LAST MAN STANDING (1996, Walter Hill)

 

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A drifter gets caught up in gang warfare in an isolated Prohibition-era town.

Starring  Bruce Willis, Christopher Walken, William Sanderson, David Patrick Kelly, Bruce Dern, Michael Imperioli

Written by  Walter Hill

Produced by  Walter Hill, Arthur M Sarkissian

Duration  101 minutes

When I first watched LAST MAN STANDING, on video at some point in the late ’90s, I had no idea it was based on anything. I’d never heard of Akira Kurosawa, and while I knew that Clint Eastwood had starred in some films labelled ‘Spaghetti Westerns’, I hadn’t seen any of them either and didn’t know from what they had drawn their inspiration.

In the end, I ended up travelling the path of the films that lead directly to LAST MAN in reverse order. I started to get more into Westerns and went through Sergio Leone’s Eastwood-starring so-called ‘man with no name’ trilogy, noting that A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS’ plot seemed awfully familiar. Then I tracked down a copy of Kurosawa’s YOJIMBO and thus completed my journey at the start. Well, not quite – I haven’t read Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest, which is believed, albeit not universally, to have inspired the 1961 Japanese film.

Let’s talk for a moment about Walter Hill. Why isn’t he better known? In my mind, he’s comparable to John Carpenter, in terms of style (economical yet thematically rich), sensibility (men being men and fighting the system) and love of Westerns. I guess Hill never had a hit that birthed a neverending franchise, like HALLOWEEN, or any flops that became cult classics, like THE THING or BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, or one that joined meme culture, such as THEY LIVE has.

A couple of years ago, I attended an all-night Carpenter marathon at London's famous Prince Charles Cinema, where they screened, in order: THEY LIVE, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, THE THING, PRINCE OF DARKNESS and IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS. On the first train home Sunday morning, I mused in my sleep-deprived state about which other directors deserved the same treatment; Hill came to mind straight away. I would definitely hit the Red Bulls to watch a five-movie programme of, say, THE DRIVER, THE WARRIORS, SOUTHERN COMFORT, 48 HRS. and EXTREME PREJUDICE.

But wait, no LAST MAN STANDING in that line-up?

Well, here’s the thing: diminishing returns. YOJIMBO is great. FISTFUL OF DOLLARS is also good, but definitely the weakest of its trilogy and Leone’s least accomplished movie overall (not that I’ve seen THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES.) And LAST MAN …

It’s a curiously empty film. It should have a lot of atmosphere, with its 1920's cars and clothes and the dust creeping through a sinisterly rundown town. It should be exciting, with a perfectly cast Willis playing two sides against each other and running a gauntlet of double-crosses and attempts on his life. It should be thrilling, with its John-Woo-goes-West sensibility, arming Willis with two Colt 1911s that magically fire 20+ bullets per clip and have the stopping power to launch people 30 feet in the air through plate glass windows. But instead, it’s oddly lifeless and even dull.

Is the problem style over substance? Sure, but that imbalance doesn’t have to be an impediment. I wouldn't call Michael Davis’s SHOOT ’EM UP (2007) a classic, but something like that does at least know what it’s got to offer and doesn’t try to overreach its grasp. Ditto DESPERADO (1995), which came out a year before LAST MAN and strongly resembles it aesthetically. So maybe the issue here is that the movie takes itself too seriously – that it doesn’t lean into being an exercise in cool sets, frenetic action and hardboiled dialogue, but misguidedly attempts to express a weight that isn’t actually there.

There's definitely too much plot – much of it delivered courtesy of Willis’s mumbled voice over – and not enough story. It's easy to lose track of the betrayals and switched allegiances and sink into apathy, especially since the characters are only archetypes (stoic loner, tough but vulnerable dame, powerless sheriff, bickering gangsters) and the protagonist himself is a blank slate. All that's left is to bide your time between shootouts and wait for second-billed Christopher Walken to finally turn up. It's worth the wait, naturally, especially for those who enjoyed his cameo in TRUE ROMANCE and were itching for more of the same, except with his hair dyed ginger this time since he's an Irish gangster instead of a jet-black Sicilian.

In fact, the supporting cast is the biggest plus and goes a long way towards holding the viewer’s interest. William Sanderson delivers exposition in his distinctively quirky way while compiling himself an audition tape for Deadwood. David Patrick Kelly simmers with little-guy menace. There’s a pre-Sopranos Michael Imperioli and a pre-Mrs Apatow Leslie Mann, and Bruce Dern has fun as the town’s lawmaker who keeps himself well away from all the trouble.

In the final analysis, I was reminded somewhat of 1999’s similar and superior PAYBACK, which was itself based on existing material (Donald E Westlake’s novel The Hunter and 1967 neo-noir POINT BLANK). The difference with the Mel Gibson film is that writer/director Brian Helgeland throws in a lot of dark humour, something the po-faced LAST MAN STANDING could have done with like a shot of whiskey for a thirsty and beaten-down drifter.

Two stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Practically everyone except Willis is dead by the end, so it gets a pass. 

What would a movie called FIRST MAN STANDING be about?  I guess a retelling of the book of Genesis? Zac Efron is ... Adam!

Previously:  THE LAST WITCH HUNTER 

Next time:  LAST DAYS IN THE DESERT  

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

THE LAST BOY SCOUT (1991, Tony Scott)

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A disgraced former secret service agent turned private eye teams up with an ex-American football player (also disgraced) to uncover a conspiracy within the sport.

Starring  Bruce Willis, Damon Wayans, Taylor Negron, Danielle Harris, Halle Berry, Bruce McGill

Written by  Shane Black

Produced by  Joel Silver, Michael Levy

Duration  105 minutes

There are certain points in history when the planets align, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY-style, heralding another evolutionary step for the human race. And so it came to pass, as the 20th Century entered its final decade, that celestial bodies rearranged themselves in the heavens named Bruce Willis, Tony Scott, Joel Silver and Shane Black.

And what was this Star Child hence birthed among the cosmos? It was the one thus christened THE LAST BOY SCOUT. 

Willis, Scott, Silver, Black … it’s a roll-call of names that graced the credits of innumerable ’80s and ’90s action classics. Not since SCARFACE (Pacino, De Palma, Bergman, Stone) or TOTAL RECALL (Schwarzenegger, Verhoeven, Vajna & Kassar, O'Bannon) had so many titans collaborated to create such an opus of thrilling big-screen mayhem.

Did they pull it off? Pretty much, even if by all accounts no one had a great time during the forging of this cinematic Excalibur. With so many egos among the principles tensions ran high, and that included the headline-grabbingly highly paid screenwriter. And after somehow making it to the end of production, legendary editors Stuart Baird (THE OMEN, SUPERMAN, DEMOLITION MAN) and Mark Goldblatt (THE TERMINATOR, COMMANDO, PREDATOR 2) had to be brought in to clean up a mess that director Scott was thoroughly sick of by then.

Fortunately, all the behind-the-scenes friction seemed to give the project a jagged energy that serves the material well. And out of all the competing voices, it really is Black’s that comes through the loudest – and a lowly writer making such an impression was no doubt met with resentment by the alpha male actor, director and producer.

There’s always a point in a Shane Black movie where he goes too far. In LETHAL WEAPON, it’s Riggs’ disgust at the suggestion that two females may have been entwined sexually. In THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT, it’s Craig Bierko threatening to ‘blind the kid and shoot out her knees’ minutes after finding out that said kid is his own daughter. THE NICE GUYS has a pre-teen asking Ryan Gosling if he wants to see his penis, whereas THE PREDATOR’S nadir came whenever Black decided that someone having Tourette's Syndrome is a never-ending well of comedy.

In THE LAST BOY SCOUT, it feels like the whole movie is that ‘too far’ point, although Willis holding a gun to his daughter’s head to persuade a stranger to hand over his car keys is probably the standout. (Along with Christmas, which features only briefly this time around courtesy of a ‘Satan Claws’ illustration, Black’s main calling card is throwing kids into violent situations – he even does it in IRON MAN 3.)

Here’s an early exchange between Willis and Wayans that captures the movie’s tone:

Wayans: "Hey, man, you ever play ball? You've got a good build."

Willis: "What are you, a fag?"

Wayans: "No, I'm just trying to break the ice."

Willis: "I like ice. Leave it the fuck alone."

Around the time of SIN CITY’s release, that film’s co-director Frank Miller described Bruce Willis as "this generation’s Humphrey Bogart". That would make THE LAST BOY SCOUT Willis’s MALTESE FALCON or THE BIG SLEEP (note how private detective-nut Black pays tribute to a non-Bogart Marlowe adaptation, THE LONG GOODBYE, in the title of one his other scripts). I concur with Miller’s observation, although I don’t remember Bogie ever being introduced waking up hungover in his car with a dead squirrel for company and then worrying about whether he had "fucked it to death".

This is a bleak film, where everyone is angry, washed-up, bitter, and horrible to one another. It takes self-loathing to a new high/low – the first words Willis utters are to his own frazzled reflection in the rear-view mirror, having thrown his fuzzy bunkmate out the window: "Nobody likes you. Everybody hates you. You’re gonna lose. Smile, you fuck". Wayans doesn’t fare much better, playing a once-promising athlete thrown out of the sport he loves for habitual drug use. It’s the murder of his girlfriend Halle Berry (who is, of course, a stripper and who seems to be test driving the silver hairdo she would later sport in X-MEN) that throws our heroes together, when she hires Willis as a bodyguard because she (rightly) fears for her life after finding out about some kind of shady conspiracy to legalise American football gambling, or something like that.

Yeah, the plot is never that important in a Shane Black movie; I’d defy anyone to remember LETHAL WEAPON’s actual story and that’s one we’ve all seen, often several times. These films are all about the bantering mismatched buddies, the quips and, of course, the action. Judged on those terms, THE LAST BOY SCOUT earns its merit badge.

Four stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Though not literal, the title’s wry cynicism is in tune with the rest of the film and so works in context.

What would a movie called THE FIRST BOY SCOUT be about?  There doesn’t appear to be a biopic of Robert Baden-Powell out there, so let me just consult my rolodex for the contact details of a Mr J Silver, Hollywood, California …

Next time:  GOON: LAST OF THE ENFORCERS

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com