Tuff Turf

Tuff Turf is directed by the guy whose first movie, Children of the Corn, came out the year before, and like that movie, it’s not good or good-bad, it’s just bad.  James Spader plays a rebellious new kid in LA who gets into trouble with the gang the Tuffs when he falls in love with the leader’s girlfriend, whose knee-length blonde hair is entirely crimped.  Her friend has Siouxsie Sioux eye makeup and sidekick Robert Downey Jr. wears black and red leather pants with handcuffs dangling from the belt loops–we’re talking nuclear levels of ‘80s here.  It’s weirdly violent with spray paint vs. eyes, car antenna vs. back, gun vs. dad, board with nails vs. head, bullet vs. leg, dog vs. face, and clown billboard vs. goons.  Which makes it sound like it would be a lot of fun but it’s so deadly dull you can’t wait for it to please just end, oh my God, argh.

Spader is trying to look cool in a leather jacket and with headphones on, biking on wet LA streets at night, when he sees a gang mugging a guy.  He sings an Elvis song, steals their spray paint, sprays them in the eyes, and bikes away as one of the goons whips him in the back with a snapped-off car antenna.  The leader’s girlfriend Crimp Hair is impressed.  The next day at school, Spader bikes past students dancing to boomboxes and sasses the security guard who’s yelling at him to get off his bike when the gang recognizes him by the tear in his jacket.

In class, RDJ randomly opens a switchblade right next to Spader’s face, so the two become best friends.  But then they see the gang leader, Nick, has stolen his bike and has his girlfriend Crimp Hair on the handlebars while his goons drive circles around them.  Spader eventually gets his bike back but one of the goons plays chicken with him and crashes into his bike, sending it tumbling through the air in hilarious slow-mo.

That night everyone is at a nightclub where RDJ is drumming in a new wave band and looking like a real ‘80s cutie: shirtless with leather pants, pyramid stud bracelets, tons of eyeliner, and Gary Numan hair.  Spader grabs Crimp Hair and aggressively dances her around while she yells at him to stop.  She’s briefly into it when he does a dirty dancing hip swivel, but then she manages to escape.  The gang then beat Spader up in the parking lot, kick him in the balls, and steal his car.  But the car isn’t actually his, so they’re busted by the cops.

The next day, Spader and RDJ are driving around and pick up Crimp Hair and her friend.  They crash a party at a yuppie country club and one of them exclaims, “Can you believe this place, there’s not a zit in the house!”  We’re forced to endure their unfunny hijinks, which only RDJ, already at full charm power at twenty years old, makes a little bit bearable.  But then Spader brings the energy all the way back down when he sits at the piano and sings a sappy ballad at Crimp Hair until they’re kicked out.  They go to a rock club where Crimp Hair shows off her moves by high kicking and cartwheeling all over the place.

But at the end of the night, she goes back to Nick, who sexually assaults her.  Later, he and his goons beat Spader up, then Nick pokes at him while he’s laid out in a game that my older sister used to call “Push the Bruise.”  Spader’s dad sees his injuries and gives him a bizarre pep talk: “Life isn’t a problem to be solved, it’s a mystery to be lived!  So live it!”  Spader climbs through Crimp Hair’s window even though she tells him to go away.  He finally leaves after she agrees to come to dinner at his house.  Then Nick and her dad burst into her room, celebrating Nick’s having asked her dad if he can marry her . . . he said yes!  Crimp Hair is miserable.

After spying on Crimp Hair having dinner at Spader’s house, Nick and his goons make her watch as they mug Spader’s dad on the street.  But Spader’s dad is as good at brawling as he is bad at pep talks and gets the upper hand until Nick shoots him in the chest.  At the hospital, Crimp Hair comforts Spader as he visits his dad and a nurse weirdly monotones, “Don’t worry, he’s very strong.”

Back home, Spader laments to Crimp Hair, “I just keep exploding.”  Then they have the kind of cheesy sex scene that’s all slowly moving their faces together until they kiss and close-ups of their hands intertwining.  She lies back and her hair is splayed out all around her and it’s just way too much hair, a comical amount of hair.

The next day, Crimp Hair is explaining to her dad why she doesn’t want to marry Nick, and her dad understands.  But then Nick and his goons burst through the door and beat the shit out of them both.  He makes her lure Spader to a warehouse.  Spader sneaks around the warehouse, quietly punches out a goon and ties a rope around his ankles.  The other end of the rope is attached to a billboard for the circus with clowns on it.  When he releases the rope, the goon goes up and the clown sign goes down, smashing a couple other goons.  He then Tarzan-swings down to Nick.  They punch each other for a long time until RDJ suddenly shows up with a couple of Dobermans, who chase one of the goons out a window.

Then Nick and Spader have a battle that feels as long as the alley fight in The Live.  Nick threatens Spader with a board with nails and Spader goes full creepy, looking like Jack Torrance, climbing up the stairs while swinging an ax around.  Nick throws barrels at him like Donkey Kong but Spader knocks him down.  Nick slowly climbs his way up Spader’s legs until Spader knocks him down again.  Finally, Spader punches Nick off the balcony onto the floor below in one of those corny three-peat shots.  Nick is dead.  Maybe?

Nobody cares, because we’re suddenly back at the nightclub, where a band of 10 middle-aged white guys called Jack Mack and the Heart Attack sing “T-U-F-F, that spells tuff!”  RDJ shows up, gets a smooch from a go-go dancer, says, “State of the art!” and walks away.  Everyone pretends to play horns with the band because they are all very tuff.

VERDICT: STRAIGHT TO JAIL