Take a moment, won’t you, to appreciate the faces pulled by Marshall Teague as Jimmy dances his last lethal dance. He’s marvelously expressive, isn’t he? His face contorts like a noh demon mask when he’s preparing to strike, and his eyes twinkle with malice and delight when in repose.
And this elasticity, this reactivity, tells us something about the face’s bearer. This is a man who loves what he does, and that love is written all over his face. The professional is personal with Jimmy as a rule, whereas for Dalton this kind of fury and passion is the exception. Perhaps you need to form murderous intent in advance to channel this kind of rubber-faced self-expression. Perhaps malice aforethought has a transformative effect on the jaw and the flesh. Viewed through this lens, what Dalton does to Jimmy can almost be seen as simply pulling the plug and turning this beautiful and terrible face off.
At any rate we were robbed of a Marshall Teague/Bruce Campbell fight when both men were in their prime, and someone should go to jail for it.
Tags: jimmy, marshall teague, road house, the beach fight