''Tough Guys'' is a 1986 American

action comedy film Action comedy is a genre that combines aspects of action and comedy. The genre is most prevalent in film with action comedy films, though several TV series fit this genre. Film The action comedy film is a film genre that combines aspects of acti ...

directed by

Jeff Kanew Jeffrey Roger Kanew (born December 16, 1944) is an American film director, screenwriter, film producer and film editor who early in his career made trailers for many films of the 1970s and is probably best known for directing the film '' Reven ...

and starring Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas,

Eli Wallach Eli Herschel Wallach (; December 7, 1915 – June 24, 2014) was an American film, television, and stage actor from New York City. From his 1945 Broadway debut to his last film appearance, Wallach's entertainment career spanned 65 years. Origina ...

Charles Durning Charles Edward Durning (February 28, 1923 – December 24, 2012) was an American actor who appeared in over 200 movies, television shows and plays.Schudel, Matt (December 26, 2012) "''In real life and on the screen, he played countless role ...

Dana Carvey Dana Thomas Carvey (born June 2, 1955) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, impressionist, screenwriter, and producer. He is best known for his seven seasons as a cast member on ''Saturday Night Live'' from 1986 to 1993, which earned him fiv ...

and

Darlanne Fluegel Darlanne Fluegel (November 25, 1953 – December 15, 2017) was an American actress, fashion model, film producer and professor. She was one of the few American fashion models who successfully transitioned to a career as a serious actor. Fluegel ...

. It is the eighth film of Touchstone Pictures, and the final film to be released from Douglas' Bryna Productions. Lancaster and Douglas had already made several films together, including '' I Walk Alone'' (1948), '' Gunfight at the O.K. Corral'' (1957), '' The Devil's Disciple'' (1959), and ''

Seven Days in May ''Seven Days in May'' is a 1964 American political thriller film about a military-political cabal's planned takeover of the United States government in reaction to the president's negotiation of a disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union. The ...

'' (1964), becoming something of a team in the public's eye. Douglas was always second-billed under Lancaster but, with the exception of ''I Walk Alone'', in which Douglas played a villain, their roles were more or less of equal importance. ''Tough Guys'' was their final collaboration. Adolph Caesar, who was originally going to star as Leon B. Little, died of complications from a heart attack on the set of the film and was replaced by

. This was the first film released under the Touchstone Pictures name following its rebranding by Walt Disney Studios, after the release of

Ruthless People ''Ruthless People'' is a 1986 American black comedy film directed by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker and written by Dale Launer. It stars Danny DeVito, Bette Midler, Judge Reinhold, Anita Morris, and Helen Slater, with Bill Pullman ...

Plot

Harry Doyle ( Burt Lancaster) and Archie Long ( Kirk Douglas) are gangsters who have served a 30-year prison sentence for hijacking a Southern Pacific train called the ''Gold Coast Flyer'' in 1956. When they are released from prison in 1986, their parole officer, Richie Evans (

), meets Harry and Archie at the gates and offers them a ride to collect their

Social Security Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifical ...

. Meanwhile, Leon B. Little (

), an elderly hitman with bad eyesight who still has an outstanding contract on them, immediately tries to kill them but Harry and Archie manage to get away. Later at the bank, the duo stop a bank robbery by taking down the two young armed gunmen, one of whom faints when un-armed Harry and Archie turn the tables on them. Then, outnumbered 3-to-one each, the duo trash six young street punks trying to rob them. At Richie's office, they are informed of the conditions of their parole. Harry, at age 72, is committed to a retirement community; despite his desire to work, he is informed he is past the mandatory retirement age of 70. Archie, still allowed to work at age 67, takes a job first at an ice cream parlor and later a restaurant. They are told not to have further contact with each other for at least three years, and are closely monitored by Richie and Deke Yablonski (

), the police officer who first arrested the duo. Both Harry and Archie are in for a shock at how much the world has changed from 1956 to 1986: clothing, sexual lifestyles (their old bar is now an openly gay men's club, women are more assertive), the advance of technology, and lack of respect from the younger generation. Archie's young female restaurant manager treats him badly, while Harry is denied proper food by a nasty retirement home orderly and receives worse treatment from the home's even nastier female manager. Harry reconnects with an old flame named Belle ( Alexis Smith), and they sweetly reminisce about old times. Archie embraces the much changed contemporary scene and at a unisex high-tech gym, the young manager, Skye (

), sets her sights on Archie as the only "real man" there. She gets Archie to adopt faddish clothes and invites him to a trendy disco nightclub where they gyrate to

new wave music New wave is a loosely defined music genre that encompasses pop-oriented styles from the late 1970s and the 1980s. It was originally used as a catch-all for the various styles of music that emerged after punk rock, including punk itself. La ...

, and they start a steamy affair which aging Archie cannot sustain. Tired of trying to adjust to 1980s society under the eyes of the law, Harry and Archie go back to their old ways. First they try to reassemble their old gang for a bank robbery, but all surviving members are now either crippled or invalids. Then they hijack an armored truck, only to find it empty except for a roll of quarters, and are mocked by the media for their blunder. To add insult to injury, the two are mistaken for younger men in disguises. Meanwhile, Leon tracks Richie down at his office and retrieves the information on Harry's retirement home. He proceeds to hold Richie and Belle hostage at the retirement home until he sees Harry and Archie arrive and opens fire. Richie punches Leon to the ground and quickly escapes with the duo; before blaming himself for getting them into trouble. Archie decides to hijack the ''Gold Coast Flyer'' again as it makes its final southbound run after 50 years and asks Harry and Richie for their help. When both refuse to take part for moral reasons, Archie decides to do it by himself. Archie stops the ''Flyer'' just as it is leaving the railroad yard and is soon joined by Harry, having had a change of heart. The media and dignitaries aboard are surprised, although Harry and Archie gladly answer their questions and pose for pictures as they identify themselves and their ages. To their surprise, Leon arrives and explains that he had been paid $25,000 to kill them by an old enemy of theirs and he has waited 30 years for them to get out of prison. Deke soon arrives with a full

SWAT team In the United States, a SWAT team (special weapons and tactics, originally special weapons assault team) is a police tactical unit that uses specialized or military equipment and tactics. Although they were first created in the 1960s to ...

to capture Harry and Archie, who persuade Leon to call a temporary truce with them as they have never killed anyone in their crimes. As Leon escorts the passengers out of the train, Richie, disguised as a SWAT officer, sneaks aboard and gets it moving again to help Harry and Archie escape before Deke can arrest them. Harry, Archie, Richie, and Leon decide to take the train to

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

, but find that the tracks end only a few feet from the border. Harry pushes Leon off the train, to which he vows revenge. Archie then takes Richie back to the coaches and uncouples the train, advising Richie to downplay his role in the heist to not destroy his career. Harry and Archie drive the locomotive at full throttle through a fusillade of bullets from U.S. border police. They crash through, burying the engine partially in the soil of Mexico a few feet across the border, where a Mexican border patrol arrives to arrest them. True to their tough guy credo, Harry and Archie raise their hands but talk back to the patrol's commanding officer, leaving him puzzled enough that it gives an opening for Archie to kick him in the groin.

Cast

* Burt Lancaster as Harold 'Harry' Doyle * Kirk Douglas as Archibald 'Archie' Long *

as Sergeant Deke Yablonski * Alexis Smith as Belle *

as Richard 'Richie' Evans *

as Skye *

as Leon B. Little * Monty Ash as Vince * Billy Barty as Philly * Simmy Bow as Schultz *

Darlene Conley Darlene Conley (July 18, 1934 – January 14, 2007) was an American actress. Conley's career spanned fifty years, but she was best known for her performances in daytime television, and in particular, for her portrayal of larger-than-life fashi ...

as Gladys Ripps * Nathan Davis as Jimmy Ellis * Grant Aleksander as Bartender At Mickey's Bar *

Red Hot Chili Peppers Red Hot Chili Peppers are an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1983, comprising vocalist Anthony Kiedis, bassist Flea, drummer Chad Smith, and guitarist John Frusciante. Their music incorporates elements of alternative rock, funk ...

as Themselves * Hilary Shepard as Sandy

Soundtrack

Kenny Rogers Kenneth Ray Rogers (August 21, 1938 – March 20, 2020) was an American singer, songwriter, and actor. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2013. Rogers was particularly popular with country audiences but also charted m ...

sings the opening theme song " They Don't Make Them Like They Used To". Janet Jackson sings the song, " Nasty," during Harry and Archie's lesson in Street Fighting with a local street gang. The Red Hot Chili Peppers briefly appear in the film where they performed a song never heard outside this film: "Set It Straight". No soundtrack album was released, and frontman Anthony Kiedis was quoted as saying they recorded it solely for the movie and had no intention of releasing it themselves. The 1977 Bing Crosby recording of Duke Ellington's "Don't Get Around Much Anymore" is featured.

The Fabulous Thunderbirds The Fabulous Thunderbirds are an American blues band formed in 1974. Career After performing for several years in the Austin, Texas blues scene, the band won a recording contract with Takoma/Chrysalis Records and later signed with Epic Recor ...

song " Tuff Enuff" plays during the ending credits.

Production

The film began filming with Adolph Cesar in the role of Leon B. Little, but the actor suffered a stroke only a few weeks in and the scenes had to be re-shot with his replacement

. The locomotive

Southern Pacific 4449 Southern Pacific 4449, also known as the Daylight, is the only surviving example of Southern Pacific Railroad's "GS-4" class of 4-8-4 "Northern" type steam locomotives and one of only two GS-class locomotives surviving, the other being " GS-6" ...

played the Gold Coast Flyer. It was also used to pull the

American Freedom Train Two national Freedom Trains have toured the United States: the 1947–49 special exhibit Freedom Train and the 1975–76 American Freedom Train which celebrated the United States Bicentennial. Each train had its own special red, white and blue p ...

exhibit during the Bicentennial, now based in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the list of cities in Oregon, largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, Columbia rivers, Portland is ...

. The locomotive engineer is played by Doyle L. McCormack, the man most responsible for the actual restoration of SP 4449. A portion of the Eagle Mountain Railroad was used in the filming of the movie. During the filming of the exterior shots of SP 4449, the train was stored nightly at the Eagle Mountain rail yards. The local school children from Eagle Mountain School took a field trip in early 1986 to see and tour the train on location along the Eagle Mountain Railroad south of Interstate 10. As of November 2, 2019, the full size replica prop, which was used at the end of the film, was sold at an Auction to a student at

Desert Center, California Desert Center is a census designated place in the Colorado Desert in Riverside County, California. It is in southern California, between the cities of Indio and Blythe at the junction of Interstate 10 and State Route 177, about halfway between Ph ...

Reception

Box office

The film was released in theaters on October 3, 1986 in the United States, it opened up on its first weekend making US$4.5 million and would eventually make $21,458,229 in total worldwide.

Critical response

''Tough Guys'' received mixed reviews from critics. 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 Wang ...

it has an approval rating of 53% based on 15 reviews. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film has a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

score of 54 out of 100, based on eleven critics, indicating "Mixed or average reviews". Walter Goodman of ''

The 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 d ...

'' gave the film a positive review, saying, “We know that when the he-men of “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” are picked on by a bunch of callow toughs, the toughs are going to regret they started up. But it's fun anyhow waiting for what it is.” Roger Ebert gave the film a two out of four stars, stating, "Watching ''Tough Guys'', you begin to meditate. You look at Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster, and you remember years and years of moviegoing, ''Tough Guys'' might have been better if Douglas and Lancaster had played characters who were a little more fallible, humble and realistic".

References

External links

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Movie stills
{{Bryna Productions 1986 films 1980s action comedy films American crime comedy films Films about old age Films directed by Jeff Kanew Films scored by James Newton Howard Films set in Los Angeles Films shot in Los Angeles Rail transport films Touchstone Pictures films Bryna Productions films Films set in 1986 1986 comedy films 1980s English-language films 1980s American films