“That Was Balls-Up What You Did Last Night — Don’t Kid Yourself”

Early on in John McNaughton and Richard Price‘s Mad Dog and Glory (3.5.93), Robert De Niro‘s Wayne “Mad Dog” Dobie, a forensic examiner, defuses a potentially lethal robbery situation in a small Chicago convenience store. He comfort-talks the robber like a therapist and convinces him to split while the splitting is good. De Niro feels badly the next day, though, because he didn’t handle the situation in a commanding alpha-male, tough-cop style. He’s confesses this to his detective friend Mike (David Caruso), and Mike, looking to raise Mad Dog’s spirits, leans over and says, “That was balls-up what you did last night…don’t kid yourself.”