I just finished watching a movie called Ricochet… some Denzel flick, at least 10 years old. Anyway, towards the end he delivers some of the worst one-liners I have ever heard. I mean, they literally made me cringe. But it made me think, I’ve watched movies that deliver one-liners that should be just as cringe-worthy, but they didn’t make me want to turn them off like this one did.
So I’m just curious, who do you think is capable of delivering one-liners without making you cringe? My top 3 would have to be Bruce Willis, Arnold, and Roddy Piper, although the latter only in “They Live.” Honestly though, I can’t think of any, but there have to be more. Help?
In Hard to Kill (probably the finest film of his oeuvre) Seagal is Mason Storm, a cop/ninja who falls into a coma when he and his family are gunned down on the orders of a corrupt politician - a senator known for delivering the slogan, “…and you can take that to the bank!” When Storm awakes from his coma, he is naturally mightily pissed off, and upon hearing the distinctive catch-phrase on TV comes up with this incisive retort:
“I’ll take you to the bank!.. The BLOOD bank!”
Of course, even Seagal’s Nabokovian wit doesn’t compare with the oneliners fired off at the end of this clip from Undefeatable (starring no one of note):
If you are wondering, yes, the rest of the film really IS as good as this last fight.
“You steal my car, you rip the seat out, you kidnap me, you ask me to help you find your daughter which I very kindly do, and then you get me involved in a shoot out where people are dying and there’s blood spurting all over the place, and then I watch you rip a phone booth out of a wall, swing from the ceiling like Tarzan, and then there’s a cop that’s going to shoot you and I save you and they start chasing me. Are you going to tell me what’s going on or what?”
I know, I guess I should have separated those sentences. I wasn’t trying to imply that Van Damme was the one who said it, I just wanted to know if he had any decent ones as well.
Lady: Why do they call you “Chance?”
JCVD: Because my mama took one.
Here is a good one;
Stallone, in the title role of Detective Frank Cobretti, from the major motion picture, Cobra. The scene is a supermarket, a crazed gunman has run amok, our hero arrives on the scene and confronts the minor villain.
Psycho: Don’t come any closer, I’ll blow this whole fuckin’ place up!
Cobra: I don’t care, I don’t shop here anyways.
Here is the best;
The scene is the Caribbean. James Bond, played by Roger Moore, has just seduced a lovely CIA agent in his hotel suite. The beauty wanders into a second bedroom, where she finds a voodoo death threat in the form of a small black hat adorned with a bloody feather, undoubtedly the symbol of Baron Samedi or some other dark figure, it promises only doom.
Vixen: EEEEEAAAA!!
007: Relax my dear, it’s just a hat belonging to a small headed man of limited means who just lost a fight with a chicken.
-OR-
007 to Jane Seymour’s Solitaire, same film, while in bed shortly after deflowering her and discussing their course of action with regards to the mission;
“We’re adding a little something to this month’s sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody want to see second prize?”
[Holds up prize]
“Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you’re fired.”
Came up in a quiz night where one round was all about naming the film from whence the Arnie quote came. Let off some steam was the last line and tragically enough over half of my table didn’t recognise it. However I spent the next five minutes giggling while thinking about the sheer awesomeness of that moment.
