Thursday (film)

Thursday is a 1998 American crime/thriller/black comedy film written and directed by Skip Woods and starring Thomas Jane, Aaron Eckhart, Paula Marshall, Michael Jeter and Mickey Rourke. It won the Special Jury Prize at the Cognac Festival.

Plot

The movie opens in a Los Angeles convenience store one late Monday night, where a small-time drug dealer named Nick (Aaron Eckhart) is trying to decide what coffee brand to buy. His ex-lover Dallas (Paulina Porizkova) and fellow hitman Billy Hill (James LeGros) are getting impatient and tell him to hurry up. Conflicts between Nick and the cashier (Luck Hari) ensue, resulting in Dallas shooting the cashier dead. Though the three attempt to cover up the crime, they are forced to also shoot a police officer (Bari K. Willerford) when he discovers blood on the ground.

Three days later, Nick shows up on the doorstep of Casey Wells (Thomas Jane), an old drug dealing partner who has cleaned up his life. He is now a married architect and is looking to adopt a child with his wife. Nick leaves a couple of suitcases in Casey's guest room before leaving to run some errands. After Nick leaves, Casey becomes suspicious of one of the suitcases and eventually opens it to find it filled with heroin. After calling Nick to yell at him for bringing drugs into his home, he disposes of all of it in the kitchen sink.

Ice (Glenn Plummer), a Jamaican Rasta hitman, enters Casey's house and is about to kill him, but Casey manages to persuade him to have a last smoke of marijuana. After having smoked, Ice is about to kill Casey when Ice's cell phone rings. Ice begins to rap over the phone in an effort to clinch a record deal, and Casey seizes the moment and knocks him out. Casey then ties him up and leaves him in his garage. Dr. Jarvis (Michael Jeter), a representative from the adoption agency comes to interview Casey about his fitness to be a father. Dr. Jarvis is particularly curious to know what Casey did for several years when he lived in L.A. as there is no account of his time there. Casey tries his best to cover up his past as well as his recent encounter with the hitman.

During the interview, Dallas, who wants the money that she believes Nick left with Casey along with the heroin, shows up. She scares away Dr. Jarvis from the adoption agency by telling a story about Casey's drug-dealing and murdering past. When left alone with Casey, Dallas questions him about the money's whereabouts. Angry that he cannot help her, she decides to kill him. But not before she ties him up to a chair, fellates him to force an erection, strips naked and proceeds to mount and rape him. She tells him she will not kill him until he orgasms and she plans to go on until she makes him get an orgasm. Delivering on her word, she reaches multiple orgasms, but gets no results from him. While Dallas reaches a third orgasm, Billy breaks in and shoots her, splattering her blood all over Casey, his walls and his floor.

Billy believes Casey when told that he does not have the heroin, but plans on torturing him with a saw and a blow torch anyhow, while he brags about his prowess and technique of cauterization as he sets to work. Billy is interrupted by cops ironically raiding the house next door. As Billy checks on it Casey is able to loosen the tape around his wrists and grabs a frying pan and sits back down. Billy returns and tells Casey the cops got the wrong house. As he is about to proceed, he notices something is wrong. But catching Billy off guard, Casey overpowers him, and leaves him in the garage.

Nick calls Casey from a pay phone, apologizes for everything and admits he had stolen the heroin and money from the police. After he hangs up, it is revealed to us that Nick has been shot, and is bleeding severely, seemingly about to die. Finally, corrupt cop Kasarov (Mickey Rourke) arrives with a bag which contains Nick's head. He gives Casey until 7 p.m. to find the money but tells him that he does not care about the heroin. Kasarov then sees the garage with Ice and Billy tied up and Dallas dead and unloads a magazine into Ice and Billy. He then tells Casey to throw them out as it is garbage day.

In the end, Casey calls Ice's boss and tells him that the heroin is being auctioned off at 7 p.m. at his house, setting up a gun battle between the Jamaicans and the corrupt officers. He recalls Nick's earlier words which promptly lead him to find the money and a wedding present in the spare tire of his car. He takes them, puts them in Dallas's Lamborghini Diablo car and goes to pick his wife up at the airport to presumably escape the country.

Cast

• Thomas Jane as Casey Wells
• Aaron Eckhart as Nick
• Paulina Porizkova as Dallas
• James LeGros as Billy Hill
• Paula Marshall as Christine
• Michael Jeter as Dr. Jarvis
• Glenn Plummer as Ice
• Mickey Rourke as Detective Kasarov
• Shawn Michael Howard as Jimmy
• Gary Dourdan as Lester "Ball-peen" James
• Luck Hari as Cashier
• Bari K. Willerford as Cop
• Brian Hooks as Jary

Critical response

Thursday received mixed reviews from the critics. It currently holds a 7.0 rating on IMDb, based on 9,381 votes. At Rotten Tomatoes it currently holds a 33% approval rating, based on 6 reviews.^[1]

Awards and nominations

Won

• Cognac Festival du Film Policier
  • 1999 Special Jury Prize (tied with A Simple Plan).

Nominated

• Artios Award
  • Best Casting of an Independent Feature Film.

References

External links

• Thursday at the Internet Movie Database
• Thursday at Rotten Tomatoes
• Thursday trailer at NYTimes