Last Man Standing
with Bruce Willis, Christopher Walken, David Patrick Kelly
Directed by Walter Hill
(New Line, 1996)
by Scott Hefflon
Bruce Willis is the last man standing at the end of the movie. Similar to Reservoir Dogs, everyone dies. Well, except the dames that the soft-hearted, born-without-a-conscience Willis sends on their way before the bloodshed turns the dusty roads to mud. Last Man Standing runs the we-end-right-where-we-began cycle – a loner comes to town, he gets messed with by some tough characters, he kills the tough characters, he meets more tough characters, and he kills them too. Percentage-wise, he kills far more of the Irish bootleg gang of wanna-be Chicago mobsters than the Italian bootleg gang of wanna-be Chicago mobsters. But the Irish have a tommy gun-toting psycho, Hickey (Walken), to even the score. Hickey dies last, and Willis drives on toward Mexico, his original destination.
Director Walter Hill (48 Hours, The Warriors) uses the loner narration technique of Blade Runner, and gives short-stuff hot-tempered mob boss Doyle an interesting edge by casting David Patrick Kelly, the “Come Out and Play” bottle-clinking gang leader from The Warriors. The tavern keeper (William Sanderson) and the corrupt sheriff (Bruce Dern) play supportive supporting roles, and therefore live to the end. Smiley, the undertaker, and music by Ry Cooder round out the story of how “John Smith” made a ghost town out of Jericho, Texas. The main flaws of the movie are the usual, Where does he keep getting all those clips of bullets? How many people did he just shoot and how come he only got hit once? and darn it, Where’s the love interest that’ll make him mend his kill ’em all ways and settle down? The perks of the movie are: Willis is learning to use his lack of hair to his advantage, he gets to do the bug-eyed, rapid-firing of a gun in each hand, and lots of people fall down staircases, through skylights, and all sorts of cool shit.