Directed by:
Walter HillScreenplay:
Walter HillCinematography:
Lloyd Ahern IIComposer:
Ry CooderCast:
Bruce Willis, Bruce Dern, William Sanderson, Christopher Walken, David Patrick Kelly, Karina Lombard, Alexandra Powers, Michael Imperioli, Ken Jenkins (more)Plots(1)
With its unpaved streets and rickety buildings, Jericho, Texas is an unlikely outpost for gun-toting mobs from Chicago. But with Prohibition in full swing, tweed-suited rum-runners have corrupted and terrorized this sleepy border town. Civil law is dead. Like their bosses in the Windy City, the leaders of Jericho's rival crime families are warring for control of a lucrative bounty of booze: truckloads of 100-proof, making their way from Mexico to a thirsty nation's illicit network of gin joints and speakeasies. Fatefully, a mysterious loner, Smith, passes through looking for a place to spend the night, but quickly decides to cash in on the action. He cleverly hires himself out to each gang while remaining loyal to no one but himself. A soldier-of-fortune with his own agenda, he betrays both sides to the other in a bold attempt to destroy the bootleggers and rescue what remains of Jericho's shell-shocked residents. But a traitor cannot live among mercenaries without being exposed and killed. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Reviews (4)
While watching this bizarre piece, I could not help but compare it to the films of Quentin Tarantino. Walter Hill serves a simple story of a rough gunslinger bursting with one-liners with such exaggeration that it is hard to believe at times. On the one hand, there are bloody shootouts, on the other, dry humor and lots of fun. Christopher Walken is also brilliant in the role of the legendary shooter Hickey. A fairly unknown film that was relative success for Hill and solidified Bruce Willis’s position as a tough guy.
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Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars in a “more modern” package. A nicely watchable genre film. Willis and Walken don't disappoint and the action scenes are top notch. I had fun.
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The W&W duo, that is Bruce Willis and Christopher Walken, against each other in one movie. I couldn't miss it, and in the end I was quite satisfied. Willis performs to his standard and watching his skilled work in taking down his mafia adversaries is a treat as always. And Walken once again proved that when Hollywood needs a truly cool bad guy, he’s simply the best and surest choice, even if he was given too little space for my taste. Last Man Standing is a very unconventional gangster flick in its conception, but it deserves more attention if only because this kind of tributes to Leone, Coppola and other legends are unfortunately no longer made these days, and it is unlikely that we will ever see them again. Bruce has us used to much better stuff, but comparing this rather intimate crime drama to The Last Boy Scout or Die Hard would be as silly as expecting Uwe Boll to ever make a good film... 75%
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Last Man Standing combines noir, western, and gangster film, while not enriching these genres in any way. Instead it gouges them down to the very marrow and delivers a result that is as tough and unsparing as Bruce Willis in the main role.
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