This movie is INCREDIBLY '80s. James Spader plays The New Kid In Town who is attracted to The Bad Guy's Girlfriend. Bad Guy isn't very happy about that. Bad Guy is also a complete psychopath. New Kid has his job cut out for him.
In this case, Spader has moved from upper middle class Connecticut to some rough part of Los Angeles. His best friend is Robert Downy Jr.! His nice ten speed bike is immediately destroyed by the bad guys, as punishment for breaking up a mugging they are committing. At that point, it's war.
Honestly, Spader might be the wrong casting choice here. He never comes across as tough, only clever. I never got bravado or courage from him in this movie, only slyness and calculation. He out-thinks the bad guy, since he can't pound him into the cement. That's OK and all, but in a movie called Tuff Turf, you expect a little more physical bravery maybe. Or it could be just me.
The perfect scene for him in this is when he sneaks his group of friends - including the Girl - into a country club, then he sits at a piano and sings We Walk The Night, a tender love ballad. That makes sense for his character. Challenging a gang of psychos is stretching it a bit. It raises an interesting question about how we see ourselves in other characters, vs. who we might be in those situations. There are plenty of menacing situations in this movie, and who am I to judge how Spader approaches them? Not everyone is Rambo.
But all in all, this is a fun movie and certainly worth checking out. Kim Richards, of Real Housewives of Hollywood fame, plays the Girl. I'll leave it up to you whether her conversion from Psychotic Bad Boy to Intelligent Spader is convincing. Maybe We Walk the Night would melt any girl (?). This movie made about $10 million at the box office, and was likely a moderate success. Directed by Fritz Kiersch, who also did Children of the Corn the year before.
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