My 100 Worst Movies of the 90's - 80 - Mad Dog Time (1996)

I really don't understand this movie.  Not that I don't understand the plot, because there isn't one.  What I don't understand is why this movie exists.  It is one of those completely odd experiences that you just can't shake, and like many strange videos that pop up on the Web, you walk away from Mad Dog Time wondering what it was you just watched.

This film is all setting and no plot.  It is supposed to take place in a sort of parallel universe and takes place almost entirely in a night club.  Excuse me while I do my best to explain this incoherent mess.  Vic, a mob boss, (Richard Dreyfuss) has spent some time in the Looney Bin.  He comes back to find that his right-hand-man Mickey (Jeff Goldlum) is entangled in a love triangle with his wife and her sister.  Also, several opposing mob bosses who think he's still crazy keep showing up to take over the business.  Vic then resolves to see the bosses as they come in and kill them one by one.  Or something...

The formula of this movie is pretty simple.  Vic and Mickey sit in chairs, a wannabe mob boss walks in, they exchange one-liners, Vic shoots the would-be mob boss dead, Mickey lays out one more one-liner, repeat.  There are other elements of the "story" with the aforementioned love triangle but that only exists to give a final resolution to the film's otherwise circular plot, and the whole parallel universe thing can be completely removed at no consequence to the rest of the film, it is utterly pointless.

Seeing how Richard Dreyfuss has not appeared in a good movie since 1986 (yep, I hated Mr. Holland’s Opus), it is understandable that he would be resigned to this mess of a movie.  However, Jeff Goldblum was a popular actor at the time of the film’s release, hot off the success of the blockbuster hit Independence Day and his performance in Jurassic Park, so I don’t get why he did this one, I’m sure he could have taken his pick of any major project he wanted.  The film was written and directed by Larry Bishop who doesn’t have much to his name besides the utterly idiotic Hell Ride from 2008 and a few acting credits.  This is understandable because Mad Dog Time is equally idiotic but it’s worse than that, it’s boring.  This is one of the slowest, most mind-numbingly dull films you will ever see.  The comedy (yep, it is supposed to be a comedy) is unfunny, the action is weak because it is really just a lot of single shots to the stomach and a death scene, and the screenplay is very, very bad.  Seriously, this thing is written like a bad Japanese RPG from the 90’s.  It’s painful.