‘Eraser’ on Netflix: “You’re Luggage” is The Greatest Line in Movie History

It’s pretty much inarguable that the Arnold Schwarzenegger starring Eraser, which just dropped this month on Netflix, is a lesser entry in his filmography. Sandwiched between 1994’s Twins pseudo-sequel Junior and the 1996 Christmas disaster Jingle All The Way, Eraser was part of a run of mixed bag hits for the actor/future governor. But what Eraser does have is the greatest line in movie history.

Take that, Gone With The Wind!

To give you a little context, the movie casts Schwarzenegger as a U.S. Marshal named John Kruger who specializes in aiding people enter the Witness Protection Program. Essentially, he helps them disappear by “erasing” them. And yes, watching Schwarzenegger work on a computer at his day job is as delightfully incongruous as you can imagine. But the movie, directed by Chuck Russell, is less concerned with sticking Arnold behind a desk, and instead throwing him into increasingly insane action set pieces.

He’s tasked with helping Lee Cullen (Vanessa Williams), a whistleblower at a defense contractor, disappear… But things get complicated. Naturally, the conspiracy to destroy Cullen goes all the way to the top and — spoilers!!! — involves the same people Kruger is working for. So they go on the run, trying to expose the bad guys and blow up as much shit as humanly possible while doing so.

That’s where the alligators come in.

While escaping some thugs, Cullen and Kruger meet at a zoo, and attempt to hide inside of the reptile house. In said reptile house is a large tank filled with alligators. And if there’s one constant rule of movie-making, it’s that if there’s an aquarium tank behind some bad guys, that tank is gonna get shot and flood the area. Schwarzenegger, having previously survived an assignment going undercover at a kindergarten and that whole “Mars” thing, is well aware of these action tropes. So he shoots the tank, and releases the digital alligators.

The alligators start chomping on the villains, but if there’s one thing John Kruger can’t erase, it’s a predator’s natural instincts. One of the alligators goes for Kruger, opens its mouth to eat him… And Kruger shoots the alligator right in the head.

Then he looks directly at the alligator and utters the line that went down in movie history as the culmination of the cinematic form:

“You’re luggage.”

It’s probably important to note a few things at this point. The first is that Schwarzenegger is a quote machine. From shouting, “Hey Benny, screw you!” while shoving a drill through a dude in Total Recall, to dropping a guy off a cliff and then saying “I let him go,” in Commando, Arnold has no shortage of pun-filled quips. But “You’re luggage,” is on another level entirely. Because, alligators.

The second is that for the majority of the running time, Kruger is actually a pretty straightforward character (despite jumping out of an exploding plane with no parachute and then shooting at that plane while in midair). The movie tries to treat the situation semi-seriously, and Kruger is all business. In fact, he’s so all business that what seems like a rote romance plot with Williams’ character ends with them rushing to each other at the end of the movie, looking into each other’s eyes, and then sharing a nice hug. No kissing for Maria Shriver’s husband!

So shooting an alligator (and speaking English to it!), let alone implying that he’s going to skin that alligator, dry the hide, use a skiving machine to make the hide pliable, shine the hide with a polishing machine, remove creases with a pleating machine, place it on a hot plate to give it “French bonbee,” apply rubber cement to attach it to leather called “pliver,” cut it to size, add foam to give the bag structure, use a bone folder to size the leather to the foam, apply muslin to the sides and bottoms, discretely sew the sides so the seams don’t show, use a sheep lining called cabretta on the inside, and assemble the bag doesn’t really match anything else in the film. Also, this “How It’s Made” on alligator bags is really fascinating.

The line is so gloriously over the top that it makes “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse,” (the number two quote on AFI’s 100 Quotes) sound boring by comparison. Did Don Corleone ever kill an alligator and then pun at it? No, he did not.

The rest of the movie, by the way, is a lot of fun, and includes some delightful performances (hey, it’s James Cromwell, James Coburn, AND James Caan! All the Jameses!). And it introduces a rail gun, a ridiculously over-the-top pulse weapon that is central to the film’s plot. But really, it’s mostly worth watching just for the point about an hour and three minutes in when the alligators arrive. Make sure to pack appropriately.

Where to stream Eraser