**This article originally appeared on UGO.com (RIP). Re-posting here as the link no longer exists.
“Go ahead , make my day.” “Hasta la vista, baby.” “Yippie-kai-yay, motherf**ker.”
These are the tough guy movie lines so near and dear to our hearts. We love them because we wish we had said them. Like that time the kid in second grade stole our milk money. Or when the boss passed us over for that promotion. Or that time when we mowed down a gang of Crips with an uzi on the way to a Phil Collins concert.
OK, so the appropriate situation for a genuine tough guy line usually doesn’t present itself in real life…unless we’re playing Grand Theft Auto. Luckily, we have the following fifty tough guys (and some girls) to say those lines for us in a pinch.
We love these quotes because they exude all the best qualities of the tough guy code: coolness under pressure, a wicked, sometimes lethal sense of humor, a willingness to lay the verbal smackdown on anyone who gets in our way.
We want our milk money back, you son of a b*tch. Prepare to be pasteurized.
#50 – “You’re the disease, and I’m the cure.”
The Movie: Cobra
The Tough Guy: Sylvester Stallone as Lieutenant Marion “Cobra” Cobretti
The Situation: Renegade cop Cobretti is called in to bust up a supermarket holdup. After waiting out the baddie and drinking from a nearby display of Coors, he confronts the wired gunman with his own diagnosis…a prescription for pain.
What Makes It So Tough: That a great line can still rise like cream to the top of an otherwise terrible movie. Sure, it’s hokey, but it’s effective. In fact, Warner Brothers built their entire advertising campaign for this Dirty Harry knockoff around the concept – “Crime is a disease. Meet the cure.” Indeed, these movies were like a plague in the ‘80s, a new Stallone, Schwarzenegger or Seagal flick coming out every week with a new kill line for each. This line was one of the few that proved contagious.
#49 – “Wake up — time to die.”
The Movie: The classic dystopian sci-fi Blade Runner
The Tough Guy: Brion James as the Replicant thug Leon
The Situation: After chasing Rachael (Sean Young) through the rain-drenched futuristic Los Angeles streets, Deckard (Harrison Ford) runs into Replicant Leon. Just before Leon is about to kill Deckard, Leon drops this infamous line (later to be replicated by Rutger Hauer at the movie’s end) only moments before being smoked by Replicant Rachael himself.
What Makes It So Tough: James’ exceptionally disturbing reading of the line is what landed it in the annals of movie history. He sounds like the world’s most deadly alarm clock. Leon doesn’t even want to give Deckard the benefit of dying in his sleep. He wants him wide awake and lucid when he lays down that final blow.
#48 – “Sh*t just got real.”
The Movie: The British paean to bad Michael Bay movies, Hot Fuzz
The Tough Guy: Simon Pegg as a Cornetto chomping type-A super policeman Nicholas Angel
The Situation: Angel and Danny (Nick Frost) have awakened the sleepy town of Sanford by unearthing a nasty plot of the NWA (Neighbourhood Watch Alliance), a homicidal brotherhood comprised of mostly elderly townfolk. As the octogenarian army closes in, Angel and Danny prepare to do battle, and Angel drops a tough guy line from one of Danny’s favorite movies, Bad Boys II.
What Makes It So Tough: That it’s a tough guy line two-times removed. In truth, the line was not that tough the first time around when Martin Lawrence said it, and it’s even more comical when Pegg says it in this American action-movie send-up. But Hot Fuzz is a love letter to so-bad-they’re-good action movies. So in the spirit of the occasion, we have to give the Brits their recycled tough guy moment.
#47 – “It’s mercy, compassion, and forgiveness I lack; not rationality.”
The Movie: Kill Bill: Vol I
The Tough Guy: Uma Thurman as jilted-at-the-altar female assassin The Bride
The Situation: The Bride has just arrived in her Pussy Wagon at the house of Vernita Green aka “Copperhead” (Vivica A. Fox) to take her just revenge. The two engage in a balls-to-the-wall kung-fu throwdown right there in the living room, completely wrecking the feng shui. When Vernita’s daughter suddenly comes home from school, interrupting the fight, Copperhead asks The Bride if she still plans to kill her in front of her daughter.
What Makes It So Tough: Uma kicks a lot of ass in this movie, but it’s nice to know she still has a rational side. Or perhaps it’s just her maternal side. Later, she ends up killing Copperhead anyway just as the daughter walks in a second time. So maybe it’s mercy, compassion, forgiveness AND rationality she lacks. But then who’s keeping count?
#46 – “I’m your huckleberry.”
The Movie: Tombstone
The Tough Guy: Val Kilmer as tubercular gunman Doc Holliday
The Situation: Doc uses this his trademark phrase several times during the film. But the two best involve him confronting Johnny Ringo, first when Ringo’s looking to pick a fight with Earp in middle of town and later when the perpetually-sweating Doc appears out of the woods to take Ringo on in a gunfight.
What Makes It So Tough: Its Old West elusiveness. When Kilmer first says it, we’re not sure what he’s talking about, but we know he means business. Is he auditioning for a part in an action remake of Tom Sawyer? No, a “huckleberry” is an old American term meaning the right person for a job or a willing executor of some commission. And when that commission involves casually blowing away Johnny Ringo or any other miscreant within two feet of Earp, Holliday will most willingly execute.
#45 – “Get off my plane.”
The Movie: Air Force One
The Tough Guy: Harrison Ford as ass-kicking President of the United States, James Marshall
The Situation: The President is engaging in some aggressive hand-to-hand negotiations in the rear cargo drop of Air Force One with Russian terrorist Ivan Korshunov (Gary Oldman). Just before pulling Korshunov’s parachute cord and sending him spiraling 3,000 feet, he politely lets him know the exit strategy.
What Makes It So Tough: Out of context, this line is not very tough. But when it’s delivered by the President of the United States and that President happens to be Harrison Ford, it takes on a certain tough guy cachet. When the sh*t goes down, this is one Prez you can rest assured will not be reading My Pet Goat.
#44 – “It’s four times the risk and I’m double the worst trouble you ever had.”
The Movie: Michael Mann’s 1995 crime epic Heat
The Tough Guy: Robert DeNiro as ultra-efficient heist mastermind Neil McCauley
The Situation: McCauley has just locked horns with Detective Hanna (Al Pacino) in a downtown L.A. bank robbery that turned into an out and out firefight. He takes the wounded Chris (Val Kilmer) to a shady doctor (Jeremy Piven) who works for McCauley’s even shadier employer. When the doc makes a recommendation to alter the plan, McCauley does the math for him.
What Makes It So Tough: That there’s so much arithmetic involved. Who ever knew being a tough guy would require a degree in advanced calculus. OK, so it’s “four times the risk,” and McCauley’s “double the trouble,” that would make the trouble-to-risk ratio…hmm. We give up. Apparently, director Mann did too because this line never made it to the actual theatrical cut. However, it was featured in the original trailer and only made us want to see this crime masterpiece even more.
#43 – “Get some rest, Pam. You look tired.”
The Movie: The Bourne Supremacy
The Tough Guy: Matt Damon as amnesiac black ops assassin, Jason Bourne
The Situation: It’s the end of the movie, and Bourne has just survived a high speed multi-car smash up in Moscow. He’s talking on the phone with CIA op Pam Landy (Joan Allen) who believes he is still somewhere globetrotting. She tells him his real name “David Webb” and asks him to come in from the cold so she can give him more information. He declines, remarking instead on her pale, haggard appearance. That’s when Landy realizes Bourne has been talking to her whole time from an adjoining rooftop watching her through the scope of a rifle.
What Makes It So Tough: Normally, expressing concern for someone’s health is not a cause for tough guy alarm. But this is Bourne’s subtle way of letting Landy know that he is watching her, always one step ahead of the CIA and thus more chilling than any direct threat or f-bomb scatter blast ever could be.
#42 – “What’s the most you ever lost in a coin toss?”
The Movie: Academy Award winner No Country For Old Men
The Tough Guy: Javier Bardem as the cattle gun toting grim reaper known as Chigurh
The Situation: In pursuit of Moss (Josh Brolin) and the bag of stolen drug money, Chigurh stops off at a gas station to refill his tank (the gas tank, not the cattle gun tank). When the clerk at the register asks him a friendly question about the weather up his way, Chigurh turns the conversation 180 degrees with a chilling question that suddenly puts the man’s life on the line.
What Makes It So Tough: That it scares the bejesus out of us. At this point in the film, we’ve already seen what Chirgurh can do with cattle guns and regular guns and know that his curious sense of justice wouldn’t preclude offing a yokel store clerk just for looking at him the wrong way. When Chirguh attaches the man’s mortality to the toss of a coin, it’s a harrowing human moment, perhaps even more so than Arnold’s “I’ll be back.”
#41 – “Let’s show this prehistoric b*tch how we do things downtown.”
The Movie: The original Ghostbusters
The Tough Guy: Bill Murray as Dr. Peter Venkman
The Situation: The Ghostbusters confront the dreaded shape-shifting Sumerian god Gozer, in the form of a very hot chick with a Pat Benatar flattop. When she begins to hiss and fire lightning bolts at them, the four Ghostbusters lock and load their proton-streams like a paranormalist Wild Bunch and Venkman issues forth his signature call to arms.
What Makes It So Tough: Murray’s delivery. This being Ghostbusters, we know it’s a parody of a tough guy line and he knows it’s a parody of a tough guy line, but that doesn’t mean you say it with any less conviction. Plus, when your follow-up opponent is a thousand foot high Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, there will always be room for humor (and dessert) later.
#40 – “Did you ever pick your teeth up with broken fingers?”
The Movie: The it’s-a-man-baby thriller The Crying Game
The Tough Guy: The unfortunate Stephen Rea as IRA gunman and inadvertent transgender paramour Fergus
The Situation: After discovering Dil’s (and the movie’s) big secret the night before, Fergus is working construction when he/she shows to smooth things over. When Fergus’s boss arrives on the scene and tells him to “get the bloody tart out of here,” Fergus poses a logistical question combining the fields of dentistry and digital dexterity.
What Makes It So Tough: The fact that Fergus is the type of guy who will always defend a (ahem) lady’s honor. You don’t expect a line so tough coming from a movie like this or an actor like Rea who at times can seem sleepy-eyed at best. But this one kind of sneaks up on you, then smacks you around a bit. It’s just one the movie’s many surprises.
#39 – “My theory on Feds is that they’re like mushrooms —
feed ’em sh*t and keep ’em in the dark.”
The Movie: The Departed
The Tough Guy: Mark Wahlberg as razor-tongued Southie police sergeant Dignam
The Situation: Dignam and Ellerby (Alec Baldwin) are briefing a conference room full of assorted cops and Feds on their progress on the Frank Costello case. When one of the Feds pipes up, feeling Dignam’s brief briefer than expected, Dignam fires back with a handy gardening tip.
What Makes It So Tough: The local cop vs. Fed rivalry is a well-traveled staple of the crime movie genre. But Dignam’s colorful theory on how exactly to deal with Feds is a revelation in tough guy banter taking that old rivalry up a couple notches in just one line. Wahlberg delivers many highly-quotable put downs in this film, mostly at DiCaprio and Damon’s expense, but this one leveled at an otherwise innocent Washington desk jockey is our personal fave.
#38 – “Oh, sugar, you just gone and done the dumbest thing in your whole life.”
The Movie: Sin City
The Tough Guy: Former Gilmore Girl turned Frank Miller streetwalker Alexis Bledel as Becky
The Situation: Becky’s just walking along minding her own business in a Sin City back alley when Jackie Boy (Benicio Del Toro) rides up with his gang of goons, telling her to get inside. When she relents and he pulls a gun, Becky turns her little blue eyes his way and lets him know his mistake as her samurai sister-in-arms Miho descends from the rooftops to slice and dice the whole crew.
What Makes It So Tough: That the toughest line in a movie full of hardboiled lines is delivered not by Mickey Rourke or Bruce Willis but by an ex-Gilmore Girl weighing in at under a hundred pounds. And what’s with the “sugar” thing? When did this cute little moppet start talking like Flo from the TV show Alice. We don’t know, but we thinks we like it.
#37 – “Why? Because it feels so damn good!”
The Movie: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
The Tough Guy: Peckinpah stalwart Warren Oates as lounge singer-cum-hired-headhunter Benny
The Situation: Benny has just had a run-in with a pair of rival bounty hunters that turned into a roadside shootout. After retrieving the sack with Garcia’s head inside from their backseat, he stops by one of the dying bounty hunters and proceeds to fire a few more shots for no other good reason than the above.
What Makes It So Tough: Sometimes, there’s a fine line between tough and psychopathic. At this point in the movie, Benny’s certainly tap-dancing on that line and arguably steps over it when he begins talking to Garcia’s severed head a few scenes later. But, for right now, he’s a very regular guy in a very irregular situation embracing a tough guy moment and the fact that he still has few bullets left in his clip.
#36 – “Your move, creep.”
The Movie: Robocop
The Tough Guy: Peter Weller as deceased Detroit cop turned fully-automated crime avenger Robocop
The Situation: Robcop takes to the streets on his first mission, encountering two hoodlums in a back alley about to rape a woman. After zeroing his laser sights in between the woman’s legs to blast away the first perp, he turns his gun on the second one challenging him to a game of life-or-death chess (computerized chess, no doubt).
What Makes It So Tough: That a robot says it. Let’s face it, the word “creep” lost all sense of danger back in the Leave It To Beaver days. But when its comes out of the mouth of well-armed machine, it still has a certain intimidating effect. For a futuristic robot, Robocop’s language functions may well have been programmed by Wally and The Beav, but rest assured his firepower is supplied by Smith and Wesson.
#35 – “Sister, when I’ve raised hell, you’ll know it.”
The Movie: The Coen Brothers’ Miller’s Crossing
The Tough Guy: Gabriel Byrne as underworld fixer Tom Reagan
The Situation: It’s complicated…as with any Coen Brothers plot. In a nutshell, Tom has just stormed into a woman’s dressing room to confront his sort-of love interest Verna Bernbaum (Marcia Gay-Harden) about her seeing mob boss Albert Finney. Verna gives Tom some lip. Tom kisses her hard on the lips. She decks him with a roundhouse right. He throws a glass through a mirror. She exits on the line: “I suppose you think you’ve raised hell.” Tom replies.
What Makes It So Tough: Usually, it’s tough guy who does the cold-cocking after delivering his tough guy line. But here Gabriel Byrne manages to keep his dignity in tact and get the last word even after suffering a solid lady-blow with his perfect hardboiled delivery.
#34 – “Good. Bad. I’m the guy with the gun.”
The Movie: Army of Darkness
The Tough Guy: Bruce Campbell as the time-traveling man with chainsaw hand, Ash
The Situation: Ash has been transported back to the year 1300 AD, or “as close as he can figure.” His search for Necronomicon leads him to take on Deadites, Armies of Darkness and his very own clone, Evil Ash. Things get confusing, until Good Ash lets us know how he distinguishes between the two.
What Makes It So Tough: This line is pretty much a parody of all tough guy movie lines, but that doesn’t make it any less effective. It cuts to the core of what most tough guy moments are all about…namely, who’s holding the gun. In this case, it happens to be Bruce Campbell holding a gun on another version of Bruce Campbell. So it gets double-word score bonus points in that respect.
#33 – “Always bet on black.”
The Movie: Die Hard on a plane flick, Passenger 57
The Tough Guy: Wesley Snipes as high altitude security expert and roulette aficionado John Cutter
The Situation: Notorious incarcerated terrorist Charles Rane is being flown to L.A. on an everyday passenger plane to stand trial when he turns the tables on the Feds. But he wasn’t counting on tough guy Cutter to put his terrorist skills (or gambling chops) to the test.
What Makes It So Tough: Sure, the movie was one of the many forgettable “Die Hard on a (blank)” movies to come out back then. And the line is arguably a laughable version of a ‘70s blaxploitation catchphrase that somehow died and woke up in the ‘90s. But when the trailer for this film first hit the screens built entirely around Wesley’s “Always bet on black” line, audience members both black and white stood and cheered. We have to admit, we were one of those audience members.
#32 – “I want you to be nice until it’s time to not be nice.”
The Movie: ‘80s bare knuckle classic Road House
The Tough Guy: Patrick Swayze as part-time philosophy major and full-time redneck James Dalton
The Situation: Dalton has been hired as the resident “cooler” (i.e., king bouncer) for a particularly rough and tumble bar in Missouri. Upon arriving, he instructs his rowdy cadre of doorman protégés in the fine arts of Zen and kneecap shattering.
What Makes It So Tough: Politeness is a virtue, especially when you’re about to ram a pool cue into a drunk guy’s groin. Dalton knows this. Descartes knew this. And now so do we. This is a movie about bouncers, the guys who make sure you will NOT have too good a night out, so you know anything out of Swayze’s mouth is bound to be tough.
#31 – “I’m gonna get medieval on your ass.”
The Movie: Pulp Fiction
The Tough Guy: Ving Rhames as recently sodomized mob boss Marsellus Wallace
The Situation: Marsellus and Butch (Bruce Willis) are captive in the S&M dungeon wing of a local L.A. pawn shop. After a twisted game of eeny-meeny-miny-moe, Marsellus is chosen as the unlucky love partner for Zed and The Gimp. Butch takes his revenge with the blade and Marsellus with a shotgun to Zed’s privates. But Marsellus lets Zed know he’s just getting started.
What Makes It So Tough: The word “medieval.” It just conjures up so many ass-kicking possibilities. Marsellus says Zed’s punishment is going to involve “some hard pipe hittin’ n*ggas” as well as “a pair of pliers and a blow torch,” but the word “medieval” can only make us wonder…will there also be chain mail involved, battle axes? Will Excalibur make an appearance? It’s hard to sell a tough guy line after being “Deliveranced” by a redneck named Zed, and Rhames not only sold it but placed it forever in the American cultural lexicon.
#30 – “Consider that a divorce.”
The Movie: Total Recall
The Tough Guy: Arnold Schwarzenegger as the is-it-live-or-Memorex plagued Martian secret agent Douglas Quaid
The Situation: After discovering his Martian vacation is the real thing, Quaid manages to outmaneuver a horde of gunmen with his newfound secret agent strength and pull a gun on his memory-implant of a wife Lori (Sharon Stone). As Lori pleads with him that they’re still married (while secretly pulling a gun of her own), Quaid serves her papers the old fashioned way.
What Makes It So Tough: That, at one time or another, we’ve all wanted to do the very same thing to Sharon Stone, whether it be for Sliver, Catwoman, or Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction. The list of offenses is long and unsightly. Let’s just say that we, much like Quaid, have irreconcilable differences.
#29 – There’s got to be 100 reasons why I don’t blow you away.
Right now I can’t think of one.”
The Movie: 1990’s The Rookie (that’s right, the one with Charlie Sheen)
The Tough Guy: Clint Eastwood taking a break from Dirty Harry as another veteran cop Nick Pulovski
The Situation: Pulovski confronts his nemesis, German mob boss Strom (played by Raul Julia, oddly enough), on the conveyer belt of an airport loading dock. As Pulovski aims his gun on the helpless Strom, all reasons for restraint quickly evaporate from his mind.
What Makes It So Tough: Is it so tough? Or just a sign of early-stage Alzheimer’s? We can’t be sure. Clint was getting up there in age by the time this Dirty Harry retread came out, so it could go either way. Still, he proves even with Charlie Sheen in tow, he can sell a kill line better than any of the CGI-enhanced whipper-snappers on the market today.
#28 – “Are you gonna bark all day, little doggy, or are you gonna bite?”
The Movie: Reservoir Dogs
The Tough Guy: Michael Madsen as ear-slicing hold-up man Mr. Blonde
The Situation: Mr. Orange (Tim Roth) and Mr. White (Harvey Keitel) are back at he meet-up spot trying to piece together what went wrong during the unseen heist until Mr. Blonde appears casually drinking a soda. As Mr. White goes off on Mr. Blonde in a high-decibel, expletive-filled verbal tirade for acting like a psycho doing the robbery, Blonde calmly waits him out before asking a simple question.
What Makes It So Tough: Michael Madsen delivering almost any line is inherently tough. The dude’s got a way with dramatic pauses. But, of all the f-bombs, racial epithets, and ‘70s pop culture references being dropped in Tarantino’s exceptionally loquacious first movie, this simple line rings the loudest. In effect, Madsen directly addresses the question the whole audience is wondering by this point – how long are these Dogs going to keep barking at each other before one of them gets dead.
#27 – “I don’t give a f**k about your war or your president.”
The Movie: The original Escape from New York
The Tough Guy: Kurt Russell as eye-patch model and all-around futuristic badass Snake Plissken (the future being 1998)
The Situation: Snake has just been brought from military prison by Commissioner Hauk and tasked with the assignment of rescuing a President who has crash landed in the crumbling prison state of New York City with a very important briefcase. Snake, understandably, has reservations.
What Makes It So Tough: The year may be 1998, but the sentiment is pure 2008. Snake is a world-weary warrior tired of being dicked-over again and again by government goons. Even though this job may be Snake’s one chance at freedom, he’s ready to turn it down with little more than a snarled line and lit cigarette. Hopefully, in the inevitable remake Snake won’t be too excited by the prospect either.
#26 – “I ain’t got time to bleed.”
The Movie: The original Predator
The Tough Guy: Jesse “The Body” Ventura as Sergeant Blain Cooper
The Situation: Arnold and his crew of jungle mercenaries have just discovered they’re being pursued by some sort of alien creature with the ability to camouflage itself. One of his men notices Cooper is bleeding and tells him he’s been hit.
What Makes It So Tough: And you thought Arnold was the only strongman-turned-politician with a lock on badass catchphrases. Ventura’s casual dismissal of a near mortal flesh wound has earned him high marks in the rankings of military men and action movie fans worldwide. The Governing Body even managed to turn the quotable catch phrase into the title of a New York Times best selling book. Of course, those who don’t have time to bleed also probably don’t have time to read either, but, hey, that’s what Predator 2 must have been for.
#25 – “Zed’s dead, baby. Zed’s dead.”
The Movie: Pulp Fiction
The Tough Guy: Bruce Willis as the boxer who refuses to take a dive, Butch
The Situation: Butch has just made a narrow escape from a pawn shop basement that doubled as an S&M dungeon, cleverly averting a potential man-rape. Along with gangster Marsellus (Ving Rhames, not so lucky), he handily dispatched both The Gimp and store proprietor Zed with a shotgun and samurai blade. He now rides up to meet his French girlfriend on Zed’s chopper motorcycle for a breakfast of blueberry pancakes when she asks him who “Zed” is.
What Makes It So Tough: Most tough guy lines are delivered in the heat of the moment with guns (or blades) aimed and pointed. But this one comes after the fact and serves as a release, a tough guy catharsis of sorts. It also doesn’t hurt that it rhymes and is delivered by perennial tough guy Bruce Willis from the seat of a very snazzy motorcycle.
#24 – “I’m your worst f**kin’ nightmare, man — a n**ger with a badge.”
The Movie: 48 Hours
The Tough Guy: Eddie Murphy as out on 48 hour parole convict Eddie Hammond
The Situation: Hammond and his partner Jack Gates (Nick Nolte) have just entered a local cowboy bar filled to the ten-gallon brim with rednecks. Hammond proceeds to throw a shot glass through the barroom mirror, beat down a few surly hicks and interrogate the cowboy clientele in his own unique manner.
What Makes It So Tough: This line is the ‘80s answer to Sidney Poitier’s classic turning-the-race-table “They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!” quote two decades before. But in true ‘80s fashion, this one’s much more crass, foul-mouthed and delivered by a highly paid comedian when he was at the top of his game. Sure, the Eddie we know now mainly trades in fat suits and children’s movies, but this was when his comedy was still cutting edge.
#23 – “I want you to hold it between your knees.”
The Movie: Five Easy Pieces
The Tough Guy: Jack Nicholson as the disaffected, slummin-it piano prodigy Bobby Dupea
The Situation: The infamous diner scene. Bobby just wants a plain omelet with a side order of wheat toast. But the snooty waitress tells him they don’t do side orders. So Bobby counters ordering a chicken salad sandwich as well – hold the butter, the mayonnaise, the chicken, just the toast. The waitress asks, sarcastically: “You want me to hold the chicken?” Bobby tells her where he wants her to hold it before defiantly sweeping the table clean.
What Makes It So Tough: Tough guy lines don’t always have to involve life or death situations…sometimes a man just wants his toast. This scene and this line are infamous not only because of Nicholson’s caustic performance but because it tapped into a counterculture that was, at the time, fed up with the rules and regulations, even those as seemingly harmless as “No Substitutions.”
#22 – “It’s just been revoked.”
The Movie: Lethal Weapon 2
The Tough Guy: Danny Glover as too-old-for-this-sh*t detective Roger Murtaugh
The Situation: In the climactic scene at the docks, Riggs and Murtaugh are closing in on the bad guy, a South African diplomat/Krugerrand smuggler, who’s already slipped past them one too many times. As Murtaugh pulls his gun, the Aryan antagonist turns and pulls his government ID shouting with glee: “Diplomatic Immunity!” With a slow cock of the head (not to mention his gun), Murtaugh lets bad guy know it’s about to expire.
What Makes It So Tough: Danny Glover suffered multiple humiliations in this franchise from almost getting blown up on the toilet to having cars repeatedly driven through his house to having his police cubicle decorated in condoms. This is the scene where Murtaugh finally gets his tough guy moment, and what makes it all the more perfect is that the object of his rage is a particularly nasty South African white supremacist. We’re just glad the line wasn’t: “I’m gonna tear you apart-heid.”
#21 – “Hasta la vista, baby”
The Movie: Terminator 2: Judgment Day
The Tough Guy: Arnold Schwarzenegger in his second Terminator outing, this time as a good guy cyborg
The Situation: In the climactic factory showdown between Arnold’s old school Terminator and Robert Patrick’s new model T-1000, Arnold pulls a gun on the liquid nitrogen-impaired cyborg along with a phrase he learned from scrappy ragamuffin and interstellar-savior-to-be John Connor (Edward Furlong).
What Makes It So Tough: Everybody loves a good callback to a well-placed line earlier in a film. But more so than that, everybody loves a bi-lingual robot. One can only wonder if this now famous line was a very early bid by the current Governor of California to appeal to The Golden State’s largely Latino voting population.
#20 – “I’m gonna nail you for picking your feet in Poughkeepsie.”
The Movie: The French Connection
The Tough Guy: Gene Hackman as flatfoot New York detective Popeye Doyle
The Situation: After chasing down a junkie in breathless handheld foot chase, Popeye and partner Russo (Roy Scheider) interrogate the perp in a back alley. Alternating rapid-fire questions to the junkie about his supplier with nonsense talk of “picking his feet in Poughkeepsie,” Doyle finally gets the confused junkie to fess up.
What Makes It So Tough: Because it’s funny and nonsensical yet one hundred percent effective police work. Doyle uses this trademark phrase as the verbal equivalent of a one-two punch, faking first with a left (“You ever pick your feet in Poughkeepsie?”) before nailing him the right (“Who’s your supplier?”). By the time Popeye has thrown enough verbal lefts and rights, the junkie doesn’t even know which one he’s really getting busted for – picking his feet or carrying three bags of heroin. It also doesn’t hurt that Hackman is wearing a Santa Claus suit for the duration.
#19 – “I’m going to hit you with so many rights, you’re going to beg for a left.”
The Movie: Invasion U.S.A. (don’t worry, we don’t remember it either)
The Tough Guy: Early ‘80s action icon Chuck Norris as ex-CIA agent and savior of the free world Matt Hunter
The Situation: It’s all kinda hazy, but we think it involves Norris without a gun threatening to kick someone’s ass. That someone is most likely a terrorist from some vaguely identifiable foreign country (i.e., straight out of Central Casting) who deserves said ass-kissing all on account of him being vaguely identifiable.
What Makes It So Tough: Because it sounds like something your grandfather might say when you get his dander up. Seriously, there was a time pre-Walker: Texas Ranger and pre-hair piece when Norris could really sell these lines. Reagan was in office. Terrorists still arrived by pontoon boat setting their sights on sleepy Florida coastal towns. And Norris was right there to take on every one of them mano e mano.
#18 – “The first rule of Fight Club is…you do not talk about Fight Club.”
The Movie: Fight Club
The Tough Guy: Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden, the is-he-there-or-isn’t-he buff alter ego of wimpy Edward Norton
The Situation: Somewhere in an anonymous basement (or Jack’s mind), Tyler Durden lays out the eight rules of an ultra-exclusive club devoted to men beating the piss out of each other in order to conquer their late ‘90s spiritual malaise. Note: The second rule is Fight Club is startlingly similar to the first.
What Makes It So Tough: A rote recitation of rules and regulations would not normally qualify as tough guy banter. After all, true tough guys tend to not like rules and regulations. But when those rules have been put there in order to strictly preserve man’s inalienable right to turn his fellow man into hamburger meat, then, hey, sign us up.
#17 – “They call me MISTER Tibbs!”
The Movie: The 1967 classic In the Heat of the Night
The Tough Guy: Sidney Poitier as Detective Virgil Tibbs
The Situation: Philly homicide detective Tibbs is home visiting his mother in rural Mississippi. When a rich white man turns up dead, Virgil is arrested by local good ol’ boy cop Gillespie (Rod Steiger) on suspicion of little else than being black. Tired of being called “boy,” “son,” and words beginning with “n,” Virgil finally lets Gillespie know his real name in a line reading so simmering with rage it registers like a gunshot.
What Makes It So Tough: Its cultural relevance and Poitier’s fantastic delivery. He didn’t need a gun to make you feel the hundreds of years of anger and oppression boiling beneath the surface. It may seen tame by today’s standards, but at the time it was delivered, this line registered like sociopolitical can of gasoline dropped on the already raging fire of the civil rights movement. It was so effective they even named a sequel after it (1970’s They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!).
#16 – “Some motherf**kers are always trying to ice skate uphill.”
The Movie: Blade
The Tough Guy: Wesley Snipes as half-man, half-vampire avenger Blade
The Situation: In the climactic showdown with pure-blood vampire cult leader Frost (Stephen Dorff), Blade dispatches the flimsy bad guy with a flurry of flying blue serum syringes and one of the stranger, more inspired kill lines in movie history.
What Makes It So Tough: Ice skating? Where did the ice skating come from? Does it having anything to do with fact that the movie’s called Blade? We’ll never know for sure, but it sounded cool enough when Wesley said it. And, frankly, we were all tired of little Stephen Dorff by that point anyway, regardless of the fact that he seemed to be wearing no ice skates. Apparently, ice skating uphill is something you do NOT want to do…like evading your taxes. Let’s just hope the courts don’t come down as hard on Wesley as he did on Dorff.
#15 – “I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass. And I’m all out of bubble gum.”
The Movie: John Carpenter’s They Live
The Tough Guy: “Rowdy” Roddy Piper as the unfortunately named Nada, a construction worker with a nifty set of X-ray specs and a killer belly-to-back suplex
The Situation: On the run from an oppressive alien government mind-controlling its citizens with constant subliminal media bombardment (hmm, sounds familiar), Nada stumbles into a bank with a shotgun and his special glasses that pick out the aliens among the crowd. Sensing a perfect opportunity to take out some bad guys and grab some dough, Nada delivers one of the best tough guy lines since the advent of Bazooka bubble gum.
What Makes It So Tough: That it’s so random and ridiculous and completely uncalled for in the situation. Yet Rowdy Roddy announces it to the crowd as if it were the WWE version of a State of the Union address. The only other thing that even comes close to this line’s awesomeness in the movie is the ten minute back alley wrestling match scene. But one can only take so much subtlety for so long.
#14 – “Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is your fired.”
The Movie: Glengarry Glen Ross
The Tough Guy: Alec Baldwin as Blake, the world’s best/worst business motivational speaker of all time
The Situation: Blake has been called in from “downtown” to motivate/intimidate the tired phone jockeys at Rio Rancho Properties with a contest to increase flagging sales. And, oh yes, Blake drove an $80,000 BMW to get there and you only drove a Hyundai.
What Makes It So Tough: He’s got a set of big brass balls (an actual set!). But gold cajones aside, it’s David Mamet’s script and Alec Baldwin’s razor-edged delivery which makes this whole scene so choc-a-bloc with tough guy lines it’s hard to choose just one. Unfortunately, this scene is so influential that it has been co-opted by salesmen, stock traders and telemarketers across the country to motivate/intimidate their own sales forces. More unfortunate than that, the scene was co-opted by Ben Affleck in the Glengarry wannabe Boiler Room a few years back.
#13 – “Isn’t that just like a wop? Brings a knife to a gun fight.”
The Movie: The Untouchables
The Tough Guy: Sean Connery as tough-talking Irish beat cop Jimmy Malone
The Situation: Malone is at home alone in his apartment when one of Capone’s henchmen sneaks in through the window holding a switchblade. Just as the baddie closes in on Malone with his back turned, Malone suddenly turns on him with a sawed off shotgun.
What Makes It So Tough: Its old world nastiness. This is a man with the upper hand reveling in it for his last few moments. A few beats later, Connery will turn the corner and be gunned down by a different non-knife wielding henchmen, but for those last few seconds he had the perfect line for the situation. There have been other more PC iterations of this line in recent films (the most recent Indiana Jones for example), but Connery’s version in The Untouchables will always be the one best remembered. Here endeth the lesson.
#12 – “I’ll shove that bat up your ass and turn you into a Popsicle.”
The Movie: The Warriors
The Tough Guy: James Remar as Warriors gang member Ajax
The Situation: In an all-night odyssey to make it back to their Coney Island stomping grounds, the Warriors have a run-in in Central Park with rival gang The Baseball Furies (basically, dudes in KISS makeup wearing full baseball regalia). Ajax, tired of running, decides to man-up and take on one of the bat-wielding baddies.
What Makes It So Tough: One can only be so tough wearing a straight-outta-Chelsea leather vest and talking smack to a guy in clown makeup and center-fielder’s attire. But Remar manages to sell the line and sell it good (it still gets cheers at retro screenings to this day). The use of the phrase “turn you into a Popsicle” is especially inspired and creates an absurd mental picture when first heard…even more absurd than what the gang members in this movie are wearing.
#11 – “When you’re slapped, you’ll take it and like it.”
The Movie: The Maltese Falcon
The Tough Guy: The original tough guy Humphrey Bogart as Detective Sam Spade
The Situation: Spade has been tasked by two questionable employers (Peter Lorre and Mary Astor) to find the eponymous black bird, the Maltese Falcon. When they begin to fight among themselves, Spade steps in to lay the smackdown on the manic, bug-eyed Peter Lorre.
What Makes It So Tough: For most of us working stiffs, smacking around the boss really is “the stuff that dreams are made of.” Rarely do we ever get the chance to do it. But Bogart does it and does it well. He knows how to make a good slap sting even more by telling Lorre that not only will he take it but enjoy it. The fact that Lorre does not protest afterwards and that Spade keeps his assignment is reason to rejoice for freelance gumshoes and 401K-ers alike.
#10 – “If they move, kill ‘em.”
The Movie: The Wild Bunch
The Tough Guy: William Holden as Pike Bishop, leader of the Wild Bunch
The Situation: It’s the opening of the film and the gang has just ridden into town on horseback dressed as American Cavalrymen. We’re not quite sure who they are and why they’re here. After helping an old woman across the street, Bishop nods to the local railroad office and the men head inside quickly taking the railroad employees at gunpoint. Bishop utters his line through clenched teeth, and that’s when we know these are not your ordinary cavalry men but a gang of killers with their own curious moral code.
What Makes It So Tough: Not only is the line cold blooded, but it’s a near perfect way to start a film. It lets us know the type of men we’re dealing with right from the start. And it doesn’t hurt that the line is immediately followed by perfectly timed freeze-frame and the titles “Directed by Sam Peckinpah.”
#9 – “You talkin’ to me?”
The Movie: Taxi Driver
The Tough Guy: Robert DeNiro as borderline cabbie Travis Bickle
The Situation: Lonely Vietnam vet Travis has just made sizeable gun purchase from a back-alley dealer and is trying them out at home in the mirror along with a few of his own tough guy lines.
What Makes It So Tough: The better question may be “What Makes This Line So Disturbing?” Well, any well-armed sociopath standing before a mirror and talking to himself in a rundown New York City apartment would be cause for alarm if it weren’t so commonplace. But what makes Travis’ self-interrogation so compelling is that we know by this point that he is lit fuse psychologically, ready to blow at any second against a pimp, a presidential candidate or a random person in the street. Travis’ line is the ultimate dress rehearsal for a tough guy moment, one that you hope never comes to fruition.
#8 – “Get away from her, you b*tch.”
The Movie: Aliens
The Tough Guy: In this case, a woman — Sigourney Weaver as Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley
The Situation: After a last-minute escape from alien-infested colony LV-426 with little girl Newt in tow, Ripley discovers that the hive’s queen has followed them onto the drop ship. When the queen goes after Newt, Ripley straps into a handy space cargo-loader and prepares to do battle.
What Makes It So Tough: Forget the fact that they’re in space. Forget the fact that one’s a space creature with acid for blood. Forget the fact that Sigourney looked better in panties than at the helm of the world’s deadliest forklift. What this line (and Weaver’s reading of it) manages to do is, first things first, make this a woman-to-woman battle. Her use of the word “b*tch” not only humanizes the alien queen but gives it a gender, turning what could have been a hokey scene into the best interspecies girls’ locker room fight of all time.
#7 – “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”
The Movie: Apocalypse Now
The Tough Guy: Robert Duvall as Lt. Colonel Kilgore, surfing enthusiast and connoisseur of noxious gases
The Situation: Kilgore’s AirCav unit has just bombed the crap out of a Vietnamese coastal town. With bombs still going off all around him and pink clouds of smoke lingering behind, a shirtless Kilgore lectures his men on the efficiency and finer olfactory qualities of his favorite chemical agent.
What Makes It So Tough: Robert Duvall’s performance. With any other actor, this line (not to mention the entire soliloquy) could have come off as indulgent. But with Duvall, it’s the perfect peek into the mind of one very disturbed career soldier, one so obsessed with victory that lethal gases have come to smell more pleasing than lilac or lavender. It helps too that Duvall doesn’t flinch for a single moment as the bombs explode all around him. It’s the audience who is doing all the flinching at Colonel Kilgore, not the bombs.
#6 – “Go ahead, make my day.”
The Movie: Sudden Impact, the fourth film in the Dirty Harry series
The Tough Guy: Dirty Harry Callahan, as played by Clint Eastwood
The Situation: Harry has just rousted a diner full of hoodlums with his trademark .44 magnum, all without breaking a sweat. The last remaining thug holds a waitress hostage at gunpoint as squad cars close in outside and Harry turns his hand cannon on him, taunting him verbally.
What Makes It So Tough: Sure, Clint is a little older in this one and the scene is an obvious attempt to cash in on another “Do you feel lucky?” moment. Plus, it doesn’t help the line’s tough guy cachet that rickety politician Ronald Reagan later appropriated it in a speech promoting his domestic tax policies. That said, the line is still an ironclad tough guy mantra delivered with snarling brilliance by Eastwood. His simple taunt displays a deep world-weariness and complete lack of concern for his own safety (not to mention the waitress) – exactly what we require of our favorite antiheroes.
#5 – “Yippie-kai-yay, motherf**ker.”
The Movie: The original Die Hard
The Tough Guy: Bruce Willis as the world’s unluckiest cop John McClane
The Situation: McClane is the last man standing (in bare feet no less) in a towering Nakatomi Plaza now taken over by an elite squad Euro-terrorists. With nothing more a machine gun and a walkie-talkie, he manages to put the Fear of John into nasty German baddie Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) with talk of sequined shirts and Roy Rogers movies.
What Makes It So Tough: The pairing of an antiquated cowboy cattle-call phrase (“Yippie-kai-yay”) with the dropping a 60 megaton f-bomb is a genius stroke in the annals of tough guy movie writing. In only two words, Willis’ John McClane becomes aligned in the audience’s mind with the best of American movie heroes, at once old fashioned and completely modern, ready to blow a 50 foot hole in the side of a Los Angeles skyscraper and then ride off into the sunset.
#4 – “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.”
The Movie: The Godfather
The Tough Guy: Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone
The Situation: Teary-eyed lounge singer Johnny Fontane has just come to the Godfather to seek his help in landing a movie part that a stubborn Hollywood producer refuses to give him. After smacking Fontane and mocking his blubbering (“You can act like a man!”), Corleone takes him by the shoulder and makes him a solemn promise.
What Makes It So Tough: Not all tough guy lines are delivered from the end of the barrel of a loaded gun. As this classic line proves, some of the most cold-blooded sentiments are delivered in the back boardrooms quietly, casually and, in Brando’s case, not even fully enunciated. But when Vito Corleone says he’s going to make producer Jack Woltz “an offer,” we know he doesn’t mean beachfront property in Malibu or a swell new Rolex. So when Woltz wakes up screaming to the site of a severed race horse’s head in bed spooning with him, we know for dead certain that he won’t refuse.
#3 – “Say hello to my little friend”
The Movie: Scarface
The Tough Guy: Al Pacino as hot-blooded Cuban gangster Tony Montana
The Situation: As his enemies close in all around his palatial estate, Tony holes up in his office a cache of weapons, twenty-odd security cameras and a mountain of cocaine. When he can hide (and snort) no longer, he introduces the encroaching hitmen to his deadly, diminutive companion.
What Makes It So Tough: For many, Pacino’s famous line is more funny than tough, but it’s undeniably earned its machismo street-cred by being sampled in more hardcore rap songs than any other line in movie history. There are many other great quotes in Scarface, and Pacino’s Tony is certainly a most loquacious druglord, but there’s something about the “little friend” spin that gives the line cinematic staying power. You’re expecting Tony to waltz out with Hervé Villechaize or Verne Troyer or perhaps even a doppelganger of the short-statured Pacino himself. What you get instead is an M16A1 machine gun with M203 grenade launcher and a very large explosion.
#2 – “I’ll be back.”
The Movie: 1984’s original The Terminator
The Tough Guy: Arnold Schwarzenegger in his first turn as the Terminator
The Situation: The titular cyborg assassin’s relentless pursuit of human Sarah Connor has led him to a local police station where she is being held in protective custody. But when all that stands between the Terminator and his target is one chubby desk clerk and one flimsy wood and glass lobby partition, the term “protection” itself becomes meaningless.
What Makes It So Tough: The line’s simplicity and Arnold’s awesome monotone delivery. In an every day context, someone telling you they will be right back usually does not inspire much dread. But if that person happens to be a cyborg from the future, has already brutally killed two women woman named Sarah Connor the same day, and is packing enough weaponry in his Buick to arm a small South American country, then you may want to step out for a bit.
#1 – “You’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?”
The Movie: The original Dirty Harry
The Tough Guy: Clint Eastwood in his first appearance as Detective Harry Callahan
The Situation: When Harry’s hot dog lunch is disturbed by a midday bank robbery, he calmly walks across the San Francisco streets chewing and firing his .44 magnum (the most powerful handgun in the world) at the escaping perps until he reaches to the last one alive. But did he fire six shots or only five?
What Makes It So Tough: Clint’s trademark calm, cool delivery. The fact that he’s holding a very, very large gun. The use of the word “punk” as the perfect end punctuation. But more than this, it’s that hard-ass Harry gives the bad guy a choice, making him complicit in his own potential demise. Even after the baddie has chosen not to reach for his gun, he still “gots to know.” Harry claims to have forgotten the bullet count himself in “all this excitement,” but when he turns his .44 back on bad guy and fires, rest assured he knows. Harry always knows.
MATT BURCH 