The Last Boy Scout (1991)

 

Director: Tony Scott

Screenplay: Shane Black

Cast: Bruce Willis as Joseph Cornelius "Joe" Hallenbeck; Damon Wayans as James "Jimmy" Dix; Chelsea Field as Sarah Hallenbeck; Noble Willingham as Sheldon "Shelly" Marcone; Taylor Negron as Milo; Danielle Harris as Darian Hallenbeck; Halle Berry as Cory; Bruce McGill as Mike Matthews

Ephemeral Waves

 

Shit, we’re being beaten up by the inventor of Scrabble!

I have no idea why I hated The Last Boy Scout back in the day. I guess I was not vibing to these types of action films. We had a lot of them in the family DVD collection, among the early Warner Brothers ones where they released them in cardboard DVD cases, and alongside not really appreciating action films for what they were, I likely dismissed this film outright too for being offensive rather than carefully pinpointing what aged in films from the past. The Last Boy Scout, and Shane Black’s more profane and witty storytelling, vibes for me more now even if arch, part of a solid film from a fascinating era when Hollywood movies could be very adult in tone.

The first scene really is a highlight to a production that, to my surprise, was an absolute nightmare to even get to the finish line as a final production, melding Black’s snark, Tony Scott’s skill as a director, and great Hollywood production value, a grim existential breakdown of a football player who, in the rain during a game, brings a gun on the pitch. And it is Billy Blanks, a wonderful cameo from a b-movie star, usually in martial arts films from this period, which he can be proud of and stands out more as a scene if you recognize him. I come to this film too as an unapologetic Tony Scott defender, always with the sense of him being an underdog even next to his brother Ridley, and that sequence the best in here showing his skill. Top Gun (1986) was propaganda, but it is beautiful to look at whilst the melodramatic and eighties lush tone adds the work where the story and its soundtrack win you. (Even all the jokes about its homoerotic tone (if by accident) adds to this to make it more rewarding). Days of Thunder (1990) is a melodrama, only rather than what were once called “women’s pictures”, it is about male NASCAR racers with Tom Cruise and Michael Rooker’s love-hate relationship as the leads a proto-bromance. The run of films with the likes of Domino (2005) and Déjà vu (2006) that ended Tony Scott’s career, which I need to return to, showed he how interesting a director he was when he went full bore into visual experimentation, some of the most unique of the time and genre, and with Déjà vu’s science fiction premise, producing one of the most unique and mind bending car chases using a form of split screen Brian De Palma would be proud of.

Among these films, The Last Boy Scout is more conventional even next to The Hunger (1983), but this is in mind to how much this film struggled to get finished. Alongside the script from the original Shane Black version being drastically changed, as expected with all script revisions, Damon Wayans and Bruce Willis were hostile to each other, producer Joel Silver steered it to the more conventional action scenes, and Tony Scott’s habit of shooting extensive footage took multiple people to edit it all into final results¹. He however was staying his ground on what he wanted to shoot, so this film if it has an auteur, even if compromised, is his and Shane Black’s together, and you can still see the virtues of both in this. Here Scott is the traditional stylist to a modern day noir, made at a time when Shane Black was a low end in life and feeding off pulp crime paperbacks¹, taking the broken down detective from them and making Joseph Hallenbeck (Willis), the detective at his lowest among others before him crossing with James "Jimmy" Dix (Wayans), a disgraced American football star, finding themselves forced together over one of the former’s protection jobs. This leads to a conspiracy with the US football league and politics, whose flaw in not being fleshed out is explained by how the film went through a long process in being actually completed. There is a lot more cursing than in traditional film noir but humour is literally a self defensive weapon in Shane Black’s world, an effective self defensive maneuver multiple times including “your wife” jokes being able to leave someone defenseless to a broken bottle to the neck. Alongside the setting being Christmas, an obsession for Black, and this feels like his work to the point even Danielle Harris, playing Willis’ thirteen year old daughter, gets one liners.

The interesting thing is knowing, whilst an action film at heart which Joel Silver steered more towards the one liners and action, this has a vein of melancholia in its macho bravado which is explained by the place Shane Black was said to have at the time, one of great depression at a time when he was not part of films with his scripts. This is a film where the one liners are literally self defensive not just to villains but against male anxiety and angst, hiding behind snark to cope through the likes of addiction and the loss of loved ones, With credit to Bruce Willis and Damon Wayans, despite tensions on set, they were two perfect casting choices for a Shane Black script. Willis in particular, in mind to his career’s very erratic history, including the turbulent time even here with Hudson Hawk (1991), is someone capable of a great deal in his roles, someone who could balance pathos and comedy perfectly with his work, taking what was a generic noir protagonist and making him have flesh in this case.

The film would in delicious irony be accused of being woke nowadays. This is lost a little in how much the film plays it safe with car chases and action scenes, the film turned into a production for the box office first, but with Willis’ back story as a secret service agent fired due to a corrupt politician, and corrupt politics and gambling the central themes, it is amazing even if shooting people are the answer in these films how many would not fly in certain parties minds nowadays in how suspicious of authority they are, a film noir trope Shane Black definitely took the heart. Whether it is one of the best of this time is with the caveat that, once you known how nightmarish the production history was, you can see it in the plotting pace, but so much does work. Some of the dialogue is un-pc, which has not aged the film well when they appear, but alongside how rare they are, most of the film shines instead. For a film I was once dismissed, even its inclusions as an action film, including twists involving an unfortunate accident with a helicopter blade, stand out because in spite of the chaos making this film, it gelled together as a rewarding film with too many good one liners, too much interesting pathos and Bruce Willis dancing a jig in the least expected of times.

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1) Who killed The Last Boy Scout? Bruce Willis, Shane Black and the making of an action masterpiece, written by Owen Williams for The Telegraph, published 31st May 2016.

Halloween 31 For 31: The Hunger (1983)

From https://porchpeople.files.wordpress.com/
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Director: Tony Scott

Screenplay: Ivan Davis and Michael Thomas (Based on a novel by Whitley Strieber)

Cast: Catherine Deneuve (as Miriam Blaylock); David Bowie (as John Blaylock); Susan Sarandon (as Sarah Roberts); Cliff De Young (as Tom Haver); Dan Hedaya (as Lieutenant Allegrezza)

Synopsis: In New York live two immortal vampires - Miriam (Deneuve) and John Blaylock (Bowie). John however is to end up like Miriam's many lovers over the millennia and rapidly age, their collected interest in the science of aging leading a scientist Sarah Roberts (Sarandon) to end up in their radar and into Miriam's arms in particular.

I entered the viewing of The Hunger with fond memories of it from many years ago and as a fan of Tony Scott. The late older brother of Sir Ridley was incredibly underrated, where even when he was making popcorn fodder there was a quality a cut above many other filmmakers in how his films looked and in terms of the content of them. When he transitioned to his later style, more maniac and heavily edited, he was superior to Michael Bay in every way, less the scrambled images of the later but what could lead to innovative and inspired moments in material that would be plain and ordinary made by other people. Even the magnificent gay pride film Top Gun (1986) looked sumptuous in its colour and design even if it was military propaganda.

From http://i810.photobucket.com/albums/zz26/pronto57/Stills/hunger1.jpg

Significantly The Hunger removes a great deal of vampiric folklore. They can walk in the sunlight and death is possible even if they are immortal. Deneuve and Bowie seem like the cousins of Tom Hiddleson and Tilda Swinton in Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), a disconnect that is nonetheless propped up by immense personalities between both actors, neither putting a bad performance. Deneuve in particular is an inspired choice, an entire weight of European cinema and its glamour appearing in this film as a result, Sarandon more than perfect as her acting match as the individuals with the most screen time. The eighties sheen of the film nonetheless emphases an otherworldly glamour that still shines. The "MTV" aesthetic of the film is entirely of its own decade but The Hunger never descends into being trite and badly dated. The film is in fact closer to films by Jean Rollin of all things despite being a Hollywood production, not just for the relationship that develops between Miriam and Sandra that leads to a landmark LGBT sex scene in Hollywood cinema, but also because Rollin was far more concerned with mood than plot. The Hunger drifts off and becomes more of an atmospheric work halfway through, less about a conventional conclusion but something more abstract.

From https://mossfilm.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/ankh-pendants.jpg

There's a greater, more discomforting take on death and life than many vampire films in this one. The first sequence, of Miriam and John seducing two punks to fed off, is intercut with jarring violence between two monkeys that counteracts the sexuality of their seduction and Bauhaus' Bela Lugosi's Dead playing in the score. One of the most startling moments of the film is of the accelerating aging and death of a monkey as part of Sandra's experiments on a biological clock done in time-lapse motion, and it isn't long into the film when The Thin White Duke is acting under a lot of prosthetics emphasising this grim reality. There is only inklings of these themes and ideas, but even if the main narrative is slight enough is felt for maximum impact, the emphasis on mood instead to its advantage as a great deal is expressed in what is merely implied than actually discussed.

From https://s.ynet.io/assets/images/movies/the_hunger_1983
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Technical Detail:

The rapid editing, gels on the camera lens and excessive use of fog machines could be applied to a pop video of the time as much as for this film. But as time has passed this style is far and away more unconventional because of how far Tony Scott pushed the aesthetics. This is not that far away from the later films in his career in its bombardment of the viewer with images. Chronology of the narrative and back-story is disrupted which is a significant and inspired stylistic trope, dialogue between two people from a future interaction playing just before that time in the plot, and as far as the distant past intervening with the then-present day in unexpected flashbacks of Miriam and John's lives.

That it was shot in England but recreates New York adds an unconventional air to the proceedings, as Stanley Kubrick films did in his refusal to leave England for any of his work, the likes of Dan Hedaya in a small role as a grotty police investigator not covering up the unworldly nature of the production. The lushness of the classical music to the set design, even if it's of its time, gives the film a greater richness to its look. It also offsets startling moments, such as a horrible fate to a likable character in the vampire's music room, for immense impact.

From http://onthesetofnewyork.com/locations/thehunger/thehunger04.jpg

Abstract Spectrum: Expressionist/Psychotronic

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Low

As of the result of the style, I can say with surprise that The Hunger does qualify for this list. I came to rewatch it after many, many years having past forgetting what its tone and look was originally, expecting another stylish Tony Scott film, a horror movie to my immense interest. Instead I've ended up confounded by the distortion of the timeline of scenes and an overriding atmosphere, MTV-like or not, that's like stepping into a nether realm separate from ours. The performances and their qualities help build the mood with sincerity too, even Bowie's distant mannerisms effecting. Even at its gaudiest with the eighties lighting The Hunger brings out a sense of hyper reality to its content.

From http://41.media.tumblr.com/5d0b74a62f1b70d58f8ef0b75e73503e/
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Personal Opinion:

My interest in revisiting this film was spurred on by a list of the most stylish horror films ever made, not suspecting it would actually get onto the Abstract Canon. What it shows is that there are mainstream examples of the abstract in the least expected places, especially with the things being tried out in eighties pop culture. The Hunger also proved to be an incredible film for me personally to see again.