Thursday (1998 film)

Infobox Film
name = Thursday


caption = DVD cover for "Thursday"
director = Skip Woods
producer = Alan Poul
Christine Sheaks
Skip Woods
eproducer =
aproducer =
writer = Skip Woods
starring = Thomas Jane
Aaron Eckhart
Paulina Porizkova
Mickey Rourke
music = Luna
cinematography = Denis Lenoir
editing = Peter Schink
Paul Trejo
distributor = Legacy Releasing Corporation
released = 1998
runtime = 83 min.
country = United States
awards = Special Jury Prize at Cognac Festival
language = English
budget =
gross = $1,971
preceded_by =
followed_by =
amg_id =
imdb_id = 0124901

"Thursday" is a 1998 American movie written and directed by Skip Woods.

Plot

Casey Wells (Thomas Jane) has cleaned up his life. He is now a married architect and is looking to adopt a child with his wife when Nick (Aaron Eckhart), an old partner from his days as a drug dealer in Los Angeles, shows up on his doorstep. Nick leaves a couple of suitcases in Casey's guest room before leaving to run some errands. After Nick leaves, Casey becomes suspicious of one of the suitcases and eventually opens it to find it filled with heroin. After calling Nick to yell at him for bringing it into his home, he disposes of all of it in the kitchen sink.

Ice (Glenn Plummer), a Jamaican Rasta hitman, enters Casey's house and is about to kill him, but Casey manages to persuade him to have a last smoke of marijuana. After having smoked, Ice is about to kill Casey when the Ice's cell phone rings. Ice begins to rap over the phone in an effort to clinch a record deal, and Casey seizes the moment and knocks him out. Casey then ties him up and leaves him in his garage.

A representative from the adoption agency comes to interview Casey about his fitness to be a father. The representative is particularly curious to know what Casey did for several years when he lived in L.A. as there is no account of his time there. Casey tries his best to cover up his past as well as his recent encounter with the hitman.

During the interview, Dallas (Paulina Porizkova), Nick's ex-lover who wants the money that she believes Nick left with Casey along with the heroin, shows up. She scares away the representative from the adoption agency by telling a story about Casey's drug-dealing and murdering past.

When left alone with Casey, Dallas questions him about the money's whereabouts. Angry that he can't help her, she decides to kill him. But not before she ties him up to a chair, gets naked and proceeds to mount and rape him. She tells him she will not kill him until he orgasms and she plans to go on until she makes him get an orgasm. Delivering on her word, she reaches multiple orgasms, but gets no results from him.

While Dallas reaches yet another orgasm, another hitman called Billy Hill (James LeGros) breaks in and shoots her, splattering her blood all over Casey, his walls and his floor.

Billy believes Casey when told that he doesn't have the heroin, but plans on torturing him with a saw and a blow torch anyhow, while he brags about his prowess and technique of cauterization as he sets to work. Hill is interrupted by cops ironically raiding the house next door. As Billy checks on it Casey is able to loosen the tape around his wrists and grabs a frying pan and sits back down. Billy returns and tells Casey the cops got the wrong house. As he is about to proceed, he notices something is wrong. But catching Billy off guard, Casey overpowers him, and leaves him in the garage.

Nick calls Casey from a pay phone, apologizes for everything and admits he had stolen the heroin and money from the police. After he hangs up, it is revealed to us that Nick has been shot, and is bleeding severely, seemingly about to die.

Finally, a corrupt cop (Mickey Rourke) arrives with a bag which contains Nick's head. He gives Casey until 7 p.m. to find the money but tells him that he does not care about the heroin. The cop then sees the garage with Ice and Billy tied up and Dallas dead and unloads a clip into Ice and Billy. He then tells Casey to throw them out as it is garbage day.

In the end, Casey calls Ice's boss and tells him that the heroin is being auctioned off at 7 p.m. at his house. He recalls Nick's earlier words which promptly lead him to find the money and a wedding present in the spare tire of his car. He takes them, puts them in Dallas' Lamborghini Diablo car and goes to pick his wife up at the airport to presumably escape the country. The movie ends as we see the cops and the Jamaicans, both armed, about to meet each other at the house.

Cast

*Thomas Jane as Casey Wells
*Aaron Eckhart as Nick
*Paulina Porizkova as Dallas
*James LeGros as Billy Hill
*Paula Marshall as Christine
*Michael Jeter as Dr. Jarvis
*Glenn Plummer as Ice
*Mickey Rourke as Kasarov

Release

The film was released to DVD in 2002 by Polygram/USA films. A week after its release, Polygram/USA Films went bankrupt, and no more than 1000 copies of the DVD were made. This wasn't the only film that got hurt by Polygram's bankruptcy. "The Last Days of Disco", "Topsy Turvy" and "No Looking Back" are also Polygram/USA DVDs that are rare and hard to find because of this. The only film that was shielded from the Polygram bankruptcy was "The Big Lebowski", because the Coen Brothers own the American distribution rights to all their films.

Critical response

Thursday received mixed reviews from the critics. Some harshly criticised the movie for its violence and stereotypes.

An excerpt from Roger Ebert's critique:

"It is unhip to admit to being offended by anything in the new movies, and indeed it's pretty hard to offend me, but a film named Thursday crossed the line....". "Watching it, I felt outrage. I saw a movie so reprehensible I couldn't rationalize it using the standard critical language about style, genre or irony. The people associated with it should be ashamed of themselves.... There is a "plot", but essentially the film is a series of geek-show sequences in which characters are tortured, raped, murdered and dismembered in between passages of sexist and racist language. This movie goes out of its way to be offensive--to women, Orientals, Pakistanis and especially blacks. Thursday's attitude towards blacks is so obscene, I'm surprised that it was made in this day and age".

Awards and nominations

Won

*Cognac Festival du Film Policier
**1999 special jury prize (tied with "A Simple Plan").

Nominated

*Artios Award
**Best casting of an independent feature film.

External links

*imdb title|id=0124901|title=Thursday
*rotten-tomatoes|id=thursday|title=Thursday