I saw Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man the summer it opened in ’91, while I was working in Toronto. Something about it just clicked for me. I like the sense of history to the characters and the world they live in.

Set five years down the road in 1996, the world is going to hell in a handbasket and is in environmental crisis, pollution is killing things, and there’s a new drug called Crystal Dream on the streets.

Into this world, mounted on motorcycles, roll Harley (Mickey Rourke) and Marlboro (Don Johnson). They arrive in Los Angeles to see old friends, and find themselves embroiled in a struggle to help save their friend’s bar from Chance Wilder (Tom Sizemore) and his thugs, led by Alexander (Daniel Baldwin).

It seems Chance wants to knock down the Old Man’s (Julius Harris) bar and build on it. So Harley decides to rob Chance’s bank and pay him off with his own money. The Old Man’s family, including Jimmy (Giancarlo Esposito), lend a hand, but the bank truck they intend to rob is actually carrying a different kind of shipment, Crystal Dream. It seems Chance is also a drug dealer.

With dead friends piling up, Harley and Marlboro find themselves not only looking for justice but for themselves. A modern riff on Westerns with motorcycles replacing horses, and a lot of jokes and laughs about knowing how to handle women and guns. There’s some sexism at play in the film, but it still feels fun, and slick and I still enjoy it.

I like that neither character is perfect, in fact they are both deeply flawed and they struggle with it. Sure there are some lapses in logic within the narrative, but for me, it’s fun. Maybe because it lets me go to back to that summer, or because it’s genuinely a fun film, either way, revisiting this one was a real joy.

There’s a score by Basil Poledouris, though it’s never given a chance to shine, but there’s some good use of rock tunes to round out the film.

I like the world that is created on the screen, I like Jose (Eloy Cassados), I was delighted to see both Tia Carrere, Vanessa Williams and Kelly Hu making appearances, I love that in this version of 1996 there’s an ad for Die Hardest V, we had to wait until 2013 and it was horrible.

Is this a great one no, Rourke was certainly no fan of it, though he did form a solid friendship with Johnson. It’s a unique little modern western with lots of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid feels around it.