My Bodyguard

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My Bodyguard
A promotional poster for My Bodyguard.
Directed by	Tony Bill
Produced by	Don Devlin Phillip Goldfarb Melvin Simon
Written by	Alan Ornsby
Starring	Chris Makepeace Matt Dillon Adam Baldwin
Music by	Dave Grusin
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	1980
Running time	102 min.
Country	USA
Language	English
IMDb profile

My Bodyguard is a 1980 movie released by 20th Century Fox studios, directed by Tony Bill, and written by Alan Ormsby. It stars Chris Makepeace, Matt Dillon, Adam Baldwin, Martin Mull, and Ruth Gordon. This movie ranked number 45 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the 50 Best High School Movies.

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Clifford Peache (Makepeace) is a teenager who has recently moved to Chicago with his father and grandmother. Peache is the new kid at Lake View High School which appears to be situated in or around the Lincoln Park area of Chicago. Peache is portrayed as an affable, intelligent young man. Within the first couple of days of starting out at the new school, however, Peache runs afoul of a bullying ring run by an upperclassman, Melvin Moody (Dillon). Moody makes life exceedingly difficult for Peache and his bullying includes extortion and physical assaults. Moody's gang appear to harass most every student at the school except for a loner named Ricky Linderman (Baldwin). Linderman is portrayed as hulking and sullen character who is surrounded by rumors of violence and assault. He is alleged, among other things, by students in the school to have been in prison, assaulted a policeman, and even killed someone.

Seeing little or no respite from the bullying, Peache approaches Linderman and offers him money to act as his "bodyguard" against Moody and his gang.

Despite that, Peache manages to befriend Linderman and make him his bodyguard. However, when Moody manages to up the ante, Linderman must decide if he really wants his new position, despite his cold past.

[edit] Western thematics

The film bears the brand of the Old West morality plays. The character of Clifford evokes the honest cowboys of Gunfight at the O.K. Corral and Tin Star, while Ricky is the gunfighter with the shadowed past a la High Plains Drifter. Perhaps a better example would be the Jimmy Stewart/John Wayne relationship in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Their working together to rebuild the motorcycle is reminiscent of the stump removal scene in Shane. Moody is the pizza-faced incarnation of Bruce Dern's character in The Cowboys. Just as in these films the characters learn that sometimes you must forget about the past, forget about making peace, and just fight. Fight to win.