Last Man Standing . Austin Chronicle . 02-23-99

Last Man Standing

DIRECTED BY: Walter Hill

REVIEWED: 02-23-99

Walter Hill directed this loose remake of Kurosawa's Yojimbo with John Smith (Willis) as a drifting mercenary gunman who comes into the parched, fictional West Texas town of Jericho and finds himself in the middle of a gang war between two rival bootlegging gangs. A small, near-ghost-town in Texas may seem like an improbable setting for two tweed-suited Chicago gangs, but there you have it. A gun thug vandalizes Smith's car on his way through town and suggests that he find another place to pass the time. Rather than forget it and move on, Smith goes over to the gang headquarters and puts about 20 bullets in the goon. Soon he finds himself in a bidding war between the two rival gangs, both of whom can use the services of a kamikaze triggerman. A grizzled sheriff (Dern) is totally apathetic about upholding the law and is too intimidated by the two factions to act; he is a man with a price tag hanging Minnie Pearl-style on his badge. Gang leader Doyle (Kelly) is also obsessed with a half-Indian girlfriend who he keeps as a near-prisoner; add twitchy Thompson-gunner Hickey (Walken) and you have the makings of a heavily stylized, quasi-mythic tale of good and evil blended into shades of gray, an odd combination of Western and gangster film set in Prohibition-era Texas. Smith's character is a cipher, a man with no allegiances or principles, terse, curt, and flinty; Willis' performance is as arid as the dirt streets in the rickety town of Jericho. Almost all the lines are exchanged in hoarse whispers, except for Doyle, who hollers his brains out every time the camera is turned on him, and that is the film's single biggest failing. Its dime-novel characterizations are hard-boiled to the point of evoking giggles from time to time. However, whatever shortcomings there may be in direction are more than made up for by the glorious John Woo-style gun battles. It's worth seeing just for squinty Willis walking into a place and blasting away with a Browning Hi-Power in each fist, leaving a dozen or so corpses in his wake.

--Jerry Renshaw

Full Length Reviews
Last Man Standing
Last Man Standing

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