He has a sweet girl in the form of JC ( Ally Sheedy) and it tears him up to be away from her. Mick isn’t all bad kid, he’s had it rough but he’s not completely stupid, somewhere inside that messed up head filled with fury and rage is a calling to do the right thing. Shit goes down and unfortunate events take shape, resulting in Mick getting slammed up in young offenders prison. Mick wants a piece of that action, all of it, turning up on the dark busy street with his balaclava covered face and an outstretched hand, packing a revolver. Paco Moreno now has a target on his back.
BAD BOYS SEAN PENN FULL
Paco has acquired a suitcase full of drugs and this young gangster is gonna make a fortune from dealing around the block. When a big opportunity arises in the shape of Puerto Rican Paco Moreno ( Esai Morales), Mick’s eyes light up. This young Irish-American hoodlum, Mick O’Brien ( Sean Penn) is always searching for the next big score, whether it’s smash and grabs or violent muggings. On the streets of Chicago, an optimistic crook always has his ear to the ground. Where it wasn’t as grim and vicious as Scum, it still packed a tough violent punch. That film was Bad Boys and starred a big cast of up and coming recognizable actors in first or early roles. There was an American VHS cassette tape that exchanged hands with a similar theme, a young thug trying to survive through the system in a brutal juvenile detention center. Yeah we really were way too young to watch these films but I guess in a strange way that rather than make us into raging psychotic hoodlums, I think they put a terrifying fear into you that there’s no way you going to end up in the clink. A few other titles around the time were Made In Britain, McVicar and even the girls had a go in Scrubbers.
As teenage boys, these gritty prison dramas and brutal tales of youths fighting the system and getting banged up were all the rage in our VHS rental days! The grand daddy of these was the notorious savage borstal prison TV play and later, film Scum which starred Ray Winstone.