One of my all-time favorite movies is the Sergio Leone spaghetti Western A Fistful of Dollars. There's just something innately appealing about a cocky loner who knows exactly how bad-ass he is. When I realized that Leone stole his plot from Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo, I went out of my way to find that movie. It turns out that it is awesome, too. Go figure, a legendary director made a good movie. So, when I found Last Man Standing, which takes Yojimbo's plot and appears to give it a noir spin, I figured it was a can't miss scenario. Apparently, only awesome directors can make good movies from this story.
The obviously alias-using John Smith (Bruce Willis) enters the border town of Jericho, Texas sometime during Prohibition. The town is virtually deserted of decent folk. The only normal people left are the wimpy sheriff (Bruce Dern), a kooky bartender (William Sanderson), and the town undertaker. The only other people in town are split between two warring gangs, the Strozzi gang and the Doyle gang. Smith happens to be ridiculously proficient with his handguns, and not very shy about demonstrating his talents. With two violently opposed sides, Smith sees an opportunity to play both sides against the middle and make a lot of money in the process. In short time, the bodies start piling up and both sides are clamoring for Smith's services. But how long can one man manipulate so many violent people?
It's a pretty basic plot, and it's been done before. How is Last Man Standing supposed to stand out from its predecessors? Well, if nothing else, this movie has more recognizable actors in it that its more famous fore-bearers. Bruce Willis is decent as the quiet tough guy; you've seen Willis as an action hero before, but this script is pretty devoid of quips, so he just has to look tough. He does that. He also looks tired, and I'm not sure if that was an intentional choice. Bruce Dern and William Sanderson were okay as morally neutral supporting characters, but Dern could have done a lot more with his character and Sanderson's wackiness was occasionally annoying. As far as the gangsters went, Michael Imperioli got to be a whiny Italian mobster; this movie does show how far he came before The Sopranos started, but it's a role he has played many times in his career. David Patrick Kelly wasn't bad as Doyle, but he didn't have much of a character to play; he wasn't psychotic, for a change, though. On the other hand, he's only entertaining when he's psychotic.
Bruce Willis, come out to PLAAEEEEEEAAAAYYYY!
Christopher Walken is the only man in town who is in Smith's league, as far as being dangerous goes. This sounds like an easy role for Walken, but they decided to give him some scarring and a weird voice, so all his typical awesomeness is lost as he whispered all his lines. You might also recognize R.D. Call as a frequent supporting gangster or Leslie Mann as a hooker, but neither is particularly compelling.
How can you screw up a villainous Walken?!?
But back to Walken. How do you make a movie with one of the most audibly distinct actors of this era and mangle his voice? That's like making a Megan Fox movie that doesn't treat her like an object. That's like having Fred Astaire acting in a wheelchair. That's like forcing Jean-Claude Van Damme to not do a roundhouse kick-to-the-face in a movie. In other words, it's not the way the world should work, people. You know what would have been a better choice for this movie? Having him talk like any of these people:
Walken's voice isn't the only odd thing about Last Man Standing. Director and writer Walter Hill made several bizarre choices as he adapted this classic Kurosawa story. It starts with the narration. Smith is a man of few words, so having him narrate the story seems a bit unnatural. His narration is barely inflected, too, so it sounds like he's bored as he explains himself. And, even though Smith is narrating his own story, he doesn't actually give the viewer any insight into his grand schemes. Any one of those aspects would make the narration bad, but all together they make for some painful viewing. Beyond the narration, there is a matter of the action. Yes, there is a lot of action, in the form of gunfights, in this movie. Some of it is okay. The rest is either exaggerated or simply dull. I'm not a stickler for realism in my super-violent gunfights, but even I can tell when something is blatantly wrong. I don't know much about guns, but I find it hard to believe that Smith's two handguns could lift any grown man off his feet with a blast to the chest. And he must have had magical magazine clips for his guns, since they only ran out after he finished killing everyone.
His guns are powered by male pattern baldness.
There's plenty of other dumb stuff, too --- why did the guys at the beginning, who wanted Smith to leave town, ruin his car? When the bad guys get the upper hand, why don't they kill Smith? They know everything he knows. Why are armed men immune to Tommy gun bullets? To be honest, none of that is terribly important, because the entertainment stops well before any of those questions start to bug the logic center of your brain.
Here's a Google image I found looking for "last man standing." This picture is more entertaining than this movie.
Last Man Standing has a solid story at its core, but making the lead character tired and humorless doesn't bring out the best in the script. I love the story this screenplay is based on. I like movies where gangs fight each other. I like tough guys that narrate their stories and kill lots of mean people. But I need to enjoy watching it. This movie is dreary and emotionless. The action is nothing special, so the one saving grace it might have had amounts to nothing. I know that Bruce Willis is not in consistently good movies, but I'm not usually bored watching him; when you take away his smirk and quips, though, you're not left with much to watch. I was hoping that this would be an underappreciated gem with its pedigree, but this film is just poor.
And, just because this movie depressed me, here's something to cheer me up. Yes, that's Sharon Stone.
Here's an interesting fact about Waterworld: although it is often referred to as a colossal flop, it eventually (thanks to VHS and DVD sales) made over $100 million in profit. Another interesting tidbit: the movie currently holds a 78% rating from Top Critics on Rotten Tomatoes, which indicates that most critics give the film a positive review. To be honest with you, when I learned that this popularly lambasted epic was both critically and commercially successful, I felt my first urge ever to watch this movie. I had always assumed that it was a big, expensive puddle of suck, not worth wasting my time on. However, after a Costner fan heard me ridiculing the movie (to be fair, it was more of a dig at The Postman, which I like to call "Dirtworld"), they hit me with the facts and I was helpless to resist.
The film opens majestically, with the voice of Hal Douglas (the "In a world..." movie trailer voice) supplying the introduction. In the distant future, the polar ice caps have melted and water covers the Earth. Humanity has become splintered on the Waters of this World, with many banding together in scrap heap settlements. Others find themselves as lone drifters, sailing across the globe. And then there are Smokers, the bullies. The Smokers use gas- and oil-powered boats to loot, plunder, and murder the timid innocents in floating settlements. The leader of the Smokers, the Deacon (Dennis Hopper) has promised his group that he will take them to dry land. You see, he has heard a rumor about a little girl with a map to land tattooed on her back. One of his men, the Nord (Gerard Murphy), went undercover to a settlement and actually found the girl. Enola (Tina Majorino) is an orphan in the settlement, looked after by the kind Helen (Jeanne Tripplehorn).
"I will trade you three tots for a glimpse at your sweet back tat."
One day, a strange drifter (Kevin Costner) sails into the settlement, looking to trade a jar of dirt (which is naturally rare --- does this mean he's seen Dry Land?) for money, which he intends to spend on some necessities and then leave. As luck would have it, the settlers discover that the drifter is a mutant (he has gills and webbed feet!) and plan to kill him; before they can do it, the Smokers attack. Seeing the drifter as their only way to freedom, Helen and Enola free him and escape the settlement. But the Smokers are soon chasing after them, intent on grabbing Enola and discovering the path to the oh-so-elusive Dry Land.
That doesn't sound so bad, does it? I mean, aside from the incontrovertible fact that all movie boat chases are lame, it doesn't sound awful. In broad strokes, there's really nothing wrong with Waterworld. For starters, it looks great. If you told me that they melted the polar ice caps to film this, I would believe you. The sets are enormous and elaborate. The wide shots are impressively land-free. Even the costumes and the props are all pretty cool. This is definitely what the world will look like after the inevitable zombie apocalypse, when flatulent zombies cause greenhouse gases to increase and the polar ice caps to melt. In a lot of ways, the production values of this movie remind me of an uber-expensive version of a Road Warrior marina show.
A lot of thought went into the groups in the movie, too. I like that there are evolutionary next-steps, like Costner's character, because that makes sense. I don't know how much sense, because I don't know how far in the future it would take for that kind of evolution to be plausible, but I like it in my ignorance. I like that there is a lot of religion in these hard, water-filled times; it makes sense. I also like that normal humans hate and fear mutants, because that also seems like our naturally human reaction to the new and unknown. Besides, I'm a huge X-Men fan. I thought the importance that the Smokers put on cigarette smoking was pretty interesting, too. There are a lot of details in this movie that are very impressive and clever.
The cracks in Waterworld become apparent once you turn the volume up. The script is bad, the plot is dumb, the editing is poor, the direction is ineffective and the acting is awful.
A fail wrapped up in a flop.
The first sign that something is wrong with this movie is actually in the very first scene. It begins with a nice shot of Kevin Costner's ass and, right when you think that this is going to be about gluteus maximii, you see a stream of urine. Great. Now it's a fetish video. Actually, we see Costner butt, pee, and then he pours the pee into a Brita filter (or something), gargles it, and then spits into his little lime tree pot. While I think that this is certainly one of the more memorable scenes in the film and it offers an interesting look at the science part of this science-fiction epic, it's not exactly a great introduction to the hero of the story. Typically, in epic movies, you want the hero to seem larger than life, maybe dangerous or cool, but definitely a force to be reckoned with. The first thing Waterworld teaches us about its hero is that he drinks urine. Not exactly the iconic establishing image most filmmakers go for.
Normally, I would condemn the director for following a screenplay that opens with pee-flavored mouthwash, but with a screenplay this wretched, that might have looked good by comparison. If you don't believe me, here's a sample bit of script, taken from Dennis Hopper's wealth of terrible lines:
Well, I'll be damned. It's the gentleman guppy [Costner]. You know, he's like a turd that won't flush.
Ha. Ha. I get it. It's a poop joke. Does anyone want to explain why anyone in a Water World would need water pipes to flush anything? Or why Kevin Costner's (nameless) character decides to take Helen on an undersea voyage only minutes after escaping some Smokers that they assumed were still following them? Nobody wants to stick up for these script choices? I don't blame you. This is a story that has the look of an epic, but the focus is ridiculously myopic. In a whole world of ocean, you're telling me that we have to keep running into the same handful of characters? By the way, the far future is awfully Caucasian with Midwestern accents. I didn't realize that Wisconsin was so well-known as a center of maritime excellence. What happened to everybody else? Are the British just floating in the waters a few miles above merry old England? How about the Japanese and everybody else? For a movie whose production crew spent so much time making sure the details were right, this script feels curiously under-edited.
I realize that I have left out several other plot-related head-scratchers, but I can only get so angry without deleting everything I type. So, in case you're curious, here are a few other problems that popped into my head as I watched:
What is everyone eating? They make a big deal about Costner catching a fish, so how does a ship full of Smokers manage to get fed?
Where do the cigarettes come from?
Why do the Smokers play with flares and fireworks when they celebrate if they are on an oil tanker?
Was it worth the eye-roll to reveal that the Smoker oil tanker was the Exxon Valdeez?
Okay, I buy into the notion that the Smokers get all their fuel from the 'Deez. Where did they get all their gas-powered jetskis and the airplane from? Were they floating out at sea?
Why does anyone need to capture Enola? Why don't they just make copies of the map?
If Enola was tattooed so she could find her way home, why did they tattoo her where she couldn't read the tattoo?
Where is all the oxygen coming from? It looks like plants are a rarity in this world, so how is everybody breathing?
I'm sure there's more, but the more I list, the more depressed I am that I sat through the whole thing. Well, at least nobody can lie and tell me that the ending totally makes the movie worthwhile.
I actually don't completely hate this movie. It's stupid, sure, but it's not too painful to watch. I thought the actors were one-dimensional, but with a script like this, what do you expect? Costner was okay as the nameless sailor, but he was far more entertaining and appealing when he was looking out for himself instead of being a traditional hero. If nothing else, I can honestly say that Kevin Costner's performance is without shame; at no moment does he appear to realize just how silly this movie is, and he treats every garbage scene like it has complex meaning behind it.
"What about striped pants, semi ponytail, and seashell earrings (found where?) sounds silly?"
Dennis Hopper was in his full-fledged 90s movie villain mode here, and he is comically evil. To call this acting "bad" misses the point. His overacting fits the movie well and adds some humor (unintentional and otherwise) to a pretty serious movie. I wasn't impressed by Jeanne Tripplehorn or little Tina Majorino, but it's not like they were butchering their lines. You can't put crap into a blender and get a delicious strawberry milkshake. Still, they weren't good. Kim Coates was pretty terribly as a nutty drifter, but the rest of the cast is pretty inoffensive. I noticed R.D. Calls in a minor role and, if you ever had a doubt that Jack Black was a struggling actor in Hollywood, here's his bit part:
The direction was bad, if you view it from a working-with-the-cast perspective, but I will give Kevin Reynolds credit for framing several cool-looking scenes. If this was a silent movie (with no subtitles) this would look like a solid flick.
Is Waterworld a good movie? Not even close. What it is, though, is a solid idea for a good movie. While I cannot fathom why it gets such critical leniency from major critics, it's not a terrible film. But it's not good. At all. I would give it a pass and say that it's fun to laugh at and dub it Lefty Gold, but it's a long movie that feels even longer. To watch this movie and pay attention to the whole thing is pretty exhausting. If they cut 40 minutes out of the final product, I would probably recommend it. As it stands, though, it is more effort than it's worth.
“You ever see a dog explode?”That’s one of the first lines of dialogue in State of Grace.I was kind of hoping that it would be an indicator of how the movie would progress --- weird, morbid dialogue is usually pretty fun, right? --- but doesn’t really come up again.Instead, this film turns out to be a story about deception and loyalty. Eh, I guess that's okay, too.
Terry Noonan (Sean Penn) hasn’t been in Hell’s Kitchen for years when he finally shows up in a bar and surprises his old best friend, Jackie Flannery (Gary Oldman).Jackie is a soldier in the Kitchen’s Irish mob; he’s not too bright, but he is funny, forever drunk, and very dangerous.And he’s loyal to a fault.Jackie welcomes Terry home with no reservations, and pretty soon he talks his brother, Frankie Flannery (Ed Harris), the head of their gang, into letting Terry work for them.Being back in the Kitchen throws Terry into his old rut of trouble-making and drinking; more importantly, though, it reignites his childhood romance with Jackie’s sister, Kathleen (Robin Wright), who wants nothing to do with her brothers’ scene.While Terry and Jackie are doing strong-arm work on the streets, Frankie is busy trying to negotiate a deal that would ally his gang with the big boys, the New York mafia.Little does Frankie realize that his newest hire, Terry, is actually an undercover cop intent on bringing him down.
State of Grace is, for all intents and purposes, a showcase for the three main actors.Sean Penn loves to play characters that are wracked with guilt, and Terry Noonan’s duplicitous role is right up his alley.Penn’s performance is about what you might expect from him; he is good, but likes to overact in scenes where his character is sad or feels guilty.Ed Harris does a much better job, internalizing most of his character’s conflicts.I wish he was a more charismatic leader, but I’m not going to fault his performance on what the screenplay demanded.The real star here, though, is Gary Oldman.Nobody plays “dangerous” like Gary Oldman; his character just oozes sweat, grease, whiskey and blood.In the hands of a less capable actor, Jackie Flannery might have come off as a gunman with a dark sense of humor (which is still pretty cool), but here is charismatic and magnetic.Oldman makes Jackie into the center of every scene, whether by being playful, scary, or just drunk.This certainly isn’t Oldman at his subtlest, but he's an actor whose most memorable performances are often the most over-the-top.
Is he about to punch you, or order some whiskey? I'll give even odds.
Being a crime drama, there are a lot of characters that pop up, some with more substantial roles than others.Robin Wright was decent as the conflicted romantic lead, but neither her acting nor her character were anything special.John Turturro was better as Terry’s unsympathetic police contact, but this is definitely not a Coen Brothers-style supporting role; he plays his part pretty straight.R.D. Call, an actor that I was unfamiliar with, did a very good job as Frankie’s quiet but businesslike right hand man.A surprisingly skinny John C. Reilly shows up as a luckless gambler, and he was pretty good.After the past five or six years of mostly comedic roles, it can be easy to forget that Reilly was once one of the best dramatic supporting actors in the business.Burgess Meredith also had a bit part, although it wasn’t exactly a scene-stealer.
Ennio Morricone composed the score to the film, but it was far from his best work.Unlike his stellar work with Sergio Leone in the Man With No Name trilogy, this score was very much in the background of the picture.When I saw Morricone’s name in the credits, I hoped for more, but this was just your stereotypical, boring score.
I wasn’t particularly impressed by Phil Joanou’s direction, but it was decent.I didn’t like the choice he made to keep Terry’s undercover status a secret for so long (almost 50 minutes!), when it was pretty obvious from the get-go.Obviously, Joanou must have a decent touch with the actors, because he got some pretty strong performances.I just wasn’t terribly impressed with the way the story was told.
Unfortunately, the story was the weakest part of this film, and it needed all the help it could get.The last act of the script is just plain dumb, testosterone-fueled action, completely at odds with the tone of the rest of the movie.I don’t think Kathleen’s character added much of anything to the overall story, and I would have preferred Terry’s friendship with Jackie be the focus.Splitting Terry’s devotion between the two characters made his inevitable betrayal less interesting, because there was always the slim chance that Kathleen might forgive him for arresting her brothers.Oh, and the whole waiting-an-hour-to-reveal-Terry-is-a-cop thing?Completely unnecessary.It was implied in the very first scene and was beyond obvious. Really, the only surprises this movie has are what Frankie is willing to do to clinch his deal with the mafia. Unfortunately, the focus of the story is on Terry.
State of Grace isn’t a bad movie, but it definitely underachieves.With the talented actors here, most directors would be able to make a classic.Instead, what we have is a less complicated version of The Departed.Gary Oldman’s performance, though, is certainly worth watching.It’s just too bad it was spent on an otherwise mediocre movie.
