Posts Tagged ‘benny urquidez’

269. In Search of the Lost Goon

September 26, 2019

Some men have a face that says “I can and will kick your ass, and I will be weird doing it.” In the ’80s and ’90s these men often found work as memorable goons in Hollywood action films, playing the heavy’s henchman, a mutant in leather bondage gear, someone who gets dispatched with a one-liner, you know the deal. In the case of Road House, one wore a sporty blue t-shirt and didn’t do much of anything.

The man you’re looking at here is Benny Urquidez, martial artist, stuntman, and fight trainer. He worked closely with Patrick Swayze and Marshall Teague to help choreograph the legitimately phenomenal fight scene between Dalton and Jimmy that will take place later in the film. Even though he’s just kind of in the background here, milling around with all the other goons as Brad Wesley prepares to order the destruction of a Ford dealership, he stands out. You know how I’ve gone on about how to be a good goon, you need to get introduced with a memorable shot or while performing a memorable action? Benny’s nameless goon whips off his sunglasses like a @dril character, revealing a distinctive beady-eyed visage beneath. He’s hard to miss, so hard in fact that the first few times I saw the movie my mind just filled in the blanks and conjured him into fight scenes in which he was not present at all.

Because that’s the thing: He’s not present in any fight scenes. He’s not present in any scenes period, except for this one. In a way he’s the heir to Karpis: He makes an impression and then <poof> he’s gone. Only unlike that dashingly handsome mystery man and possible Cousin in Memphis, his legacy lives on in the titanic struggle between an itinerant bouncer-philosopher and the chief enforcer of a guy who has his own reserved parking space at the mall. It is through Dalton and Jimmy that the Lost Goon may be observed, ripping throats from another plane.