalist for the '' Chicago Tribune''. Along with colleague Roger Ebert, he hosted a series of movie review programs on television from 1975 until his ...

on their television show '' Siskel & Ebert at the Movies'' voted this the worst film of 1996. Ebert repeated his written statement that watching this movie was not preferable to 1 hour and 45 minutes of looking at a blank wall, and mentioned how upset he was that Siskel won the right to choose this film after a coin toss, so he had to pick the second worst film of the year, '' Un indien dans la ville'' (Little Indian, Big City), a film Ebert also gave zero stars. Siskel said that he still did not know what the film was about even six months after he saw it, and said that because in addition to starring in the film,

is listed as a co-producer on the film, he deserves most of the blame for helping get the story on screen. A ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' review of November 8, 1996 by

Stephen Holden Stephen Holden (born July 18, 1941) is an American writer, poet, and music and film critic. Biography Holden earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Yale University in 1963. He worked as a photo editor, staff writer, and eventually be ...

called ''Mad Dog Time'' "a rat's nest of hip pretensions posing as a comedy." In ''

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular ...

'' on November 22, 1996, reviewer

Ken Tucker Kenneth Tucker is an American arts, music and television critic, magazine editor, and non-fiction book writer. Early life and education Tucker was born in Manhattan, New York City, New York, and raised in Stamford, Connecticut. He earned a ...

described it as "jaw-droppingly incoherent." The film holds a 17% rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

, based on 6 reviews.

References

External links

* * * * {{Amg movie, 136729, Mad Dog Time 1996 films 1990s buddy comedy films 1990s crime comedy films American buddy comedy films Mafia comedy films 1990s English-language films Films directed by Larry Bishop United Artists films 1996 directorial debut films 1996 comedy films 1990s American films