Vitals

Michael Madsen as Vince Miller, ruthless armed robber

Nevada, Spring 1989

Film: Kill Me Again
Release Date: October 27, 1989
Director: John Dahl
Costume Designer: Terry Dresbach

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

This year has seen the loss of screen legends across generations, from Gene Hackman and Robert Redford to Val Kilmer and Michael Madsen. On the first anniversary of Madsen’s September 25, 1957 birthday, let’s look at the one film where he and Kilmer starred together—the 1989 crime thriller Kill Me Again, where both men are drawn into a dangerous web spun by Fay, a femme fatale played by Kilmer’s then-wife Joanne Whalley.

Madsen steadily grew his career as a supporting actor through the ’80s in movies like WarGames (1982) and The Natural (1984) before appearing in Kill Me Again as the murderous thief Vince Miller, who could be argued as a template for the vicious villains he would play in movies like Reservoir Dogs (1992), The Getaway (1994), and Donnie Brasco (1997).

Kill Me Again begins with Vince fatally shooting a casino manager, stealing his briefcase full of $875,000, and making a hasty getaway with Fay. He insists on laying low (“Idaho! You’re gonna love it there, baby!”), but she insists on going to Vegas—with or without him. Once it becomes clear that she’ll have to settle for the latter, she flattens him with a rock and takes his stolen loot, his car, and his gun before speeding south across Nevada to Sin City, stopping in Reno to enlist Kilmer’s down-and-out private eye Jack Andrews in a scheme to fake her death and avoid Vince’s vengeance.

In a glimpse of the “Mr. Blonde” that would terrorize screens three years later, Madsen’s trademark intensity establishes Vince as an almost unstoppable force in his violent quest to track down the partner who betrayed him.

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What’d He Wear?

Vince’s style is contemporary to the era but with a 1950s-informed rockabilly sensibility. His weathered dark-brown leather blouson resembles the fashionable flight jacket-inspired styles that flooded the market through the ’80s. The jacket has a shirt-style collar, straight front zip, and set-in sleeves that are reinforced at each cuff. In addition to the side pockets with openings that gently slant forward, the jacket has a set-in breast pocket that closes with a straight horizontal brass-finished zipper and “O”-ring zip pull. The leather around the back of the waistband is elasticized for a blouson-like fit.

During the deadly opening holdup in Winnemucca, Vince leans into the retro fashions with a vintage—or vintage-looking—sports shirt. The long-sleeved shirt’s light-gray body is contrasted with off-white vertical stripes in gradating widths across the front, extending all the way to the shirt’s straight-cut bottom but interrupted for the solid light-gray patch-style hip pockets on each side. The shirt has a loop collar and pearl-like plastic 4-hole buttons up the plain front, worn with the top few undone to show the crew-neck of his plain white cotton short-sleeved undershirt.

After Fay leaves him for dead in a desert rest stop, Vince ditches the retro shirt and T-shirt as he stalks her across Nevada, dressing in a cotton flannel shirt with the sleeves cut off—noq more resembling an ’80s bruiser than a ’50s greaser. The shirt is patterned in a brown, black, and tan shadow plaid. There are two button-through patch pockets over the chest, and he again keeps the top few brown 4-hole buttons undone on the shirt’s front placket.

Vince balances his tough-guy top half with charcoal-gray woolen flannel flat-front trousers. These narrow-fitting slacks have a zip fly, an extended waistband tab that closes through a single button, and belt loops—though Vince foregoes a belt. They’re also styled with side pockets, jetted back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms.

He visually communicates his cowboy persona with cowboy boots, styled with a pointed toe and crafted from dark-brown leather uppers worn to an aged matte finish.

The cast-silver ring on Vince’s right pinky features a unique ornamental design resembling two hands clasped over a skeletal outline of a heart. He also pulls on a set of Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses with polished black-finished frames and lenses—still available for the RB3025 frame decades later as the “Total Black” configuration.

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The Gun

Vince uses a full-sized M1911A1 pistol, specifically identified as the Colt Government Model by the markings on the slide. John M. Browning designed the original M1911 after a decade’s worth of trials and testing for a standardized American service pistol. The classic configuration for this steel-framed semi-automatic pistol fires the .45 ACP round from seven-round single-stack magazines, operating with a single-action trigger.

Ten months after the U.S. Army formally adopted the “Model of 1911”, Colt shipped its first commercial “Government Model” equivalent pistols in January 1912. During the 1920s, the pistol design was updated with a shorter trigger and hammer spur, arched mainspring, and other revisions that were standardized as the M1911A1. Unlike the military’s designations that differentiated between 1911 and 1911A1 nomenclature, both configurations were stamped “Colt’s Government Model” for the civilian market.

Vince’s pistol typically* follows this updated 1911A1 configuration with simplified checkered walnut grips, though the muzzle diameter and indented magazine that we see Fay loading during the final chase suggests that it’s a 9mm model, rather than the classic .45. (1911 pistols chambered for .38 Super used similar magazines, though I highly doubt the filmmakers would have used the far less common .38 Super ammunition than nearly universal 9mm blanks.)

Two decades after Colt introduced the 9x19mm Parabellum cartridge to the 1911 platform with the more compact Commander series, they introduced full-sized 9mm Government Models in the early 1970s alongside the evolution to the refreshed MK IV Series 70 design. When Fay pushes that nine-round 9mm magazine into her 1911A1, the rollmark on the left side of the slide suggest a second screen-used pistol, specifically a Colt MK IV Series 70 Government Model sans lanyard ring.

*Some shots show Vince’s pistol now in the earlier M1911 configuration—not A1—as distinguished by its longer trigger guard and straight backstrap. This particular pistol boasts a polished blued steel frame and “double diamond” walnut grips, lacks a lanyard ring, and appears to have a .45 ACP muzzle bore.

Seen during some shots of the Winnemucca holdup and his holding Jack hostage in the Overton hotel room, this is presumably yet another prop-related continuity error, bringing the grand total to at least three subtly (but definitely!) different 1911-style pistols portraying Vince’s handgun.

And speaking of firearms-related continuity errors, there’s even a shot when Fay fires Vince’s handgun from the passenger window of Jack’s Cadillac—at which point it converts from a 1911 semi-automatic pistol to a completely different Colt Python revolver! Now that’s just crazy.

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The Car

After the deadly robbery in Winnemucca, Fay speeds away in Vince’s brown 1976 Chevrolet Monte Carlo. Introduced in 1970 as Chevy’s first personal luxury car, the Monte Carlo was exclusively offered as a two-door coupe in both iterations of the model’s production timeline.

The first significant redesign was for the 1973 model year, when it was shifted from a proprietary chassis it shared with the Pontiac Grand Prix onto GM’s standard mid-size A-body platform. Each subsequent year saw additional changes, including the shift from round headlights to vertically mounted rectangular headlights for ’76. In continued response to shifting automotive trends, the 1976 model year also saw the discontinuation of the big-block 454 cubic-inch V8, and GM’s once-optional three-speed Hydra-matic automatic transmission became standard. A new 305 cubic-inch 2-barrel V8 generating 140 horsepower was the standard engine, with optional 350 and 400 V8s available.

The Monte Carlo was downsized for its third generation in 1978, which brought back a manual transmission in the form of a four-speed but added a V6 as the standard engine and dropped all V8s larger than the 305. A fourth generation unveiled for ’81 was produced through most of the decade until the Monte Carlo was first discontinued after the 1988 model year.

After a seven-year hiatus, the Monte Carlo was revived in 1995 as a retooled two-door Lumina, which meant it was now a front-wheel-drive coupe with exclusively V6 engines mated to a four-speed automatic transmission. The model received a sportier remodel for 2000. A V8 finally returned under the Monte Carlo’s hood with the 303-horsepower 5.3-liter engine powering the Super Sport (SS) models produced for the model’s final two years in 2006 and 2007.

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How to Get the Look

Vince balances 1950s-informed rockabilly styles with contemporary late ’80s tough-guy sensibility in his hardy leather jacket and cowboy boots with sport shirts and slacks.

• Brown weathered leather zip-front blouson jacket with shirt-style collar, horizontal zip chest pocket, slightly slanted side pockets, reinforced cuffs, and elasticized rear waistband
• Gray and white-striped long-sleeved sports shirt with loop collar, plain button-up front, patch-style hip pockets, and straight-cut bottom
• White cotton crew-neck short-sleeved undershirt
• Charcoal-gray woolen flannel flat-front trousers with belt loops, single-button waist tab, zip fly, side pockets, jetted back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Dark-brown worn leather cowboy boots
• Ray-Ban black-framed and black-lensed aviator-style sunglasses
• Cast-silver ornamental pinky ring

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Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

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The Quote

She’s right. I am fuckin’ nuts.