Seth Landers I like Bruce Willis and I like Walter Hill but this is just horrible. After watching this, I had no idea what this movie was about. Nothing happens at all. Some shoot-outs, some dialogue, more shoot-outs, repeat! Zero tension, zero character development, zero plot.I was hoping for something spectacular to happen and find something to move me but they threw every action cliché in this script. The more I was watching, the more I wanted it to end. It's not the worst movie ever made but it's pretty bad.My parental figure showed it to me at a movie night and I went in with an open mind. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed and felt empty throughout my experience with this film. Try to avoid this one and save two hours of your life!

meritcoba "One thing is for sure.. they're all better of dead.." Kristl repeated the lines. Kristl and Henry were having a cup of tea in their garage-turned-movie- theater while the movie credits rolled past. They had replayed that last part of the movie because they both liked the movie."Yes?" Henry said, looking at Kristl trying to figure out where she was going with those lines, quoted directly from the movie. "Pity they just forgot to finish the job properly and kill of the whole cast including Bruce Willis." Kristl said."Uhmm" Henry was somewhat distracted by the exit sign that was flickering at the edge of his vision. He suspected that the light-bulb would fail in the near future. "I mean, there is nothing against remaking a movie. And this is, I heard, the official remake of Yojimbo, the classic movie made by Kurosawa, which was redone some years later as a Fistful of Dollars with Clint Eastwood. But it has turned out to be a completely superfluous movie done by the numbers that does not compare in any way to either movies. There is simply nothing memorable about this movie unless it is the totally ridiculous fighting scenes where Bruce Willis somehow survives getting shot at by ten men armed with guns, shotguns, dual pistols, despite them fellows firing first and firing from distances down to ten paces." Kristl said."Well.. it was a nice try… and was entertaining.. I mean it has Bruce Willis and Christopher Walken. Walken is always a nice bad guy and he does that again, considering that he is only to be seen for a few minutes. And William Sanderson is in it. I always liked William.. He should get better roles.. maybe a main lead in a Coen brothers movie.""I just got the feeling his role resembled the one from Blade Runner a bit too much. Like somehow he is good at playing slightly retarded people.. or seemingly retarded people. And it is this role he plays here, again.""Heh.""When I try very hard, i mean really really hard, then what I can come up with, is that the music at the end is nice and some of the landscape shots, the few there are, are nice. The rest is just.. plain nothing. The whole story stumbles along and nothing remotely interesting happens.""I am sorry.. I can not remember anything else, except that it is a decent action film." Henry shrugged."When I try to think of what wrecks the film the most I have to either choose: the utterly ridiculous setting; a mob war in western town set in the mid-twenties, or casting mr smith(nobody) as a film noir guy that talks with an boring overvoice. I mean.. the overvoice simply wrecks the whole character because we know what he is thinking and through this thinking we know what his motives are.. and this is exactly that we do not know in the other two movies because we are left to wonder whether the destruction of both gangs by nobody is either the result of good intentions or bad intentions. This is an anti-hero.. ambiguous.. unknown. The overvoice simply kills that.""But what probably undoes the whole movie is that the movie does nothing remarkable with the new angles.. If it has to be a mob movie, then do something with it.. and if the character is a film noir character it is more than drinking whisky, having an overvoice and being beaten up.. and having someone vaguely act as a femme fatale. The dialogue is superior uninteresting.""Uhm." Henry said under the waterfall over sentences."But actually it is not surprising because the director, Walter Hill, has never made any remarkable movie. In fact he makes middle-of-the- road-action movies and when he gets the possibility to remake a classic movie and actually show he might be able to do more with the material he gets, he chickens out and makes another middle-of-the-road-action movie.. which is what the last man standing basically is.""Quite. You know the music is from Mr.Ry Cooder?""Oh.. That explains why I like it.""...Say, Kristl?" Henry said after a few moments of silence."Yeah?""What would you have done if you had been ask to make the movie?""Uhm.""Well.. considering you never made a movie in your life.. what would you have done?""Well you do not need to have made a movie to judge them..""Yes, I know.. but what would you have done.. I am curious.""Well. maybe it would..perhaps.. have taken William Sanderson character as the main or the undertaker.. or maybe… have them merged.. So that the whole story is from a different angle.. perhaps have the mob war really take place in a city.. where the mob is and have cut out the overvoice and make the hero Sanderson, a really film noir guy.""Ah.""And used an expressionistic movie style.. because I like the third man.""And have everyone die in the end?""Yeah.. ""Will be an arty movie, I suppose.""Probably. Not a middle of the road action movie.""No..and probably one that lost money.""Yeah.. but it would be memorable.. hah" Kristl said.Because someone lost a lot of money or because it was arty? Henry thought in overvoice."Either way.." Krislt said with a smile, "Or both.."www.meritcoba.com

zardoz-13 International filmmakers have exerted great influence on American movies. When Hollywood runs out of fresh ideas, the major studios often turn to foreign films for inspiration. Sometimes, a filmmaker appears who can adapt a foreign film in such a revolutionary way that audiences sits up and pays attention. "Extreme Prejudice" writer & director Walter Hill manages this ambitious feat in his cinematic version of the 1961 Japanese samurai epic "Yojimbo" by the brilliant director Akira Kurosawa. Incidentally, "Yojimbo" translated means "bodyguard." In the 1950s and 1960s, Kurosawa emerged as one of the few Asian filmmakers who commanded the respect of American audiences. His films grew popular in the West. Moreover, Kurosawa translated profitably in westerns. His films have served as the basis for John Sturges' 1960 classic "The Magnificent Seven," Sergio Leone's landmark Spaghetti western "A Fistful of Dollars" (1964), and now Walter Hill's "Last Man Standing." Hill recycles the venerable Kurosawa tale as a Prohibition Era gangster saga, casting Bruce Willis as a tight-lipped soldier of fortune with two automatics and an attitude. The story contains all the subtlety of a hail of lead delivered at point blank range, and "Last Man Standing" erupts with the fury of an artillery barrage. The setting of Jericho, Texas, exists in a moral vacuum. The gangsters have sent all the good people packing and paid for the law as they have bought most of the women. Women decorate the periphery of "Last Man Standing' in minor roles as hostages, whores, and mistresses. These unhappy females are trapped in Jericho as male playthings and the consequences of defiance carry a high price as one girl learns. When John Smith (Bruce Willis of "Die Hard") wheels his Ford into the dusty, remote town of Jericho, he is searching for a quiet place to lay low before he vanishes into Mexico. What he encounters are two greedy Chicago bootlegging clans competing for supremacy over the illegal whiskey trade. Like Clint Eastwood in "A Fistful of Dollars," Smith smells money galore in "Last Man Standing" so he hires out his pistols to the highest bidders. Smith plays the Italians and the Irish skillfully against each other in a suspenseful game of cat and mouse. When he helps a young woman held hostage by the Irish, Smith finally pays for his interference. The Irish gang, headed by Doyle (Daniel Patrick Kelly), captures and stomps our protagonist until he resembles a bruised tomato. Somehow, Smith endures this horrible beating and gets away. Furiously, Doyle massacres the Italian leader, Strozzi (Ned Eisenberg), and his gang at a roadhouse where the Irish believe Smith has filed for protection. Instead, Smith holes up out of town in a church to recover his strength. Jericho's corrupt sheriff (Bruce Dern of "The Cowboys"), decides to help Smith out by loaning him two guns. Smith takes the hardware and challenges the Irish to a Wild West showdown. As his own scenarist, director Walter Hill has kept most of the original story intact. If you're looking for comparisons, you might find it easier to correlate "Last Man Standing" with "A Fistful of Dollars" rather than "Yojimbo." As the writer, Hill fumbles in making the evil, Tommy-gun toting Hickey (Christopher Walken of "The Anderson Tapes") a henchman rather than the boss, as the corresponding character was in "A Fistful of Dollars." He is the only match bullet-for-bullet with Smith. As Hickey, Christopher Walken adds another despicable villain to his cinematic gallery of rogues, playing second fiddle to Doyle. Hill generates minor suspense when lesser characters refer to Hickey's character and the hellishness that always follows in his wake."Last Man Standing" is a raw, hard-bitten, little, B-move shoot'em-up with A-class pretensions that pays homage to not only Kurosawa but also stylishly imitates the excessive violence from recent Hong Kong crime thrillers. If you want to compare it to one of Bruce's American thrillers, the Tony Scott directed bullet ballet "The Last Boy Scout" (1991) is the best example. Hill the writer doesn't waste time contriving an elaborate plot that hinges on small but crucial details. When characters are not performing tasks on-screen, they are deployed off-screen in plot related activities. This is one who where what the characters do off-screen is of integral importance to what others do on-screen. Compared with Clint Eastwood who played the Man with No Name in "A Fistful of Dollars," Bruce Willis here is the Man With Anybody's Name. As he reveals to the Italians, he is simply John Smith from back East. John Smith is a taciturn fellow. He doesn't make a big deal out of most things unless he finds his expertise challenged. If you're a Willis fan, "Last Man Standing" isn't Bruce as usual. He is neither "Die Hard" Detective John McClane nor is he David Addison from "Moonlighting." He is a man of few words and fewer wisecracks. Smith is an unrepentant hard-case who admits as much without remorse during his opening narration. Here Willis delineates the character of Smith more out of what is left unsaid rather than said.The film amounts to a genre mash-up: a period crime drama crossed with a western. In it, the Old West is a dying dream. The New West, suggests Hill, is being taken over by business suits from back East with hardware. Nevertheless, that Wild West justice might be out of sight but it's not entirely out of mind. Altogether, "Last Man Standing" qualifies as a loud, bloody shoot'em-up that shouldn't disappoint action fans.

Spikeopath Last Man Standing is directed by Walter Hill who also adapts the screenplay from a story written by Ryûzô Kikushima and Akira Kurosawa. It stars Bruce Willis, Bruce Dern, William Sanderson, Christopher Walken, David Patrick Kelly, Karina Lombard and Ned Eisenberg. Music is by Ry Cooder and cinematography by Lloyd Ahern.Walter Hill's variant on Yojimbo, plot basically sees Willis as drifter John Smith, who after arriving in the dusty town of Jericho, promptly sets about making some serious cash by playing the town's two gangs off against each other. Smith is one tough hombre, a deadly pistoleer who has a fear of nothing, which is why the two respective gang leaders want him to work for them. Noses get put out of joint, blood flows, scores settled and a anti-hero is born, complete with permanent scowl and dry narration.The look and sound is terrific, Cooder's pessimistic twangs are all over the plot, while the visuals dovetail between sun-baked landscapes and the misty lensed ghost town of Jericho. Hill brings his trademark stylish violence into play, with slow-mos and rapid fire shoot-outs impressive, while his skill at creating an antique atmosphere is very much in evidence. Unfortunately the narrative isn't up to much, it lacks scope and characters merely exist, making this very much a style over substance exercise. It also means that much of the cast are given only morsels to feed on. A shame when you got Walken and Kelly on overdrive when on screen.It's an odd blend of a Western with Prohibition Noir characters, but it's unmistakably a Walter Hill film. For his fans there's enough to like about it whilst accepting it's a bit of a throwaway on the page. For the casual crime/action film fan, however, it's likely to be much ado about nothing. 7/10