Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
It's the lawless future, and renegade biker Harley Davidson and his surly cowboy buddy, Marlboro, learn that a corrupt bank is about to foreclose on their friend's bar to further an expanding empire. Harley and Marlboro decide to help by robbing the crooked bank. But when they accidentally filch a drug shipment, they find themselves on the run from criminal financiers and the mob in this rugged action adventure.
Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man is a mid-tier early-90s action romp with a fun buddy dynamic between Mickey Rourke and Don Johnson, but the plot is generic and riddled with clichés — two rebels vs. corrupt establishment with a drug MacGuffin. Acting is serviceable but neither lead is doing career-best work, leaning heavily on posturing and charisma over craft. Cinematography has some decent gritty atmosphere and slick action staging for its era but nothing remarkable. Novelty gets a slight boost for its campy, comic-book aesthetic and the odd dystopian near-future setting that gives it a distinctive cult flavor, even if the bones are formulaic. The ending is unsatisfying and abrupt, wrapping up too cleanly for a film that tries to sell itself as edgy and subversive.