The Last Boy Scout- Bruce Willis

Those kids throwing the dead squirrel in a passed out Joe's car never fails to make me laugh. Also the scene with the stuffed animal/gun.

I hate football, but seeing that player head out into the field wielding that pistol got my attention the first time I saw it.

Shane Black was really worth all the dough they paid him.

I LOL'd when McClane says that he may have fucked it to death.

___

One of my fav buddy cop movies that pushed it to the limit. The violence was just delicious and Damon Wayans was a hoot. I love the bit when Willis complimented him about his leather pants and Damon replied, "Yeah, it cost $600." Then Willis says, "Does it come with a VCR?"

Tony Scott, where art thou?

I used to watch this movie everyday after school when I was 13. The first few months I was on the Chud MBs, I would rotate in different sigs that were all quotes from this film. Just the other day, I looked in the rear-view mirror and said, "Nobody likes you; everybody hates you; you're gonna lose; smile, you fuck."

I envy people who live in a parallel universe where "The Last Boyscout" became a franchise and spawned at least three sequels.

" . . . THE KIND THAT SHRED!!" BOOM!

Even though it veers dangerously close to self-parody, I have much love for this film. It fucking moves like lightning and both leads are great.

I also want to be in that parallel universe where Taylor Negron got a decade's worth of juicy villain roles after this film. He's so deliciously sleazy in this.

Who here dosent put attractive women on a "finger scale"?

"Yeah... Yeah... I know. It was an accident. Could happen to anybody. You were walking, you slipped, fell, and accidentally stuck your dick in my wife. Oops! Sorry Mrs. H. I guess this just isn't my week!"

I love this movie. I too envy the people in that alternate universe. Not only would it have been good to get at least two sequels, the movie sets it up perfectly.

I don't really understand why it bombed. What was its competition? I seem to remember it opening off-season. So, considering it's so much fun and just a testosterone festival from beginning to end, it should have cleaned up. Or were people just too pissed off with Bruno after the horrendous one-two punch of Hudson Hawk and Bonfire of the Vanities?

Also love the eccentric assassins they send after Joe. The "inventor of Scrabble", the "stupid hat wearing motherfucker". All gold.

"Do dead guys make bad jokes?"

"No."

"Then we're alive."

But my favorite line is probably...

"You even LOOK at her funny, I'll shove an umbrella up your ass and open it."

Probably because I have a daughter. And I can't wait for the opportunity to say that to somebody. (She's six. If the opportunity presented itself now, I wouldn't say it - I'd do it.)

It really didn't bomb though. It was a Christmas-time release and considering Willis was coming off the bad buzz from HUDSON HAWK it actually held up pretty well that season. It made about what the first LETHAL WEAPON made (though I assume BOY SCOUT had a bigger budget) but it just didn't have the huge numbers that the first 2 DIE HARD films put up, which is I'm guessing what Warner was looking for out of BOY SCOUT.

Also, as opposed to DIE HARD or LETHAL WEAPON, a lot of people found BOY SCOUT to be fairly mean-spirited. Not me of course, but I know the critics at the time felt it was reprehensible, anti-woman, blah blah blah.

Hudson Hawk shits all over this film.

There, I said it.

*runs*

So, so much fun. Easily one of my favorite movies.

I remember Ebert's review on S&E where he gave it the most reluctant and self-loathing thumbs up I'd ever seen. He seemed to argue that it worked as an action film . . . but was reprehensible.

"Touch me again I'll kill ya."

*Gets punched; Willis punches thug's nose through brain*

Good God, this movie is just absolutely fucking special. Probably Black's most bloated, coked-out, fucked-in-the-head script, and the type of un-PC insanity that all action movies should have. Cursing kids, death by helicopter blades, Bruce Willis attacking pimps, Halle Berry dancing to "I Wanna Be a Cowboy", and a lot, lot more.

The day this hits Blu-ray, I will buy this even if my balls explode upon doing so.

And RE: Tony Scott. If he makes one more slick Hollywood action movie with Denzel Washington I'm going to go Man on Fire on his ass. Seriously though, Creasy was one of the most profound badasses of the decade, but come on, it's getting a bit tired. I want another movie from him like Revenge (sorely underrated in its director's cut form) or this or True Romance. I'm also one of approximately 12 fans of Domino on Earth.

The CHUD hive mind strikes again! I was just this very day talking about my love of this movie with some friends, and we all agreed that it's pretty great. Everything about it is so utterly over the top and ridiculous, but it works for me on every level. I'd say it's Tony Scott's best film if True Romance didn't exist. As it is, it's just a great action flick with some stellar Shane Black dialogue.

You better run!

Im sorry but the entire film is so mean-spirited in such a juvenile way and so blandly flashy in that way that only Tony Scott (and his heir one Mr.Bay) seems able to muster that the whole exercise always reminded me of the filmic equivilant of a five year old boy who's learned what a rise he can get out of the grown-ups by saying the word 'fuck' and playing with matches.

At least Hawk knew it was being inherently silly.

I just went and watched their review on their archive. It's funny to see Ebert chastise the picture for most of his review only to conclude "But it is a well made film."

Yeah, I gotta say you're right on the True Romance thing. It's so hard to call. They're both so much damn fun. Romance is arguably the better film but I can't say which holds a bigger place in my heart. Romance has the easier job. It plays out the twenty-something fan boy fantasy to the max. Boy Scout takes a miserable self-loathing drunk with a dysfunctional family life and makes it seem like the coolest fucking thing ever... or maybe not. Maybe I just have a real problem.

If Hemingway had been alive in 1991, and had a sense of humour, he would've written this. Besides that, it has more in common with cheapie paperback exploitation thrillers than action movies, which it's usually compared to. KISS KISS BANG BANG would imply that this was what Shane Black was going for anyway. If we couldn't get any movie sequels, we should have at least gotten a series of Joe Hallenbeck paperbacks from Black.

And if Bruce Willis was ever deserving of an Oscar, it was for this.

As far as Black scripts go Lethal Weapon doesn't have shit on this. And for a movie that has the good guys killing people at the slightest provocation without giving a second thought it better damn well be mean-spirited.

How incredibly self aware the movie is of itself is 3/4 of the fun.

This is the '90s. You don't just go around punching people. You have to say something cool first.

I mean come on, that's incredible. And I don't remember the exact dialog, but when Wayans draws the bomb that looks like an apple. Anyone remember the bad USA Network cut? "Tripped and your stick fell in my wife."

Not quite, but I still love it to pieces.

This movie is the end all be all of Shane Black Films.

1. Takes place during Christmas in LA
2. Hero has a dog
3. Doesn't give a shit about anything
4. Smartass through and through

EXACTLY right.

The whole movie is worth it for this scene.

Jimmy spelling the word as "BOM" kills me every time. It's such a throwaway bit, but it's almost as hilarious of a drawing gag as "GATO!" in Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang.

Also? Danielle Harris' finest hour.

Acting-wise, at least.

the only thing missing from this movie was Halle berry actually stripping.

It never ceases to amaze me the love that is heaped upon shitty action movies around here.

"That doesn't look like a bomb. It looks like an apple with lines coming out of it. They're gonna think they have a suitcase full of fresh fruit!"

And then, after he writes "BOM" and the bad guys proceed to shoot at them...

"I forgot to tell you. 'Bom' means 'Fuck you' in Polish."

I hadn't noticed.

But The Last Boy Scout is not shitty.

It's barely even an action movie. The action scenes are few, brief, and poorly handled.

It's a comedy/character study/way of life. Hallenbeck is a man out of time!

Hallenbeck takes the job for a shitty $500, but he proceeds to kill all the bad guys basically because they've pissed him off and he's bored. It's similar to Van Damme's Hard Target where he takes a job for $217 and goes on to kill scores of people cause "poor people get bored too."

I just love it when boredom is the main motivation to kill some muthafuckas.

If LBS is a shitty action movie, what the hell is a good one?

I dunno about you guys, but I think I'm gonna go and shoot everything, smoke some cigarettes and watch this fucker again tonight.

This movie did have its flaws like how during the forest scene, Tony Scott decided to show a ladder and some of the crew members in the take.

IIRC: There is a crew member with short shorts.

You always hate the kid in these movies.

You were supposed to hate the kid in this movie.

Another point for The Last Boy Scout.

Strangely enough, I didn't hate the kid in this one. And I always hate kids, either in movies or in real life.

I didn't hate her either. She had a bratty quality about her but that certainly seems to be what they were going for.

Incidently that girl was Annie Brackett in everyones favorite horror remake the Zombified Halloween. She was also the voice of Debbie Thornberry in Nickelodeon cartoon The Wild Thornberrys.

...and thats my fun fact for the day.

The CHUD hive mind indeed, I've watching LBS steadily over the last week or so, picking it apart and whatnot, and I still enjoy it quite a bit.

Never bought Hallenbeck's backstory, nor his relationship with Mrs. Hallenbeck (his commentary on the relationship ends up being more interesting than it's actual depiction).
I suppose you could look at LBS's portrayal of sports stars, politicians, and other authority figures and see it as a commentary on our "heroes" and "role models" not being the people that we'd like them to be (oh, the irony, Shane), and Hallenbeck being a casualty of this realization, but I like him where we find him, the "fallen hero" shit that got him there doesn't really work for me.

Outside of that, it's a fun, pulpy ride on the level of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer novels, only with more verve, bullets, and Wayans. Bruce Willis and Damon Wayans have solid chemistry, the villains have just enough sneer to make you want to see them wiped off (not that Black's scripts have ever paid that much attention to the bad guys anyway), and Tony Scott doesn't get in the way too much. It sputters a bit, but it works.


Edit: Also, Jimmy Dix's story about his dead wife and unborn son is the very definition of superfluous. Any desire to beef the character up emotionally could have been done through Halle Berry's character, but as it stands, it's just fucking weird to me.

It's not my favorite part of the movie but it's redeemed somewhat by Hallenbeck's casual dismissal of it afterward. You have this tearful sob-story which usually signifies the part in a buddy movie where they become more empathetic towards each other only to have the second guy go "Fuck off. Get out of my house!"

There are so many great one-liners in this film, Shane wrote a fun, pulp-driven story. Bruce and Damon delivered the dialogue like champs, Tony Scott delivered the requisite OTT action and voila you have a cult classic.

Honestly, Black's dialogue is some of the best he's ever written, Chandler would be proud, the story actually feels like a really, really, dark version of Phillip Marlowe although (as Jackknife has already mentioned) Mike Hammer is more apt.

Without Black's dialogue, it really would be just another shitty action film.

Best line...

"I wanna meet the bitch that fucked you up."

I've always had a lot of time for this. Lotta fun. I had a "movie stuff you just realized" moment when I saw it for the first time and learned the origin of the expression "have a coke and a smile."

Moltisanti, Ebert always seems to...go over the top in what he views to be negative to society in his reviews. I remember he actually said "the filmmakers (which includes) Director Michael Bay, and Lead actors, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence should be...arrested for how...Immoral, Bad Boys II was. He was especially venomous towards the scene where the BB were escaping in a hummer down a moutain and running roughshod through a Shanty Town.

I always enjoy...The Last Boy Scout, it is quite the action epic.

Too true. The script, Willis, and Wayans are the stars here, in that order. Prior to Tony Scott's apeshit over-edited films, this is one of his worst, from an action standpoint. Too many close-ups, etc.

I was quite distressed to read the script and find "pimp looking motherfucker with a hat" wasn't in there. Must have been an improv.