Last Man Standing (1996/I)

Director:

Walter Hill

Writers (WGA):

Ryûzô Kikushima (story) and
Akira Kurosawa (story) ...

Release Date:

20 September 1996 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Crime | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

There are two sides to every war. And John Smith is on both of them.

Plot:

A drifting gunslinger-for-hire finds himself in the middle of an ongoing war between the Irish and Italian mafia in a Prohibition era ghost town.

Plot Keywords:

Prohibition | Mafia | Gunslinger | Jericho Texas | Honor

Cast

Bruce Willis	...	John Smith
Bruce Dern	...	Sheriff Ed Galt
William Sanderson	...	Joe Monday
Christopher Walken	...	Hickey
David Patrick Kelly	...	Doyle
Karina Lombard	...	Felina
Ned Eisenberg	...	Fredo Strozzi
Alexandra Powers	...	Lucy Kolinski
Michael Imperioli	...	Giorgio Carmonte
Ken Jenkins	...	Capt. Tom Pickett
R.D. Call	...	Jack McCool
Ted Markland	...	Deputy Bob
Leslie Mann	...	Wanda
Patrick Kilpatrick	...	Finn
Luis Contreras	...	Comandante Ramirez

Also Known As:

Gundown (USA) (working title)
Welcome to Jericho (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated R for pervasive strong violence and some sexuality.

Runtime:

101 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Spanish

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Argentina:16 | Iceland:16 | Germany:16 (w) (re-rating) | Germany:18 (cinema rating) | USA:R (certificate #34190) | Singapore:M18 | Philippines:PG-13 | UK:15 (re-rating) (2008) | Netherlands:16 | USA:TV-MA (cable rating) | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Malaysia:(Banned) | Norway:18 | Portugal:M/16 | South Korea:15 | Spain:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:18

Filming Locations:

Cook Ranch, Galisteo, New Mexico, USA

Company:

Eclipse Catering

Trivia:

Bruce Willis was paid $16.5 million for appearing in this film.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Jacko slams the double doors shut on the room where the captured and beaten John Smith is being held the locks are visible on the John Smith side of the doors. Later the locks are shown, properly, on the opposite side.

Quotes:

Capt. Tom Pickett: I'm here about a murdered policeman, got himself killed the other side of the river in some crummy little Mexican town. A few locals killed, too, and a double-dealing Commandant named Ramirez. But the man I'm concerned about was an American on the border patrol. He had a family. Well liked by his brother officers. I guess he strayed a little bit in some departments, but he was an officer of the law, just the same.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Lucky Number Slevin (2006)

Soundtrack:

Torvaldo E Dorliska

Brutal, masculine entertainment handicapped by one flawed sequence.

This brutal Walter Hill pic has one of the best beatings ever burned to celluloid. It is so brutal, in fact, that the victim (Bruce Willis) looks like Jason from "Friday The 13th" once his attackers get done with him. Even better, he then lurches around like Rondo Hatten in "The Creep Man" plotting his revenge.

The film's final action scene is an awful, indescribable mess, and I have always wondered why Hill and usual editor Freeman Davies opted to construct it this way. It is a shootout presented in a series of dissolves, and it just doesn't work. Hill has always been an adroit director and editor of action, and his fine work has a precision to it that this sequence lacks. Perhaps the camera negatives were damaged or the studio ordered a truncation. Whatever the reasons are for this flawed sequence, it, unfortunately, turns a great movie into a good movie.

The opening sequence, replete with Ry Cooder's smooth scoring, is poetic and beautiful; Willis's arrival in town is directed with skill and energy; and cudos are also in order for the scene in which the first shot is fired and a stuntman is sent flying through a door into the dusty street outside.

Christopher Walken is fantastic as the violent enforcer Hickey, and it is great to see David Patrick Kelly back on the screen as the malicious Doyle.

There are many standout sequences and much to enjoy. Willis's solitary siege of a brothel, for example, is classic Hill stuff in terms of its staging, unapologetic brutality and superb cutting.

That the film is a remake of a remake is of no consequence to me. It is still a rousing, spare piece of masculine entertainment with a whiff of Peckinpah, a dash of Kurosawa, and a splatter of Corbucci.

That ain't no bad thing.