Mad Dog Time
1996 film by Larry Bishop

Mad Dog Time (also known as Trigger Happy) is a 1996 American ensemble crime comedy film written and directed by Larry Bishop and starring Ellen Barkin, Gabriel Byrne, Richard Dreyfuss, Jeff Goldblum and Diane Lane. The film is notable for the various cameo appearances, including the first (and final) film appearance by Christopher Jones in over a quarter-century.
Plot
The story takes place in a mysterious underworld of swanky nightclubs where armed criminals listen to Rat Pack music and hold shootouts from a seated position, behind desks. Mickey Holliday is the top enforcer for Vic, the mob boss, who is about to be released from a psychiatric facility. In his absence, Ben London has been running Vic's nightclub while Mickey has been romancing both Rita and Grace Everly, which is doubly dangerous inasmuch as they are sisters and Grace was previously Vic's girl.
A rival, Jake Parker, recruits a number of hired guns in an attempt to seize power. Mickey kills the first to challenge him, Lee Turner. The next one brought in by Parker, identified as Nicholas Falco and supposedly the fastest draw of all, murders Mickey's close friend, Jules Flamingo, who is unarmed. A showdown is arranged and Mickey ends up eliminating both Parker and the apparently overrated Falco.
Vic returns to resume his reign as mob boss.
The public source identifies “Mad Dog Time” as 1996 film by Larry Bishop. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Time, film and Larry.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2016370. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1996.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mad Dog Time” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.