Last Man Standing (1996)

[ulthar]

Okay, so it's not really a Bad Movie, but it *IS* violent (not all that gory though).  Saw it this weekend and thought I'd give it a thumbs up here.

The story, essentially a retelling of the same basis that underpinned A Fistful of Dollars, is that Bruce Willis is a sort of drifter/gangster in the prohibition era.  He wanders into a small Texas town currently host of  feud between rival bootlegger gangs - one Italian and one Irish.

The short version of the plot is that Bruce (playing John Smith) kills a LOT of people.  Even when the odds are vastly against him.

Two major things struck me about this movie.  One, the sound design had a large dynamic range, which meant we went from Volume = 44 during dialog to Volume = 22 during the shooting (to keep from waking the little ones).  This was a bit annoying.  But overall, the sound design was interesting, and the gunshot effects had a lot more ooomph than you often hear from Hollywood.

The other thing is that it really had no point.  I mean, Bruce goes to town killing all these folks, some of whom really, really deserved it, but in the end, I was just left saying "So What."  There was a HUGE build-up to Christopher Walken's  character (** see below the Spoiler Warning) being such a baaaaad dude, but he never really did anything THAT bad in the movie.  Certainly nothing to make you think Bruce should be afraid of him.

But, as I thought of it, I think the pointlessness of the story was the point.  I mean, the gang war going on in that town was pretty pointless, as probably a lot of '20's-'30's era gang violence was.  Maybe, and I'm giving a lot of credit here, the director (Walter Hill, with producer credits on Alien, Aliens, and Alien Resurrection) was trying to say just that: violence for greed is pointless in the end.  Who knows.

Finally, David Patrick Kelly (Doyle) was oddly familiar to me but I could not place him.  It took a quick lookup on IMDB to realize he was Luther in 48 hours.  Wow.

If you like Shoot-Em-Up Prohibition Era Gangster Flicks, it's worth a look.



** SPOILERS **

I thought Bruce Dern (one of my favorites) was underutilized and his character did too much of a flip-flop from 'bad guy corrupt cop' to 'decent guy with a conscience.'  Bruce needed an ally at a crucial point in the plot, and all of a sudden the Sheriff was there for him.  Weak, sappy Hollywood writing.

I also thought Christopher Walken's character's death was very anticlimatic.  I would have liked more of a 'show-down' between them, and even would have liked Hickey to win.  That would have helped the 'darkness' of the story.  Oh well. And besides, why DID Hickey keep up the fight after Doyle (his employer) and the ENTIRE gang was gone?  Seems like someone in his position would have just said "taker easy there John Smith, hope I see you sometime." Oh well again.

[Neville]

This one is a personal favourite :-)

OK, spoilers...

True, the plot doesn't make much sense if you analise it carefully, but at least it is more or less consistant. Bruce Dern is not that underused, it is that the focus is on the two mob leaders. And Walken's character is not, at least for me, a disappointment. I think than more of a "badass" build-up, his character has a "dangerous" built-up, and it's true. He's far more clever than the rest of the mobsters, realises almost inmediately that there's something wrong with Smith and doesn't stop until he makes him fall.

And yes, the ending is sorta pointless, but that's the point. David patrick Kellly's character has finally lost it, and together with him are only those who think they still can profit (the sheriff's assistant) and those woh still may have something personal against Smith (Walken). I love that final scene where he tries to explain Smith the war is over, the feeling he is about to die is overwhelming, almost tragic (Ry Cooder's score is dead on here). And indeed, he has a tragic ending, killed with a rusty revolver by one of the many characters he played with without remembering afterwards.

This film is a gem, and so is, to a lesser degree, Hill's following movie, "Undisputed".

[AndyC]

Love this movie. I remember the first time I rented it with friends. We got to the part where Bruce suddenly opens up on the guy in the office, blowing him backward through the glass, and he continues to do a backward somersault into the street. It all happened so fast, it just blew us away (no pun intended). We had to wind it back and watch that part a couple more times.

[Ash]

I personally love this movie.

Ebert ripped it to shreds giving it 1 star out of 4.
READ IT HERE

I do agree with him about who the gangs sell their booze to.
There's nobody else there but them.

Other than that, great movie!

[dean]

This is also a good one I really enjoyed.  

But what movie is it a re-hashing of?  I'm thinking of either a classical tale or a Japanese movie, since I'm fairly certain I'm not thinking of a Fistful of Dollars, but something else.  Possibly.


[Looks at the Ebert review and it says Yojimbo, problem solved]

But yes, sure he shreds it, but hey, I quite enjoyed the film myself.  It's a good one, and a real late-night indulgence when it's on [well it's usually a late night movie anyways.]

[Neville]

It's also an adaptation of Dashiell Hammet's "Red Harvest", which some people say was Kurosawa's inspiration in the first place.

[AndyC]

I was under the impression they were just there to bring the booze across the border, warehouse it, and ship it on to somewhere else. It's a nice controllable little place near the border, away from law and order. They've driven out the population. Each gang needs a small army of guys there because they have truckloads of valuable booze to protect, and a rival gang based nearby. They've achieved their uneasy truce by putting sufficient numbers of guys there that any aggression would mean all-out war. Not sure why Ebert doesn't get that.

I'm not saying the premise doesn't have its flaws, but it makes more sense than Ebert gives it credit for.

Just remembered my other favourite scene -- dinner time at the Italian base of operations. Man, just to look at all that food, the big bowls of pasta, the bread -- I get hungry just watching it.

[Neville]

And, according to Smith, the pasta has lots of garlic... I'm salivating.

[ulthar]

He's far more clever than the rest of the mobsters

I think that part is true.  The build-up they gave him was almost like a schoolyard adoration of the biggest kid ... I wished I had counted the number of times they said "when Hickey gets back."

And that may be part of the point, too.  Smith says over and over that these are essentially small-timers playing big-boy games.  Hickey was apparently only a 'big fish' in their eyes, and in the end he certainly turns out to be closer to the real deal than any of the others.

But I have a problem with these kinds of build-ups in general.  They often appear in books and movies; The Stand comes to mind.  I did not think The Walking Dude ever really lived up to the build-up King gave him.  The build-up seems a cheap writer's trick to create tension that the plot does not produce on its own.  And it's almost always a let-down.

[Scott]

I enjoyed this film. Not a big Bruce Willis fan, but I liked this one.

[The Burgomaster]

I thought the best part of this movie was the theatrical trailer.  It looked so good, but ended up being a disappointment,

[odinn7]

Scott Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I enjoyed this film. Not a big Bruce Willis fan,
> but I liked this one.


I'm a fan of Willis and have been since the first Die Hard movie..."Welcome to the party pal!"

Anyway, I liked this film well enough but I just had the feeling that it was trying to be too artistic. I saw it years ago and can't recall why I thought that but I do remember thinking it.

[Ash]

Best line in the movie:

"There were gonna be a lot more wooden boxes in Smiley's window."




(was the undertaker's name Smiley?  Go to the IMDB and look at the extended cast list.  You won't find him there...weird)

[ulthar]

Yep, Smiley was the undertaker...but I think that was just what John Smith called him.  I think he was credited on the DVD.

[Neville]

For me, the best line in the film will always be "I don't want to die in Texas... In Chicago maybe, but not in Texas."