In a 1991 review of the film, The Last Boy Scout (1991), Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert awarded the film three stars (out of ****)while pointing out that, "The only consistent theme of the film is its hatred of women." By providing readers with this quote, and watching the movie, it is hard to disagree. This film is rotten to the core, and definitely not for the faint of heart. Here's a movie where women are bullied around, gunned down, and attacked with verbal violence, by being called bitches, whores and worse.
But The Last Boy Scout does succeed in deliver a good, violent action picture. The result is a cross between 48 Hrs. (1982, another film produced by Joel Silver) and bits of Lethal Weapon (1987, another film written by Shane Black and produced by Silver).
Bruce Willis plays Joe Hallenbeck, a former Secret Service agent turned private detective. Damon Wayans is Jimmy Dix, a former football player. Both men have a wife and girlfriend who cheat on them--Hallenbeck's wife (Chelsea Field) is sleeping with his friend, while Jimmy's girlfriend (Halle Berry), a stripper, has prostituted herself.
Hallenbeck's hired to protect the stripper, and when she ends up killed, he forms an uneasy partnership with her boyfriend, the disgraced Jimmy, who was banned from the football league for gambling. Meanwhile, a corrupt team owner (Noble Willingham) wants to buy legislators and legalize gambling on pro football.
The Last Boy Scout is laced with a strong amount of graphic violence, and the bad guys, who are not there to make the good guys look good, meet a lot of gruesome and bloody ends. The film has some exciting and thrilling action sequences and the surprises are startling.
But the most disturbing moments are with Hallenbeck's foul-mouth 13-year old daughter, Darian (Danielle Harris), when she and her dad curse at each other, and later on when she gets a gun to her head. She is also an enthusiastic witness to the many gruesome and violent events that culminate in the film's brutal finale.
Bruce Willis gives a solid performance, while showing remnants of John McClane from Die Hard (1988) and Damon Wayans gives a comic persona as Jimmy Dix. And Taylor Negron, who is the most despicable villain of all gives a chilling performance as one of the villains who has the annoying habit of calling people by their elongated names.
Shane Black's screenplay is filled with funny and intelligent dialogue, a strong use of profanity and vulgarity and snappy one-liners, and director Tony Scott (who directed the terrible sequel, Beverly Hills Cop II [1987]) keeps the film at a dark pace, and surprises us by turning up the volume on car chases, death scenes, and gunshots. The best moment occurs when in one scene the comedy is interrupted by the violence.
The Last Boy Scout is a near-perfect action movie, in the tradition of other buddy movies such as 48 Hrs., and Lethal Weapon, and while it is not as good as the latter movies, it sets the benchmark for extreme violence and carnage in action movies. Here is a movie that throws graphic violence at us, while the viewer is stunned into uneasy silence.
But The Last Boy Scout does succeed in deliver a good, violent action picture. The result is a cross between 48 Hrs. (1982, another film produced by Joel Silver) and bits of Lethal Weapon (1987, another film written by Shane Black and produced by Silver).
Bruce Willis plays Joe Hallenbeck, a former Secret Service agent turned private detective. Damon Wayans is Jimmy Dix, a former football player. Both men have a wife and girlfriend who cheat on them--Hallenbeck's wife (Chelsea Field) is sleeping with his friend, while Jimmy's girlfriend (Halle Berry), a stripper, has prostituted herself.
Hallenbeck's hired to protect the stripper, and when she ends up killed, he forms an uneasy partnership with her boyfriend, the disgraced Jimmy, who was banned from the football league for gambling. Meanwhile, a corrupt team owner (Noble Willingham) wants to buy legislators and legalize gambling on pro football.
The Last Boy Scout is laced with a strong amount of graphic violence, and the bad guys, who are not there to make the good guys look good, meet a lot of gruesome and bloody ends. The film has some exciting and thrilling action sequences and the surprises are startling.
But the most disturbing moments are with Hallenbeck's foul-mouth 13-year old daughter, Darian (Danielle Harris), when she and her dad curse at each other, and later on when she gets a gun to her head. She is also an enthusiastic witness to the many gruesome and violent events that culminate in the film's brutal finale.
Bruce Willis gives a solid performance, while showing remnants of John McClane from Die Hard (1988) and Damon Wayans gives a comic persona as Jimmy Dix. And Taylor Negron, who is the most despicable villain of all gives a chilling performance as one of the villains who has the annoying habit of calling people by their elongated names.
Shane Black's screenplay is filled with funny and intelligent dialogue, a strong use of profanity and vulgarity and snappy one-liners, and director Tony Scott (who directed the terrible sequel, Beverly Hills Cop II [1987]) keeps the film at a dark pace, and surprises us by turning up the volume on car chases, death scenes, and gunshots. The best moment occurs when in one scene the comedy is interrupted by the violence.
The Last Boy Scout is a near-perfect action movie, in the tradition of other buddy movies such as 48 Hrs., and Lethal Weapon, and while it is not as good as the latter movies, it sets the benchmark for extreme violence and carnage in action movies. Here is a movie that throws graphic violence at us, while the viewer is stunned into uneasy silence.