Knockaround Guys(2002)

After Matt (Barry Pepper), Taylor (Vin Diesel), and Chris (Andrew Davoli) meet up with Johnny (Seth Green) at the Wibaux Airport, they rent a car and go to a diner to get something to eat. Matt tells the others that, in order to find out who took the $500,000, they are going to have to announce themselves to the thieves and scare them into finding them and returning the money to them. Taylor then suggests that the best way to do that would be to find the toughest, worst guy in town and give him the beating of his life. This leads them to paying a visit to the Shamrock Club that night, and eventually, they get the attention of the town’s tough guy, Brucker (Kevin Gage). When Matt talks to him, Brucker shows extreme hostility towards him for calling him out, so Taylor steps in and beats Brucker until he is lying on the floor in a bloody mess. Matt then talks to Brucker again and tells him that something of theirs went missing, and whoever took it is making it obvious, so he wants him to find out who it is, and when he does, he must report to him at the hotel that he and his friends are staying at. They then leave, and soon after, Matt gets on a payphone and calls his father, Benny (Dennis Hopper), at his office back in Brooklyn. However, Teddy (John Malkovich) answers the phone first, and once he tells Benny that his son is on the other line, he picks up the receiver on another phone. After Matt tells Teddy that he is with Johnny and trying to take care of his mistake with the bag of money, Benny speaks up and expresses serious doubts about that before demanding him to tell him what is going on. Matt tells his father that he will be back in Brooklyn tomorrow, and when Benny asks him if he got the bag with him at least, Matt replies that he is going to get it right now. Upset with this response, Benny angrily chews out Teddy for convincing him to give his son this chance, and after telling Matt that he should’ve known better than to give him this opportunity, he hangs up. Teddy reminds Matt that there is $500,000 in that bag, and Benny now owes both the bosses in the mafia and Georgie Yarkas (Julian Reed) (the guy who loaned the money to Benny to cover the “shortages” in cash that he has been experiencing for a while), and if they don’t get that bag back in the next 48 hours, then he, Benny, and Matt and his friends will all be killed. After hanging up, Teddy approaches his subordinate, Billy (Arthur J. Nascarella), and tells him to contact someone they know at the air transport union and set up a flight to Montana for them.

Brucker’s investigation leads him to Decker (Kris Lemche) and his friend Teeze (Dov Tiefenbach), the airport employees who took the bag of money, and after seeing that they are in possession of some stereo equipment that they could not normally afford, he pays Matt a visit at his hotel room and lets him know where the boys live so they reclaim their property. Matt and his friends drive over to the house early the next morning and wait for the two teenagers to emerge so they can take back the money by force, but when Decker and Teeze exit the house (intending to run off with the money), the quartet are forced to abandon their plan and leave the scene when Decker’s father, Sheriff Stan Decker (Tom Noonan), suddenly shows up with his deputy, Donnie (Shawn Doyle), to confront them about the money, having somehow found out about it. After seeing the money, Stan forces his son and Teeze to go back inside the house so they can talk about where they got it from. Later, Stan and Donnie return to the station with the cash, and Stan decides that he and Donnie are going to keep the money for themselves, a decision that Donnie is not comfortable with. Meanwhile, Matt and company go back to the hotel to discuss this new problem, and Chris voices his concern to Matt about how it was one thing to be running around tracking the bag, but the involvement of the police makes this a whole different story for him because he doesn’t want to screw around with any cops. He also asks Matt how they will be able to answer the cops’ questions about where the cash came from. Matt tells him that they have to do something because that bag was like life support for his father, and if they don’t get it to him, he will likely die.

They thus go to the sheriff’s office, and Matt speaks with Stan, telling him that they have lost $500,000 and they can’t leave town without it. Matt soon gets to talking with Stan in private and lets him know who he is and who his father is before telling him that he knows that he has the money and wants it back, but all Stan does is beat him down while Donnie holds the others at bay with a shotgun. Stan almost shoots Matt, but Donnie persuades him not to, and after Stan lets Matt know that Brucker is his cousin by marriage (which was how he found out about the money), he kicks him and the others out of the station. As they drive away, Chris and Johnny declare that they ought to consider this a loss and just move on, but Matt orders Johnny to pull over. When Johnny asks him if Stan and Donnie will call the federal agents on them, Matt informs him and the others that Stan and Donnie would’ve done that already and they’d be in custody right now; Stan and Donnie want to keep the four of them out of the system because they don’t want anyone else knowing about the cash, and that is because they have decided to keep it all for themselves. He tells Chris and Johnny that they can leave if they want to, but he isn’t going anywhere. Meanwhile, Stan and Donnie dig up some information about Matt, his father, and his friends, and after Donnie realizes what they are truly up against, he tells Stan that he is worried that Matt and his friends will get in touch with Benny and others in the mafia and they will come into this town to get the money from them. However, Stan is unphased, telling Donnie that the quartet would’ve done that already; they can’t go to anyone in the mob about losing the money because they know that, if they do, they will surely be killed for it. When Donnie adds that he figures that the quartet have no intentions of leaving this town empty-handed, Stan replies that they cannot let Matt and company leave at all.

After Stan and Donnie torch Johnny’s airplane to keep Matt and the others from leaving, Matt, Taylor, Chris, and Johnny decide to prepare themselves for an inevitable second confrontation with Stan and Donnie by purchasing some guns and ammunition from a local gun store and then getting some target practice in at a deserted shooting range. However, when they return to the hotel that night, they find Teddy waiting there with Billy and another henchmen, Freddy (Nicholas Pasco). After Teddy backhands Johnny hard for losing the money, he asks Matt where they are standing right now. Matt tells him that dirty cops are involved in this now, and they were responsible for the injuries that he has sustained. Matt then asks Teddy if he wants to talk more about it inside his hotel room, but Teddy decides that they will go over the state line into North Dakota to do their talking, because if anyone is looking, they don’t want them to find them yet. After stopping at a drive-in theater in Killdeer, Freddy tells everyone about how he found out that Stan is a highly-decorated ex-Marine who has been sheriff of Wibaux for the last 18 years now and controls the entire town. Shortly afterwards, they decide to return to Wibaux, and Teddy tells Matt that he will be riding back with him. After everyone else leaves, Matt asks Teddy to not let anything bad happen to Johnny if they get the money back, and Teddy agrees to spare him. Later on, while lounging with Taylor in their hotel room, Matt gets a call from Stan, and Stan – feigning surrender – tells him that he found out who he is and who his father is, so now he and Donnie want to make a deal with him because they don’t want to make guys like him unhappy. However, he wants Matt to meet with him and Donnie at Brickman’s Meats’ warehouse at midnight tonight, and he tells him that he can bring his friends if he is worried. Matt remarks that he doesn’t like the sound of any of this, but Stan tells him that, if he wants to see his money again, that is where it is going to be.

Meanwhile, Chris and Johnny are hanging out at a bar when Chris tells Johnny that he is skipping town and wants him to come with him, and though Johnny points out that Matt needs them, Chris replies that Matt has all the backup he needs now. He then tells Johnny that he already set up a travel itinerary for them, starting with a bus to Billings that will be coming by the interstate later tonight, and after they stay in Billings overnight, they will get a plane back to New York. He also adds that, once they get back, his father will work things out with Benny and spare them from any serious consequences. Johnny tells him that he is staying because this mess all started because of him, but if he wants to go, then he should go. A little while later, Billy and Freddy show up at the bar and usher Johnny outside, and when they ask him where Chris is because they didn’t see him in there, he replies that Chris “stepped out”. Suddenly, Billy and Freddy start beating him up and take him into the alley behind the bar, and Billy again demands to know where Chris is. Accepting that this is the end for him, Johnny simply tells them that he doesn’t know where he is. Freddy then shoots him to death, and they stuff his body in the trunk of their car. Chris is then shown waiting at the bus stop for his bus to Billings, and we see the bus pull up in front of him.

Matt, Taylor, and Teddy go to the meat factory early so they can figure out a plan of attack, and they are soon joined by Billy and Freddy. Just after midnight, Stan and Donnie show up at the factory and head into one of the rooms to prepare for the arrival of Matt and his friends, unaware that Teddy, Billy, and Freddy are watching them from one of the rooms on the next floor. Matt and Taylor then go in and confront Stan and Donnie, and when Stan demands to know where their friends are, Matt tells him that he doesn’t know. Teddy then appears with Billy and Freddy and aim their guns at Stan and Donnie, and Matt and Taylor take out their guns and do the same. Suddenly, Brucker bursts in through a nearby door and points a shotgun at Taylor before forcing him and Matt to drop their weapons, and shortly after it is revealed that Stan summoned Brucker here for backup and that he is interested in getting a piece of the $500,000, Chris suddenly appears with his own shotgun and shoots and kills Brucker. Chris tells Matt that he had to come back to help him, but when he asks where Johnny is, Matt replies that he thought he left with him, but Chris informs him that he didn’t want to leave, either. Seconds later, Teddy and Freddy shoot and kill Chris, triggering a short gun battle amongst everyone that sees Stan and Donnie kill Billy and Freddy, only to be killed themselves by Taylor. Taylor then notices Teddy preparing to shoot Matt, so he pushes Matt out of the way, and Teddy puts two bullets into Taylor’s left shoulder. This causes Taylor to fall to the floor and bang his head against a pipe, knocking him out.

When Teddy goes to take a look at the money, Matt tells him that he has figured out that he came here to Wibaux to both take the money for himself and kill him, and he has also figured out that he has been stealing from his father for years (under the guise of the aforementioned “shortages”). Teddy admits that he has indeed been robbing Benny blind for years and will be taking the $500,000, all the while surreptitiously reloading his handgun, and when Matt tells him that he is not walking out of here with that cash, he asks Matt if he has the guts to shoot him. He then tries to shoot Matt again, but Matt is a little too fast for him, shooting and killing him with his own gun first. After Taylor awakens soon after, Matt gets him and the money into their rental car and they leave town.

After the duo return to New York, Matt meets with his father and gives him the money, and Benny remarks that this will finally get him out of the trouble that Teddy put him into. He also tells Matt that he was wrong about him and that he has now earned a place in the mob. However, after what he has been through, in addition to the fact that he feels like that he already messed up his whole life by trying to live up to what he thought his father wanted him to be and that he felt that his father never saw him as a man until he went out and did all of this, Matt tells his father that he is done with mafia life. He then walks outside, where Taylor is waiting for him, and he and Taylor get into the latter’s van and drive off to start a new, crime-free life somewhere else.