Make my day.

September 14th, 2009

Hey, gang. Here’s a little bleg for you. What are some good “tough guy” lines from movies? I’m thinking of — obviously — “Go ahead, make my day” “Say hello to my little friend” and similar ones. I need a few examples for a column.

(My personal favorite, of course, is from “Deadwood.” All of Al Swearengen’s lines are great, but his “You would not want to be starin’ like that, at me” is, well, a gem. It’s at 0:50 in this compilation clip of Al’s greatest hits — a word that ought to be interpreted quite liberally in this case.)


8 Responses to “Make my day.”

  1. Lynette on September 14, 2009 9:01 am

    Do tough guy lines in comedies count? One of my all time favorites (from Princess Bride):

    “‘Alo. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”

  2. Ajay on September 14, 2009 9:25 am

    “I’m your huckleberry” Doc Holliday (Val Kilmer) to Johnny Ringo (Michael Biehn) in the 1993 movie “Tombstone”.

    All. time. favorite. One of the few lines I’ve ever remembered, and one of the few movie titles.

    Idn’t that a daisy?

  3. Ajay on September 14, 2009 9:32 am

    And he says it TWICE.

  4. veronica on September 14, 2009 9:54 am

    Do villian lines from TV shows count?

    There’s “Resistance is futile.”

    Or the heroic “Today is a good day to die”

    ….yeah, I woke up on the Star Trek side of the bed today.

  5. Ashley on September 14, 2009 10:59 am

    Also from Star Trek:
    “I am a Klingon. If you doubt that, a demonstration can be arranged!”

    This one works well for mothers of teens.

  6. PJ on September 14, 2009 1:42 pm

    Ashley,

    I am a mother of 2 teen girls, and I’m DEFINITELY going to use that line! Thank you!

    My two favorites:

    “I’ll be bahck” (misspelled to imitate Arnold’s pronounciation.)

    “Go ahead, make my day” has to go down in permanent history.

  7. Dmajor on September 15, 2009 10:43 am

    For seriously-scary, ominous and threatening, you gotta like Joe Pesce’s “What do you mean I’m funny?” from Goodfellas.

  8. Robin on September 15, 2009 4:38 pm

    Lynette, I used to work for a theater company that presented Mandy Patinkin in concert a couple of times. He did a lot of Gershwin, Sondheim, etc.; wonderful singer. Anyway, he’d often start off the show by saying something like, “When you go home, your kids won’t care how I sang, they’ll only want to know one thing. So you can tell them I said it–” and then do that line. Got huge applause.

    I only spent a bit of time with him, but he seemed like a real mensch.

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