Last Man Standing
| Year: | 1996 |
| Director: | Walter Hill |
| Cast: | Bruce Willis, Christopher Walken, Bruce Dern |
A very visual action film with a strange blending (that somehow works) of gringo-style Mexican dustbowl small town in American panhandle and Chicago mobsters of the 1930's.
A man (Willis) passes through a small Texas town. His very name - John Smith - depicts the archetypal Stranger from a thousand Westerns. The town is run by rival Irish and Italian bootleg gangs straight out of the big city mob, and he immediately gets on the wrong (and right) side of them both, despite being warned away by the powerless sheriff (Dern).
Realising there's more profit in playing one off the other, Smith fights for both sides, playing one off the other until the inevitable bloodbath ensues and he has to take a stand, stealing around down in the dead of night in a blaze of gunfire to put things right.
Not as bad as most reviews made it out to be. Standard action fare lifted from a generic western plot with an interesting new slant. Great period costumes and details, and satisfactory bloodshed and mayhem.
A man (Willis) passes through a small Texas town. His very name - John Smith - depicts the archetypal Stranger from a thousand Westerns. The town is run by rival Irish and Italian bootleg gangs straight out of the big city mob, and he immediately gets on the wrong (and right) side of them both, despite being warned away by the powerless sheriff (Dern).
Realising there's more profit in playing one off the other, Smith fights for both sides, playing one off the other until the inevitable bloodbath ensues and he has to take a stand, stealing around down in the dead of night in a blaze of gunfire to put things right.
Not as bad as most reviews made it out to be. Standard action fare lifted from a generic western plot with an interesting new slant. Great period costumes and details, and satisfactory bloodshed and mayhem.