With home video dominating the movie conversation in the latter stretch of the '80s and store chains splitting their customer base between unrated and MPAA-approved releases, the famously irrational U.S. ratings board was in a crankier state than usual. Horror movies were being gutted, sex scenes were toned down to virtual nonexistence, and most famously, the general tone of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer was cited as something that would make an R rating impossible. Into the fray entered an unlikely scandalous film for a few weeks: Patti Rocks, a scrappy little indie road movie that fought back when it was slapped with an X rating ostensibly for the obscenity of its dialogue. (Interestingly, its fairly bold-for-the-time male nudity apparently wasn't an issue.) Incredibly, this was the second time in a year that the MPAA had targeted a film for language with the stand-up concert film Eddie Murphy: Raw already watered down to get an R rating when its onslaught of f-bombs initially earned it an X. Rather than following that example, the Patti Rocks folks fought back and aggressively appealed the decision, ultimately winning an R rating and getting a lot of publicity in the process. The theatrical release from the troubled FilmDallas Pictures (a small prestige outfit best known for Kiss of the Spider Woman and The Trip to Bountiful) only did moderate business in a few major cities, but the VHS release Virgin Vision was a mainstay in video stores for many years and helped build up a reasonable fan following at the time. Unfortunately as with so many other indies of the era, Patti Rocks fell into the abyss of unavailability for decades, refusing to turn up on cable, streaming, or any other home video format until a much-needed 2026 Blu-ray from Fun City Editions.

During the freezing Christmas season in Minnesota, married Billy (Mulkey, soon to appear on Twin Peaks) reconnects with divorced buddy Eddie (Jenkins) to get him to join him on a car trip. Their destination: the apartment of Patti Rocks (Landry), whom Billy had an affair with during work travels and who is now claiming to be pregnant but doesn't want any further communication. Anxious about possibly jeopardizing his home life, the foul-mouthed and extremely misogynistic Billy paints a negative picture of Patti along the way. Upon arrival after several misadventures including a run-in with a skunk, she turns out to be very different.

Though its dialogue still remains potent today (especially in the wake of the now notorious use of the term "locker room talk" which describes this perfectly), Patti Rocks is most striking for the fluidity of its verbal patter that blurs the line between scripted and improvisation. Exactly how much of it was written beforehand seems to vary depending on which participant is telling the story, but in any case the three central performances are all excellent with the belated entrance of Landry turning the second half into a completely different dynamic. Technically the film is also a sequel to an earlier film with Mulkey and Jenkins, 1975's Loose Ends from husband and wife team David Burton Morris and Victoria Wozniak; however, the fact that almost no one saw that earlier feature outside of the festival circuit meant this had to work perfectly well as a standalone feature. At the time of its release multiple critics compared this one to Carnal Knowledge, though since then it's also been cited as a forerunner to the films of Neil LaBute (particularly In the Company of Men and Your Friends & Neighbors). In terms of dialogue frankness all of those comparisons still hold water, though Patti Rocks is ultimately more gentle with its characters overall and ends on a very different note.

For its first disc release of any kind (apart from an initial laserdisc via Image Entertainment), Patti Rocks has been given a very nice presentation on Blu-ray looking far better than the fuzzy VHS copies we've had to settle for in the past. Some American indies haven't fared very well lately after being neglected for a long time (as the hideous Blu-ray of 1987's Weeds proves), but this one looks and sounds great with its original film grain left thankfully intact. The DTS-HD MA English 2.0 mono audio also sounds excellent and features optional English SDH subtitles. A new audio commentary with Morris and Wozniak is very sparse but great to have for their observations about working with the two male leads, the very low budget, the challenges of shooting in very cold weather (with Mulkey bravely spending most of his role in boxer shorts), the weirdness of shooting a pivotal love scene involving Landry (Mulkey's real-life wife), the influence of films like The Mother and the Whore, and the story behind putting Loose Ends together and bringing back the characters. Another audio option is an isolated track for all the music in the film, which is primarily source tracks heard via radio or jukebox. Executive producer Sam Grogg appears in two interviews, "A New Position" (10m17s) and "The History of FilmDallas Pictures" (15m25s), covering the wrangling with the MPAA, the marketing campaign, his initial contact with the filmmakers after their earlier film Purple Haze, and the short but vivid story of the film's distributor from its formation (with inspiration from writer Irving Wallace) through its dissolution. Also included are the theatrical trailer, a 3m22s image gallery, and in the first pressing, an insert booklet with a new, entertaining text interview with Jenkins by Chris Poggiali covering Loose Ends in great detail as well as the continuation of his character here and the reunion of everyone in front of and behind the camera.

Reviewed on September 21, 2026