After Dark Episode 166: Soon to be Named Movie Club I – Bronco Billy
In the first installment of our new monthly After Dark idea, Joe watches for the first time one of the movies that shaped a young Todd into the man he is today, Bronco Billy. Witness as Clint Eastwood wears a neckerchief and sings! Listen as Joe gets confused by the heavy themes of this 1980 ‘movie.’ Tail kickin’, pool hustlin’
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So the first installment of Soon to Be Named Movie Club is under way and I watched Bronco Billy for the first time. Shortly after hearing about it for the first time. I’ve never taken the rabbit hole down to westerns and thus in turn never got into Clint Eastwood. Sure, In the Line of Fire was a good movie. My senior year of high school a teacher decided we should all watch Play Misty for Me. But that’s about it.
First impressions of the movie: How could Todd not get into wrestling because this movie is carny as fuck. Get rid of that straw and put down a ring and not much else has to change. If its a hog pen match, nothing has to change. Then we have inexperienced women in small outfits throwing things in the air for a man to target. Todd, if you’re into seeing china get destroyed by men I have some wrestling related videos for you.
Initially I thought there wasn’t a chance in hell I could finish the movie in a day. Maybe not even a week. I was expecting 10 minutes at a time and that would be just for podcast loyalty. Clint seemed all over the place. He has his own code sure but it came across as a painful antiquated code. Which he also appeared to break but could justify his actions within his credo.
And the woman? I realize Clint was with Sondra Locke at the time but she was brutal at the beginning. I would have left her ass too.
But then it hit me. I like things that Todd likes. What is it about this movie? I needed to hate these two in order to love them
To take a side trip. I hated Arrested Development at first. Could not get into it. Then the secret of the show came as a revelation. These are all horrible people. There isn’t someone to root for. There isn’t a hero. This is a family of terrible people and they will never be redeeming. Now that the light is lit I fell in love with the show and could enjoy it as one of the best written shows in all of TV.
To take another trip, as Rowdy Roddy Piper once said, “If they didn’t hate me so much, do you think they would’ve been cheering you so much?”
If Miss Lilly wasn’t such a pain in the ass, and up in everyone’s face would we have discovered and then cared about this motley circus family. Clint (Bronco Billy) pulled all of them out of nothing and gave them something to do. You may not be able to work in the blue collar world but here’s an honest living to keep us all out of jail (although not out of trouble). Now he’s interesting. Now Antoinette who has had everyone take take take from her all of her life sees a man who gives selflessly and doesn’t know how to process this. What’s his angle? What’s his scheme? Well, maybe he’s actually just a good guy.
When Billy shares his past, with the great line “he was my friend”, his angle and scheme is revealed. He is a broken shattered man as well but this thing. This one thing. Well, it turns out he’s good at it and can do some good with it.
I went from feeling like every 10 minutes was torture to running to my wife and saying I have to finish this movie before we do anything today. I can’t leave the house without knowing how it ends. The next day at work I was asking my small geek faction if they had ever seen the movie.
While I opened with a wrestling joke let me close with a wrestling analogy. So much of Bronco Billy’s code mirrors some wrestlers. Take a Booker T, MVP, and many others who committed a crime as a young man, did their time, and then turned their lives around. Yes, there’s the glory of being in front of people but every one of them says they wanted to be a positive influence for children. Say your prayers, eat your oatmeal, believe in Hulkamania. Whatever it might be.
Bronco Billy lets a woman know she’s wanted, never leaves a man behind, and will take the hit so no one else has to. Its real tough to argue with any of that.
Thank you for introducing me to this movie and here’s to the rest of the year being just as great.
I wonder how this could be Todd’s first Clint Eastwood movie. They showed so many of his movies on TBS and TNT back in the day, I don’t remember this being one of them Dirty Harry, Any Which Way But Loose, and Fistful of Dollars used to be on frequently.
I didn’t have cable when I was a kid so it was a crap shoot on what I would get to see. Is there a chance I saw another Clint movie before Bronco Billy and don’t remember? Yes but I honestly remember it being my first.
adding it to ye ole Netflix queue