Last Boy Scout
High octane action movies were at a preminum during the 1980s with Arnold, Sly, Bruce, and many other guys in their prime kicking ass and taking names to the delight of audiences everywhere as they defeated bad guys who either were of a disagreeable political ideology or were just some nasty dudes to begin with or both. Rarely seen with the adrenaline flow that these movies specialized in was a little thing called cynicism, otherwise known as a warily pessimistic view of the world as we know it among the explosions and gunplay. An interesting enough consideration as the 90s came on and having such a negative, cynical attitude almost became an American spectator sport in and of itself, and was first brought to the fore with this 1991 release starring Bruce Willis, a film that brought with it the forces of nature that was usually associated with the action movie genre at that time but also featured a âbuddy movieâ teamup of two guys who could charitably be described as being in a depressed state at that point in their lives and at the end of their rope. It also takes on as a direct target a most unusual subject at that time for satire: Pro football, which in real life when the film came out was not yet the obscene, obviously choreographed joke that it is now, but yet which the movie portrayed to be in its dying stages. The movie opens with a purposely lame, soulless âFriday Night Footballâ musical number, an obvious spoof on Hank Williams Jr.âs already iconic Monday Night Anthem, and the game sequences themselves, one at the beginning and at the end of the film, are not the glorious gridiron displays as we saw in Any Given Sunday, but rather dark, moody, foreboding affairs where we see guys hopped up on painkillers and other pharmaceutical products sluggishly pounding into each other in such a way that makes the game look about as appealing as a shit sandwich on rye. Turns out the billionaire team owners have already taken the first steps in actually rigging the games in order to generate lots of extra revenue on sports gambling profits, even going so far as to have a bunch of Washington politicians form a special committee for the eventual goal of legalizing the whole process and making their business legit, while the players themselves are pain stricken puppets doing what they are told because itâs in the best interests of their own health and well being. Soon we are introduced to Willisâ Joe Hallenbeck, a former Secret Service Agent turned low rent alcoholic private eye who takes on a seemingly simple case of protecting a stripper (Halle Berry in her first major role) from what seems to be âsome creepâ who is threatening her. Turns out that Berry is gunned down in short order in what is an obvious, professional, well planned hit and soon after Willis is teamed up to solve the case with her grieving boyfriend Jimmy Dix (Damon Wayans), a burnt out, angry ex pro football player who used to be the quarterback for the local LA team until he had some random accusations slapped on him and was thrown out of the game for not playing ball with the powers that be and doing what he was told. The throwing together of these two brings something both old and new to the table, as these two bitter, down on their luck âlosersâ so to speak must pull together on a case that also involves the two ultra powerful men that ruined their lives, that being the billionaire team owner for Wayans and for Willis, the United States Senator that had him thrown off the Secret Service for alleged conduct unbecoming, and while Wayans drinks his life away and hangs out with his former teammates at league parties almost as if he were a ghost visiting his old life, at least his motivations to avenge his girl are made very clear, while Willis is a guy with such self loathing that his partial motivation for his involvement is to avenge the death of his best friend (who was the original detective assigned to the case) who also happened to actually be screwing Willisâ wife (Chelsea Field) behind his back, but really his involvement by his own choice has little more explanation behind it other than him always doing the right thing to bring down some bad people (hence the filmâs title). Turns out that Berry was hard at work before being murdered, having seduced the old, redneck LA team owner (Noble Willingham, a long time character actor who was seemingly unable to play any other types of characters besides old rednecks) and gotten some damning information on his activities to use for blackmail purposes in order to help Wayans get his old job back with the team and thus a new lease on life which resulted in her being killed. This leads to a series of hitmen (including Jack Kehlerâs Inventor Of Scrabble) coming after our duo with a string of beatings, kidnappings, and attempts on their lives before Willis comes face to face with one of the premier movie henchmen of all time in Taylor Negronâs Milo, a seemingly fey, slight, effeminate type who nonetheless is a near unstoppable, ruthless badass along with being a bloodchillingly calm harbinger of doom just in the way that he carries himself. While Negron has a longstanding reputation in his career of acquitting himself very well in comedic roles, this one remains by far his most popular, and itâs easy to see why, projecting an almost perverse enjoyment in what he does and also in what he seems capable of doing, and bringing the natural presence to match up with on opposite sides with our heroes. And his silky smooth line delivery and dialogue also belies the fact that this is easily one of the slickest screenplays in action cinema history (written by Shane Black of Lethal Weapon fame, possibly the Tennessee Williams of his chosen genre) with the way that the characters (Willis most of all naturally) all come off with plenty of cleverly written things to say about themselves and the events at hand right down to Willisâ adorable but foul mouthed little pre teen daughter (Danielle Harris of Halloween fame) who gets her share of zingers including an absolute doozy directed at the evil, old team owner. The action sequences as directed by Tony Scott are top notch as they always were from this old pro whose underrated body of work was really every bit as high quality as his brother Ridleyâs before his untimely death, and the film delivers just as much on its wild, mindless, implausible action scenes as it does on its very barbed message about the absolute, total corruption in the world of professional sports that many feel has indeed come true if itâs not yet been proven (adding in the additional angle of TV ad revenue shooting up by designing all nationally televised games to be close ânail bitersâ so that viewers wonât tune out), making for a colorful concoction forever thought of as being an absolute classic and undisputed masterpiece in its particular genreâŚ
10/10