Thursday (film)

On Monday night, Nick, Dallas, and Billy Hill argue with a Los Angeles convenience store cashier. Dallas shoots her dead. They conceal the killing from a police officer until he sees blood on the floor.

Early Thursday morning, Casey in Texas receives a call from his old drug dealing partner Nick asking to stay a couple of days. Since they split some years ago Casey has cleaned up, married, and is hoping to adopt a child. Nick borrows Casey's car, and Casey finds Nick's suitcase to be full of heroin. Furious, he calls Nick with an ultimatum or he calls the cops, but Nick says he'll be along once he has finished some business. Casey puts the heroin down the garbage grinder.

At 11:55, Casey answers the door to hitman Ice. Casey asks that they smoke some ganja together before he dies, then takes advantage of a distraction. Ice ends up gagged and bound in Casey's garage just as Dr. Jarvis, the adoption agent, rings the doorbell. Casey, stoned, rushes to clear away the drug paraphernalia before letting Jarvis in to discuss his suitability to adopt.

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 Dr. Jarvis away 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 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 do so. 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 anyway, while he brags about his prowess and technique of cauterization as he sets to work. Billy is interrupted by cops 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 Casey catches him off guard, 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 that Nick has been shot and is bleeding severely, about to die. Finally, corrupt cop Kasarov arrives with a bag which contains Nick's head. He gives Casey until 7 p.m. to find the money, but says 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 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 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 leaves to pick his wife up at the airport.

• 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

Thursday received mixed reviews from the critics. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times detested both the film and the director, dismissing it as "a series of geek-show sequences in which characters are tortured, raped, murdered and dismembered in between passages of sexist and racist language", and stating that "watching it, I felt outrage. I saw a movie so reprehensible I couldn't rationalize it using the standard critical language about style, genre, or irony. The people associated with it should be ashamed of themselves."[1] On Rotten Tomatoes it has a 43% approval rating, based on 7 reviews.[2]

At the Cognac Festival du Film Policier the film won the 1999 Special Jury Prize (tied with A Simple Plan).

It was nominated for an Artios Award in the category of Best Casting of an Independent Feature Film.

• Thursday at IMDb
• Thursday at Rotten Tomatoes
• Thursday trailer at NY Times