MoonlightingWord was that the reason
why there weren’t as many episodes each season, as with other series,
were the hefty scripts which were full of witty dialog and plot twists.
Yea… this show did have heft and plot; more so then some of the other
movies released the years “Moonlighting” was on the air.
One of my favorite episodes
was a great “What if”. Mattie and David pondered what really happened
in an unsolved case from the 1940’s. Willis and Shepherd played the
parts of the couple involved. Shepherd was a night club singer, Willis
a Philip Marlow type hard-boiled detective.
While it was by far one
of the best episodes of the season, I was praying for the false gods
of Hollywood’s divine intervention that somehow the rating for that
episode would go through the roof and the rest of the series would
be in black and white, set in
1940’s Los Angeles.
What impressed me about
the Philip Marlow-esqe episode of “Moonlighting” was Willis’ timeless
performance. The man he portrayed in that black and white episode
was similar to the one he portrayed every other week, with the exception
of being more cool and withdrawn. It’s a subtlety I doubt many other
actors, with the exception of Harrison Ford, could pull off.
Release date
- 1996
|
Screenplay: |
Ryuzo Kikushima (story), |
Akira Kurosawa (story),
|
I hoped that someday we
would see a motion picture along the same line of that episode, or,
once Moonlighting was over, a series similar to that episode would
be made. While that series never materialized, Stacey Keach played
a modern fedora wearing detective on CBS’s “Mickey Spillain’s Mike
Hammer” in the late 80’s and Powers Boothe played Phillip Marlow on
HBO around the same time. It wasn’t until a few years ago that my
wish of seeing Willis in a similar adventure to that “Moonlighting”
Episode came true.
It was more then a decade
later. A friend of mine
was surprised to see that out of the few DVD’s I owned already I had
already bought “The Untouchables”
and yet I didn’t have “Last Man Standing”. To be honest, I had yet
to see it since I heard it received poor reviews, which is odd… since
I usually avoid reading reviews when I like the premise of a film
and the way the trailers look. Many times, I’ve disagreed with critics.
Some of the most critically acclaimed movies are ones that
nearly put me to sleep: “Portrait of a Lady” comes to mind.
I bought the Last
Man Standing DVD on a cold Saturday night while desperately looking
for something from my favorite era.
It was a night that I was desperate for atmosphere, flawed heroes in
suits and fedoras with loud guns… good men doing right by stopping
bad men trying to do wrong… and this movie fits the bill, almost exactly!
Willis plays the part
of a man, a drifter with a shadowy past during prohibition. John Smith (Willis )
arrives to a town, broke, down to his last dollar and just finishes
his last swallow of whiskey. Learning that there are two rival gangs
in this town he quickly learns the players names and rules and plays
both sides for the most dollars. Along the way, he picks up only two
allies: the sheriff, Ed Galt
played by Bruce Dern and “Newheart” alumni
William
Sanderson ... as Joe Monday the saloon and inn keeper,
(Sanderson seems to play the same parts from “Lonesome Dove” mini-series
and “Blade Runner”…)
Willis’ character really has only a few redeeming qualities. He is perhaps one of the best two fisted shot I’ve seen on screen in recent memory, he has a soft spot for women in distress (the reason why it seems, that he always ends up broke)...
Last Man Standing is supposed to be a remake of Akira Kurosawa's samurai
classic “Yojimbo”, which
I can only assume is correct be cause I’ve never seen it... But
what I can say is that there are times when I’ve watched this I’ve
thought that maybe the makers of this film had more “Raiders Of The Lost Ark”
(but with out any treasure) in mind. That's either ironic, coincdence or , since George
Lucas has said on countless occasions on how Kurosawa inspired him
in the past (If anything, Star Wars- Episode IV: A New Hope is a remake
of Kurosawa’s “Hidden Fortress”.)
There are a few other
stand out performances besides those previously mentioned. Christopher
Walken as the henchman Hickey , again… another Indiana Jones wanna-be
(Walken was considered for the roll of a brash swashbuckler pilot
in the Lucas remake of the aforementioned “Hidden Fortress”). Regardless
that his character is perhaps creepy enough to rival Anthony Hopkins
most famous roll, you can’t help but want to root for a guy who’s
attire closely matches that one of our favorate heroes.
Basically, what is “Last Man Standing”? It’s hardly a morality tail. Smith leaves town a bit more broke and battered but has the satisfaction of doing some good. Smith does a great job of cleaning up the town while in the process of wrecking a quarter of it... “Last Man Standing” is either a western or a gangster movie… or a gangster movie filmed on location of a Western movie… perhaps left-overs from “The Quick and The Dead” staring Sharon Stone which I believe was filmed around the same time.
If anything, the movie can be best described as one long "Raven bar fight," from "Raiders Of The Lost Ark..." right down to the shoot out at the burning building out in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps my wife did say it best when she said “ “Last Man Standing” really isn’t much of a movie: "It’s a man in a perfectly blocked fedora shooting people endlessly.”
For fans of the moives made by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, "Lat Man Standing" is good enough to hold us over through one more cold Saturday night when we’re craving some atmosphere, men in suits and fedoras, and loud guns. This is also a great movie for fans of Film Noir since this fits most of the ciriteria of what makes a film fit that genre, and there is substance to be found if you are able to look past the over-the-top violence and gertuitous sex and language... (And yes... Willis is a fedora clad hero through out the whole movie, even when all else is taken from him and all hope is lost, during the climax of motion picture and then during the bitter end when goes off into the horizion in then end.)
