Major Payne

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Major Payne
cinematic poster
Directed by	Nick Castle
Produced by	Harry Tatelman Damon Wayans
Written by	Joe Connelly Bob Mosher
Starring	Damon Wayans Karyn Parsons William Hickey Michael Ironside Albert Hall Orlando Brown
Music by	Craig Safan
Cinematography	Richard Bowen
Editing by	Patrick Kennedy
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	March 24, 1995
Running time	95 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Major Payne was a 1995 film, starring Damon Wayans. The film was a loose remake of the 1955 film The Private War of Major Benson, starring Charlton Heston.

1 Plot
2 Memorable Quotes
3 Trivia
4 References

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The film starts with Major Payne (Damon Wayans), a hardened killing machine of a Marine, in a drug raid in South America. Payne successfully infiltrates their base of operations, and neutralizes their project. After the mission, he is called into the general's office, and finds out that he was not promoted to a Lieutenant Colonel. "You get two chances to advance, then we gotta show you the hatch". Payne received an honorable discharge on the grounds of "wars of the world are no longer fought on the battlefield", and that his military skill was no longer needed.

After he leaves the military, Payne finds life as a civilian unbearable, and reaches his breaking point, in a scene eerily reminiscent of the opening scene in Apocalypse Now. To help adjust, Payne applies for a job as a Police officer. During the test to see how applicants handled domestic violence diputes, Payne overreacts and repeatedly slaps the man who hit his wife in the scenario, eventually knocking him out. Payne is put into jail on charges that are most likely assault. His former general visits him and informs Payne that he has secured a job for him that will get him back in the military.

Payne arrives at Madison Preparatory School in Virginia. He first meets Tiger (Orlando Brown), who bumps into him when he was running away from school counselor/nurse Emily Walburn (Karyn Parsons), who was trying to give him a shot. The principal informs him that his job is to train the green boys, a disorderly group of delinquents and outcasts, who have placed last in the Virginia Military Games eight years running. When Payne sees his company, he immediately tells them that under his direction they will win the games at all costs. He makes the cadets do pushups, situps, and squat thrusts for their disobedience, and later shaves their heads and makes them do their morning jog around the campus in sundress

Much of the comedy comes from Payne's harsh and sometimes sadistic punishment of the boys, the boys' numerous attempts to get rid of him, and the reluctant bonds he forms with each of the boys as they work toward winning the games. Payne consistently tries to see the boys merely as units in his troop but slowly comes to be a father figure for the boys -- in particularly six-year-old Tiger -- and grows to love Emily, the mother of the troop, who is his polar opposite in their views on childcare. Payne is eventually asked to come back to the Marines to fight in Bosnia, and his conflicting feelings about his old life and new life are the catalyst for the film's finale.

[edit] Memorable Quotes

"You'll get no sympathy from me. You want sympathy, look in the dictionary between 'shit' and 'syphilis' -- that's where you'll find my sympathy."

(after shooting a closet because there's a "monster" in it) "If he still in there he ain't happy."

(when being confronted by a large biker) "Fe fi fo fum, what beanstalk you fall from?"

(when looking at a cadet) "What are you looking at asseyes?!"

(after being asked if he could dance) "I've been known to cut a little rug, in my day."

"I always figured if the Marines had wanted me to have a wife, they'd have issued me one."

"I'm gonna put my foot so far up your ass the water on my knee will quench your thirst!"

"Not even when they climbed on board and popped out the eyes of the conductor, and blood was runnin' down his face and gushin' from his eyeballs, do you think that stopped The Little Engine That Could?"

"...you know, that's the first time I ever drove a man's nose up into his brain, causing instant death and simultaneous bowel evacuations. But enough about me, girl.. what's your story?"

"From now on, you are no longer turds. You have graduated...to maggots. You're a family; a team. Let's win them games."

"What we have here is a failure to communicate."

"Know this! Killin' is my business, ladies! And Buis-Ness-Is-Goooood!"

"Bleet-bleet-bleet-bleet-bleet....What are you laughing at, Pig Boy?! You find a piece of candy in yo' pocket?!"

"One tubby tubby, come on pork chop, two chubby chubby."

(After a boy sneezes on him) Oh, I see we have a sickly boy on our hand! We'll have to boost your immune system son! Trop down and give me fifty!

"You like the way I handle them white boys, D? Make you feel good to see a Black man runnin' things? Well let me tell ya somethin', D. Why don't you come a little closer? I AM NOT YOUR DAMN BROTHER! NOW DROP DOWN, GIMME 20 SQUAT THRUSTS NOW!"

"I'm sorry Mr. handicapped man. I didn't mean to offend you. Do you know sign language, can you read lips? Well lemme break it down. If YOU don't ANSWER ME when I SPEAK to you, I'm gonna put my FOOT IN YOUR ASS, is that clear, dummy?!?"

(after being told he could not kill all of the guerilla fighters) "Nope.. but I can clean your colon out faster than one of them burritos with extra guacamole sauce!"

(Army song when the boys wear dresses) Got no worry, got no stress. Cause we feel good in a dress! Major Payne's a major diss. He make us squat when we piss. Got no worry, got no care. I'm a bald-headed son of a bitch with out hair! Use to be Samson, now I'm Ann. Got to earn my right to be called a man!

I'll tell you ladies, your the pertiest unit underneath my command, I should change my name to pimp daddy Payne! HE HE HE!

You Remind me of the pillsbury dough boy, if i poke you in the stomach will you go "oh hooo hoo hoo".

I'll show you how I rhyme military syle. One, don't you feel dumb! Two, look at you! Three, don't you ever make no jokes about me behind my back otherwise I stomp you in the ground!

Hello Betty.

(After Stone said it's slippery out side) Slippery he says. You think Charlie care a thing about slippery? All he knows is slit your throat.

[edit] Trivia

When Major Payne and Emily are at a dance club, he wows everyone on the dance floor by doing the robot dance. When Damon Wayans was on In Living Color, in a sketch he played Louis Farrakhan who was not afraid of movie monsters by telling Frankenstein "You have to get with it; the robot went out ten years ago!"

[edit] References

In DJ Khaled's Make It Rain (Remix) (a remix of Fat Joe's Make It Rain), R. Kelly states, "I be drilling these chicks like Major Payne, when I make it rain, they be like, 'Kells do it again'."