LAST ACTION HERO (1993, John McTiernan)

 

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A teenager enters the fictional world of his favourite action star, who then makes the reverse journey into the real world.

Starring  Arnold Schwarzenegger, Austin O’Brien, Charles Dance, F Murray Abraham, Tom Noonan, Anthony Quinn

Written by  Shane Black, David Arnott

Produced by  John McTiernan, Steve Roth

Duration  131 minutes

Forty-two months. That was the gap between the release of LAST ACTION HERO in June 1993 and SCREAM coming out in December 1996.

HERO made a disappointing $137 million from an $85 million budget, bringing home a decidedly non-blockbuster profit of just $52 million. SCREAM, meanwhile, earned $158 million – nearly 12 times its production costs.

And sandwiched between the two was WES CRAVEN’S NEW NIGHTMARE. It didn’t make a big profit, only just doubling its budget, but nevertheless this third film is crucial to understanding why a tonal-mashup that both parodies and delivers on the genre it dissects could be a flop, whilst three years later the same kind of project is a monster hit.

Audiences in 1993 weren’t ready for LAST ACTION HERO. They needed a smaller film to act as an aperitif to get them used to the idea of a genre takedown before they were ready to embrace the whole meta thing in a summer tentpole movie. Fast-forward to today, and fourth-wall breaking with snarky self-commentary has practically become a genre onto itself.

So I don’t see HERO’s disappointing box office as a reflection of the film’s quality; its failure to connect with viewers was just a matter of timing. And coming up against a little film called JURRASSIC PARK didn’t help, either. 

But there was also the Schwarzenegger factor.

Everyone has to fail eventually and it was just Arnie’s time. In the 11 years since CONAN THE BARBARIAN, he’d had a pretty much unbroken run of hits, peaking with TERMINATOR 2, 1991’s highest earner. He’d become too big to fail – which meant that many were waiting for him to do exactly that. Factor in a marketing campaign that was confident to the point of arrogance, with Columbia Pictures deciding that HERO was too big to stay on terra firma, and knives were being sharpened. When the reviews came they were scathing and audiences stayed away.

Personally, I’ve never been able to relate to the negativity surrounding LAST ACTION HERO. It might help that I was only 10 when it was released, so too young to see it on the big screen (I did, of course, see JURASSIC PARK) and only consuming it later on VHS, when the heat was off and Arnie had gone back to basics with TRUE LIES – although his career would never fully recover from the fateful summer of 1993. 

My reaction on rewatching LAST ACTION HERO this time, 30 years removed from all the fuss, is that it’s a pretty entertaining way to spend two hours. All it really wants to be is a fun and funny coming-of-age wish-fulfilment fantasy for 13-year-old boys. And it succeeds! Maybe the mistake was casting in Schwarzenegger someone known for R-rated mayhem, unwittingly acknowledging a truth middle-America would rather ignore: that kids lap that stuff up several years before they’re legally supposed to. If made today, the boy would have to be into something boringly age-appropriate, like Harry Potter or the Marvel content empire.

I don’t feel the need to defend HERO any further, so I’ll instead leave you with some stray observations:

– Arnie's first line of a movie primarily set in California is the prophetic, "When the governor gets here, call me."

– During the opening, Tom Noonan's dastardly Ripper calls Schwarzenegger ‘sport’, which I like to think is a reference to William Petersen's poster-worthy line, "It's just you and me now, sport", from his pursuit of Noonan’s Francis Dolarhyde in MANHUNTER.

– Is Arnie driving on the LA viaducts supposed to reference TERMINATOR 2 or another Petersen movie, TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA? Or maybe GREASE?

– I think that Stallone would actually have been great in TERMINATOR 2; his hangdog expression and stoic sensitivity are the perfect fit for a cyborg learning to appreciate humanity. Not so sure Arnie could have pulled off underdog Rocky Balboa, though. Come to think of it, surely naming HERO’s fictional film franchise JACK SLATER-plus-Roman-numeral is a reference to Stallone’s boxing series?

– When Jack and Danny enter our world, they’re in New York City, and they visit the Empire State Building – as you do. But in the actual landmark in real life, the material for tourists neglects to mention LAST ACTION HERO in its list of movies that filmed there. Which you most definitely do not do!

– It’s known for its star cameos (Jim Belushi, Tina Turner, Chevy Chase, Van Damme, Sharon Stone as Catherine Tramell, Robert Patrick as the T-1000, Danny DeVito as a cartoon cat), but HERO is also a roll call of noted stunt-performer-actors. How many movies feature Al Leong (DIE HARD, LETHAL WEAPON, BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA), Henri Kingi (SCARFACE, ROAD HOUSE, PREDATOR 2) and Sven-Ole Thorsen (THE RUNNING MAN, HARD TARGET, ON DEADLY GROUND)?

– Director John McTiernan manages to cram in tributes to two of his other action classics within the space of a minute: PREDATOR when an elaborate laser sight from a helicopter targets Arnie, and then DIE HARD when the action hero falls down a building in slo-mo. Bravo McT, bravo! 

Four stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  I mean, debatably yes. Has anyone been able to properly take on Arnie’s mantle? Vin Diesel? Dwayne Johnson? Jason Statham? ... Daniel Stisen? You can argue among yourselves.

What would a movie called FIRST ACTION HERO be about?  They already did this with the Hamlet take-off. Other than that, I dunno … Errol Flynn?

Additional:  Was Arnie-as-Hamlet chosen simply due to its status as the Shakespeare play and therefore the play overall – or was it because Hamlet itself has a bit of the old fourth-wall-breaking meta stuff going on, what with its ironically used play-within-a-play business?

Previously:  THE LAST KEEPERS

Next time:  THE LAST EXPERIMENT  

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. 

One such occasion came to pass as the 20th Century entered its final decade, when the celestial bodies named Bruce Willis, Tony Scott, Joel Silver and Shane Black moved together within the heavens. And what was named this Star Child hence birthed among the cosmos? It was the one 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 well-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 come 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 comes whenever Black decides 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 their 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. She hires Willis as a bodyguard because she (rightly) fears for her life after finding out about a 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 many times. These films are all about the bantering mismatched buddies, the quips and 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