Customer Reviews

Last Boy Scout [VHS]

5 star:		(46)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

the action film is carried to a rather intriguing extreme with THE LAST BOY SCOUT, a movie that pushes the world-weary detective stereotype to new, surreal levels. Joe Hallenbeck (Bruce Willis), is a shamus hired by his best friend to protect a stripper who is subsequently killed. her washed-up football playing boyfriend (Damon Wayans) hooks up with Joe to find out whodunit and why. Willis' performance and Black's screenplay combine to produce a portrait of a guy who is so down and out that our first glimpse of him is a shot of him passed out in his own car while being harassed by snotty neighbourhood kids. throughout the whole film, Willis delivers deadpanned one-liners while constantly getting the crap kicked out him. BOY SCOUT is a guilty pleasure. it is mindless, formulaic, and particularly hateful towards women (and men as well) in spots with an uncompromisingly un-PC attitude that is very unusual in this day and age... and very funny. action films don't get any nastier than this one.

The best action movie of the 90's hands down! All this crap about the film being misogynistic is ridiculous. Willis' character is a burned out, embittered, down and out, has-been PI and former secret service agent ("a long time ago he saved the president's life" )who has seen too much and who has no faith left in anything. He is in a bad marriage, never home, drinks too much, a victim of marital infidelity. But he is still in love with his wife. ("I wish the sky wasn't blue, I wish water wasn't wet. I wish I didn't still love my wife.") He is a man's man of the old school; strong and ever silent with a black and white morality. He is loyal to a fault, taking on the case of the stripper and her boyfriend to avenge the car-bombing death of his best friend (who was sleeping with his wife.) His foul mouthed daughter is screaming for discipline which she finds (and drinks in ) at the end of the film. The one liners are great. The action scenes are awesome. The justice meted out in the end is fitting.

You cant talk about underrated action flicks without mentioning The Last Boy Scout. I mean this movie came and went and stayed off the radar for a while. Let me give you a brief description of what its about.

Bruce Willis plays Joe Hallenback, a down on his luck private investigator who comes home and finds his best friend sleeping with his wife. He later teams up with an ex-football player named Jimmy Dix(Damon Wayans) whose girlfriend Cory(Halle Berry) just got murdered. Throw in Joe trying to find out who killed his best friend and a subplot involving gambling.

Opinion: Lets do a quintessential buddy cop checklist and see if this movie meets those requirements.

Does it feature an unlikely pairing? Check.
Does the unlikely pairing work well together? Check.
Does it have moments of humor since one of the stars is a comic? Check.
Does it give you one hell of ride from start to finish? Check

So what the hell are these people expecting? This was made to be a popcorn flick but it was one hell of popcorn flick. Bruce Willis still shined as the action hero of the movie. Damon Wayans was funny but he also fared well when it was time to do a serious scene. I still laugh at the scene where Jimmy claims that Joe has to be the dumbest man on planet Earth because Joe is trying to solve the murder of the same best friend who slept with his wife. The audience still cares even when we come to that realization also. This movie came out at a time when you can expect a good action flick and the director Tony Scott hadnt dropped the ball yet in that department. If you dont expect oscar material you might like this one but I still think its one of the most underrated buddy cop movies of all time.

THE LAST BOY SCOUT is filled with the kind of throw away plot and sometimes clever dialogue of LETHAL WEAPON's Shane Black, and the over the top action sequences Tony Scott does so well. Add the eternal down and out cop, Bruce Willis, and you have the makings of a vile, but entertaining, thriller. Damon Wayans is miscast as the "buddy" of Willis. He doesn't look or act like a football player and his self-pitying monologues get repetitious and whiny. Danielle Harris as Bruce's daughter does a fantastic job, but what a foul mouth! Chelsea Field is lovely as Bruce's unfaithful wife. Halle Berry in her pre-Oscar days looks nice, but has the range of Suzanne Somers in this early role. Noble Willingham is effective as the football magnate; Taylor Negro is slimy as the head executioner, and Joe Santos does his gruff cop again for the billionth time. It's all set to some marvelous action pieces and some good one-liners. Willis' hero in this one is definitely not an idol, but the movie delivers what you expect.

There are two types of movies in this world. Movies that are for guys and movies that aren't. The Last Boy Scout definitely fits in the former category. It's as though producer, Joel Silver, and screenwriter, Shane Black said "Let's make a movie that red-blooded American males age 18-34 will enjoy. We'll need some babes, some comedy, a couple big name action stars, a good explosion budget, and what the hell, let's throw in some football."

This isn't a film that is going to go down in history as ground breaking. Bruce Willis is more exciting in Die Hard. Damon Wayans is funnier in Blankman. Lethal Weapon (also by Black and Silver) is a better action movie. And Halle Berry is only actually in about three scenes. But this is kind of a Jack-of-all trades movie. It's one of those action/comedy classics that you add to your video library on the shelf right next to Big Trouble in Little China.

The DVD features are nothing special. All the standard bells and whistles are there (multiple soundtracks, multiple sub-titles, scene access, widescreen and pan & scan versions). Special features include the film's trailer, as well as trailers for several other films. There's no director's commentary, behind the scenes footage, cast interviews or cut scenes, but there are a few rather informative productions notes. This isn't a disc you buy for features though. This is definitely a film you buy to watch.

All in all, it's a very fun movie. It won't stick out as an all time classic in any genre, but it is a fun flick for a weekend afternoon. There are several cameos by football personalities, constant witty one-liners, bitter scum-of-the-earth good guys and gentlemanly if effeminate bad guys. It's an action movie that you can watch with your girlfriend (well your tolerant girlfriend) just as easily as you can with your old college buddies.

Tony Scott's THE LAST BOY SCOUT may be trash, but for an action flick it is very well-made, highly entertaining trash.

Of course, you could make a very good case against this film. Though I did not find it quite as woman-hating as some of the critics said it was upon the film's release, I would recognize that there is a subtle layer of misogyny throughout the movie---particularly with the two women characters in Joe Hallenbeck's life, his uncaring, cheating wife and his bratty, verbally abusive daughter---that might make some viewers more queasy than I was. And, objectively speaking, THE LAST BOY SCOUT is basically a retread of writer Shane Black's superior LETHAL WEAPON---a more foul-mouthed, ultra-violent retread with a lot of corny humor. This is an all-out testosterone-fest if I've ever seen one. If you've got a problem with people, just punch 'em in the "head or gut"---if anything else, that's the message of this movie. Really, Shane Black, where did your taste go since LETHAL WEAPON and LETHAL WEAPON 2?

Despite all that, though, this movie still delivers what matters most in this genre: thrills and exciting action scenes. Having seen this movie only recently, I must say that it is probably one of the most exciting action pictures I've seen in a long while, perhaps enjoyable because of its excesses. Tony Scott definitely knows how to film action scenes well (the climactic action scenes in the football stadium is a good example of his skill here), and of course he brings his customary slick style to the material. And its plot, involving a ruthless attempt to legalize gambling in pro football, takes some kinda intriguing twists and turns along the way. (It's like a hardcore action-film version of one of those hardboiled detective films of the '40s.)

In short, THE LAST BOY SCOUT is very trashy but still entertaining action movie that can be quite fun to watch, depending on whether you can overlook lapses of character logic (why on Earth is Shelly Marcone giving away his plan of framing Hallenbeck for Senator Baynad's murder just so Hallenbeck can outsmart 'em all?) as well as the more objectionable misogynistic aspects of the film. Personally, I felt a little guilty about enjoying it so much...but not guilty enough not to admit it. Marginally recommended.

I don't know what Jeff Shannon is smoking, but his "review" (it was more like slander) of "The Last Boy Scout" was totally wrongheaded and a little bizarre. Where does this so-called "hatred of women" come in? If anything, the film shows that men can be pretty rotten to women and that they stick around because of loyalty or love. The movie is high-energy action at its best and it's a highlight in the now-low-brow genre of buddy movies. Shane Black got his two million dollars for this script because it's filled with hilarious, quote-worthy dialogue. Anyone who says they haven't at least stolen one line of dialogue from this movie is a liar. Bruce is at his grumpy, self-hating peak here at Joe Hallenbeck. And Damon Waynes gives possibly the only good performance of his career.

Take a seat, pop in this DVD, and have a ball. Because that's what this is: a good time. If you're looking, like Shannon was, for something that will change the world or give you a new view of yourself -- look elsewhere. This is entertainment. Pure and simple. And good entertainment is hard to come by.

This movie has a near-perfect blend of humor, dialogue, and pure action. If you watch this movie and only see "hatred of women" then you should probably step back and pretend you like movies for entertainment value. Else perhaps you should stop pretending film is a real course of academic study. This movie is one of the best action films ever. It surpasses anything Tony Scott has done and rates higher than any of Bruce Willis' recent work. Further, it is one of the most quotable movies in existence. So buy the movie, call up a few friends, sit back, relax, have a few beers, and laugh together. This one is a highly overlooked action-comedy classic.

But it's supposed to be! Not a spoof of buddy-buddy action movies but certainly a bitter mimic. The humor does seem to hit a bit off base with the darker scenes about the football player's cocaine use and his wife and child's death. The bad guys are typical, but so are the heroes. The one-liners come so often that you get the idea that the script is not bad but simply teasing other buddy flicks. The over-anxious newcomer to crimefighting out for revenge, the hard-headed cop reluctant to help, the sleazy bad guys who are at once slick and disorganized. The important thing to remember is that this movie knows what it is.

Chalk this one up to another case of "There's nothing Bruce Willis Can't Do".

Willis is Hallenbeck, a disgraced former bodyguard of a Senator who's into S&M when he's not taking bribes from corrupt businessmen. (Willis intervened when one of the Senator's sessions went too far.) Not quite divorced, Hellenbeck lives in his car when he's not working as a private investigator. Nothing goes right for our hero whose first line of dialog is to himself in the mirror: "Nobody likes you. Everybody hates you. You're gonna lose." To highlight the utter lowliness of his position, Hellenbeck's latest job comes from the man sleeping with his wife (and may force Hellenbeck to save the life of the creep of a senator who ruined it to begin with). Asked to safeguard a stripper, Hellenbeck hooks up with her boyfriend, ex-NFL pro Jimmy Dix (Wayons). Like Hellenbeck, Dix is also disgraced, but can at least boast of the cash to afford, and a girlfriend played by Halle Berry. Dix's girlfriend is under fire because she has evidence that could implicate both the owner of the football team that kicked Jimmy off, and the Senator who ruined Hellenbeck's career. Unable to save Dix's lover, they stumble on the tape and now are forced to face an army of foul-mouthed gunmen who seem to have every resource on their side.

Okay, at this point, you're probably thinking that this is another "stupid LA movie" ala "Ford Fairlane". Instead, this is probably the most enjoyable "stupid LA movie" to come out of Hollywood in the 1990's. Though touching on corruption in politics and pro-sports, "Last Boyscout" knows to play it for fun. There's a lot of gun play, but most of the time, our heros survive on bad language alone. Cursing their way out of being shot or otherwise murdered, Willis's and Wayons's mouths are alone more dangerous than any weapon. The action sequences aren't that memorable, and the bad guys don't develop all that well, but this flick gets enough mileage by pairing Willis and Wayons who are collectively shot, stabbed, thrown off highways or otherwise beaten. Rather than their guns, it's the leads' mouths that should be registered as weapons of mass destruction as they curse at their enemies and even dare them to laugh (witness Willis telling fat-wife jokes to the man about to kill him). This is the perfect flick for watching while drunk.