Wikipedia

The Last Boy Scout

The Last Boy Scoutis a 1991 Americanbuddyaction comedy filmdirected byTony Scottfrom a screenplay byShane Black,and produced byJoel Silver.It starsBruce WillisandDamon Wayans,withNoble Willingham,Chelsea Field,Taylor Negron,Danielle Harris,andHalle Berry.The film follows a washed-up private investigator (Willis) who teams up with a scandalized formerfootballstar (Wayans) to uncover a political conspiracy involving their former employers.

The Last Boy Scout
Theatrical release poster
Directed byTony Scott
Screenplay byShane Black
Story by
  • Shane Black
  • Greg Hicks
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyWard Russell
Edited by
Music byMichael Kamen
Production
companies
Distributed byWarner Bros.
Release date
  • December 13, 1991(1991-12-13)
Running time
105 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$43 million[1]
Box office$114.5 million

The film was released byWarner Bros. Picturesin the United States on December 13, 1991, to mixed reviews and a smaller than expected box office. Retrospective reviews have been more positive, and the film has developed acult following.[2][3]

Plot

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Duringhalftimeat a football game, Los Angeles Stallionsrunning backBilly Cole receives a call from Milo, a man who warns him to win the game or he will be killed. Cole ingestsPCPand in a drug-induced rage, brings a gun onto the field, shooting three opposing players to reach the end zone before shooting himself in the head. Meanwhile,private investigatorJoe Hallenbeck, a disgraced formerSecret Serviceagent who was once a national hero for saving the President from an assassination attempt, discovers that his wife Sarah is having an affair with his friend and business partner, Mike Matthews. Before this, Mike gave Joe an assignment to act as bodyguard for a stripper named Cory. Mike is then killed by a car bomb outside Joe's house.

That night at a strip club, Joe is approached by Cory's boyfriend, former StallionsquarterbackJimmy Dix, who was banned from the league on gambling charges and alleged drug abuse. While Cory and Jimmy exchange conversations, Joe waits outside and is eventually knocked out by a team of hitmen. Jimmy and Cory leave the bar in separate cars while Joe overpowers the hitman left to dispatch him. When Cory is struck from behind and stops to confront the other driver, she is killed by the hitmen. Jimmy is then fired upon, but is saved by Joe.

At Cory's apartment, Jimmy and Joe find a taped phone conversation between Senator Calvin Baynard, who leads a congressional investigation into gambling in sports, and Stallions owner Sheldon Marcone. When Joe was in the Secret Service, he witnessed Baynard torturing a woman in a hotel room and assaulted the Senator to save her. Baynard retaliated by having Joe fired for refusing to cover up the incident. When the tape is ruined in Joe's faulty car stereo, Jimmy realizes that Cory tried using the tape against Marcone to put Jimmy back on the team, prompting Marcone to send the hitmen. Joe saves Jimmy from another car bomb, and tricks two hitmen into blowing themselves up. However, the explosion destroys the remaining evidence.

At Joe's house, Jimmy attempts to use cocaine in the bathroom. However, Joe catches Jimmy and kicks him out. As Jimmy leaves, Joe's daughter Darian asks him to sign a football trading card. She states that Joe was a fan of Jimmy's and never watched another game after he was banned from the league.

Learning of Mike's affair with Sarah, the police assume that Joe killed him and move to make an arrest. Milo, Marcone's top henchman, captures Joe first and shoots a detective using Joe's gun. Marcone has been buying Senate votes to legalize sports gambling, but Baynard tried toblackmailMarcone for $6 million. Aware of Joe's history with Baynard, Marcone explains it would be cheaper to kill the senator and frame Joe for the murder. Joe is taken to a wooded area and forced to hand a briefcase with money to Baynard's bodyguards, and Marcone's men surreptitiously switch it with a briefcase containing a bomb. Joe is rescued by Jimmy and Darian, and acquires both briefcases after running the bodyguards and Milo off the road. However, Milo survives and while Darian is left to wait for the police, she is abducted by Milo.

Heading to the stadium to rescue Darian, Joe and Jimmy are captured and escorted to Marcone's office. Jimmy creates a diversion, allowing them to fight their way free. Realizing that Milo plans to shoot Baynard, Joe goes after Milo while sending Jimmy to warn the senator. Grabbing the game ball, Jimmy throws it at Baynard, knocking him down just as Milo starts to open fire. Joe knocks Milo to the edge of the stadium light platform, whereSWATofficers shoot him before he falls into the moving rotor blades of a police helicopter. The briefcase of money is recovered and Marcone, having escaped with the rigged briefcase, is killed when he opens it at his estate. The next day, Joe and Sarah reconcile, and Joe and Jimmy decide to become partners.

Cast

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Other actors in the film includeEddie Griffinas the strip club DJ,Sara Suzanne Brownas a stripper,Ryan Cutronaas Harp,Michael Papajohnas a hitman,Jack Kehleras theScrabbleman,Manny Perryas the cigar thug,Rick Ducommunas the pool owner, andMorris Chestnutas the locker room kid.[4]

SingerBill Medley,and sports commentatorsVerne Lundquist,Dick ButkusandLynn Swannappear as themselves.[4]

Production

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Development and writing

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The film was based on an original script byShane Black.He wrote the script after having taken a two-year break from writing, triggered in part by the end of a relationship.The Geffen Film Companyoutbid other companies, paying a record $1.75 million for the script, with over a $1 million guaranteed up front.[5]Black later recalled:

I was busy mourning my life and, in many ways, the loss of my first real love. I didn't feel much like doing anything except smoking cigarettes and reading paperbacks. All things come around. Time passed and eventually I sat down and transformed some of that bitterness into a character, the central focus of a private eye story which becameThe Last Boy Scout.Writing that script was a very cathartic experience, one of the best experiences I've ever had. I spent so much time alone working on that. Days which I wouldn't speak. Three, four days where I maybe said a couple words. It was a wonderfully intense time where my focus was better than it's ever been. And I was rewarded so handsomely ($1.75 million) for that script, it felt like a vindication and like I was back on track.[6]

Roger Ebert,commenting on the script, said "The original screenplay forThe Last Boy Scoutset a record for its purchase price; that was probably because of the humor of the locker-room dialogue, since the plot itself could have been rewritten out of theLethal Weaponmovies by any film school grad. "[7]

Joel Silverwas guaranteed $1 million to produce.[5]Silver said in a Q&A forThe Nice Guys(2016) that Shane Black's original title wasDie Hard.Silver asked if he could take the title for a project he was working on at the time calledNothing Lasts Forever,which eventually becameDie Hard(1988).[citation needed]

Filming

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The Last Boy Scoutwas filmed in 90 days between March 11 and June 9, 1991.[8]Filming took place primarily in and aroundLos Angeles,California. The football stadium scenes were filmed at theLos Angeles Memorial ColiseumandSan Diego Stadium.[4]

The movie had a very troubled production. Conflict and arguments flared between Joel Silver, Bruce Willis and Tony Scott. Although they partner up in the film, Willis andDamon Wayanshated working with each other.[9]Silver was described as "insane, with long, horrible fits of sanity," and was compared to a fighter pilot riding as a passenger. "As soon as you hit a little bit of turbulence, he's right away going to throw the guy out of the window and take over the steering." Taylor Negron also remarked that Silver was directly involved throughout the production.[10]

Assistant directorJames Skotchdopoleattributed the tension on-set to an "overabundance of alpha males on that project. Bruce was at the height of his stardom, so was Joel, so was Tony and so was Shane. There were a lot of people who had a lot of opinions about what to do. There were some heated, early-Nineties, testosterone charged personalities on the line. It was a 'charged environment,' shall we say." WriterShane Blackhad to wrestle with the script. "I was forced to do more rewriting on that movie than on anything else I've done. There was tremendous pressure from the studio to get Bruce Willis and have this be a follow-up toDie Hard.He was reluctant, and rightly so: 'This whole movie is about me saving my wife. I just did that inDie Hard.' So they said, 'OK, let's minimize the wife and, and while we're at it, add a big finale.' There was a general pressure to somehow make it bigger. "[2]

Editing

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More problems emerged during post-production, when the original cut of the film turned out be a "borderline unwatchable workprint." Different editors were hired in an attempt to address Scott's tendency for filming excessive coverage with multiple cameras. EditorMark Helfrichdescribed sorting through "mountains of raw material" to edit the first cut: "There was more footage shot forThe Last Boy Scoutthan on any film I had ever worked on. "He recalled with incredulity that the work of previous editors appeared to have been rejected, taken apart and put back into the daily reels:" There were still splices all over the place. "Veteran action film editorMark Goldblattwas also brought in to work on the film. He later referred to the experience as one of the most frustrating jobs of his career and has often declined to discuss it in detail, although he did mention in a podcast interview[citation needed]that several editors were hired and then fired before him, and that Warner Bros. began testing the movie before it was completely finished. Studio executives fretted about the expanding budget, while less-than-enthusiastic reactions from a test screening audience, as well as the unlikeable character played by Willis, did little to allay these concerns.[11]

When editor Stuart Baird was hired, the film finally took a positive turn. Baird had been brought in to help re-edit other troubled productions, includingTango & Cash(1989) andDemolition Man(1993). Some later cuts were done with the film's graphic scenes after it was originally rated NC-17, which explains quick-cut edits in some of the death scenes in the film.[12][13][14]

Music

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The film's score was composed and conducted byMichael Kamen(who also scoredHudson Hawkthat year), his only work for Tony Scott.Bill Medleyperformed the song "Friday Night's A Great Night For Football", written bySteve DorffandJohn Bettis,on screen during the opening credits (the song is also reprised over the end titles); the song was released as a CD single byCurb Records.[15]

On August 25, 2015, La-La Land Records released a limited edition soundtrack album featuring most of Kamen's score, plus Medley's song.[16]

Reception

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Box office

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The film under-performed expectations given the star power and hype surrounding the then record price paid for the screenplay by Shane Black ($1.75 million).[17]It grossed $7.9 million in its opening weekend, and the total gross in the United States and Canada was $59.5 million.[18][19][20]Internationally, the film grossed $55 million[21]for a worldwide gross of $114.5 million. Reviews were mixed, and some critics cited the Christmas time release for such a violent film as a reason for its somewhat underwhelming box office.[22][23][24]Although the film was not a blockbuster, it helped Bruce Willis recover his star status after the disastrousHudson Hawkand became hugely popular in the video rental market.[25][26]

Critical response

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OnRotten Tomatoesthe film has an approval rating of 46% based on 41 reviews, with an average rating of 5.2/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "The Last Boy Scoutis as explosive, silly, and fun as it does represent the decline of the buddy-cop genre. "[27]OnMetacriticthe film has a weighted average score of 52 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[28]Audiences polled byCinemaScoregave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[29]

Roger Ebertgave the film three stars out of four, saying it was "a superb example of what it is: a glossy, skillful, cynical, smart, utterly corrupt and vilely misogynistic action thriller."[7]Owen Gleibermanpraised it as "a cheerfully disreputable buddy thriller that also happens to be one of the most entertaining movies of the season... [and] gives the actors room to stretch out."[22]Varietydescribed the plot as "a haze of barely connected story lines about political corruption, pro-football, gambling, infidelity, and blackmail [where] all the questions are answered by another car chase, smashing someone in the face or shooting someone in the forehead."[24]In a highly critical review, Desson Howe ofThe Washington Postcalled it "the filmic equivalent of a hate crime.... It's mindless, anti-civilization formula for boys who can't get enough."[23]

Retrospective reviews praised the writing, the direction, and the chemistry between Willis and Wayans, and some critics noted it as one of the best films in Scott's catalog.[30][2][3]In 2022, Alan Sepinwall fromRolling StoneincludedThe Last Boy ScoutonThe Best of Bruce Willis: 10 Memorables TV and Movie Performancesand said: "The neo-noir thriller The Last Boy Scout is on some level (also) trash — bookended by wildly over-the-top action sequences at football stadiums — elevated not only by director Tony Scott's self-awareness of how ridiculous it all is, but by the sheer force of Willis' performance as a disgraced Secret Service agent turned seedy private detective"[31]

Creator response

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Shane Black andTony Scottboth expressed dissatisfaction with the final film, and said in later years how the original script was far better.[32][33]Scott accused Joel Silver of interfering with the production and swore off working with the producer again.[2][34]His next film,True Romance,features an unflattering film producer character patterned after Silver.[35][36]

Accolades

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The film was nominated for twoMTV Movie Awards.[37]

  • Best Action Sequence– For the helicopter blade sequence
  • Best On-Screen Duo– Bruce Willis & Damon Wayans

References

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  1. ^The Last Boy Scoutat theAFI Catalog of Feature Films
  2. ^abcdWilliams, Owen (May 31, 2016)."Who killed The Last Boy Scout? Bruce Willis, Shane Black and the making of an action masterpiece".The Telegraph– via www.telegraph.co.uk.
  3. ^ab"'The Last Boy Scout', Shane Black and Tony Scott's LA Miracle ".May 17, 2016.
  4. ^abc"The Last Boy Scout (1991)".AFI Catalog of Feature Films.RetrievedAugust 13,2023.
  5. ^abEller, Claudia (April 25, 1990). "Geffen Co. comes prepared, pays record $1.75-mil for 'Last Boy Scout' script".Variety.p. 7.
  6. ^Bauer, Erik (December 1, 2014).""I Like Violence" – Shane Black ".Creative Screenwriting.
  7. ^abEbert, Roger(December 13, 1991)."The Last Boy Scout".Chicago Sun-Times.Archivedfrom the original on October 10, 2012.RetrievedJanuary 2,2021.
  8. ^"Last Boy Scout, The (1991)".Turner Classic Movies.RetrievedJanuary 18,2016.
  9. ^Taylor, Larry (May 17, 2016)."'The Last Boy Scout', Shane Black and Tony Scott's LA Miracle ".RetrievedApril 4,2017.
  10. ^"A Talk With Taylor Negron - Retro Junk Article".RetrievedApril 4,2017.
  11. ^Page, Priscilla (September 12, 2018)."No Heroes Left: Revisiting THE LAST BOY SCOUT".Birth.Movies.Death.
  12. ^Williams, Owen (May 31, 2016)."Who killed The Last Boy Scout? Bruce Willis, Shane Black and the making of an action masterpiece".The Telegraph.RetrievedApril 4,2017.
  13. ^Knight, Jacob (April 15, 2015)."Acid In The Coliseum: The Films Of Tony Scott (Part Two)".RetrievedApril 4,2017.
  14. ^Mengarelli, Frank (September 2, 2016)."PTS Presents EDITOR'S SUITE with MARK GOLDBLATT Vol. 2".RetrievedApril 4,2017.
  15. ^"Bill Medley - Friday Night's A Great Night For Football".Discogs.1991.
  16. ^"LAST BOY SCOUT, THE: LIMITED EDITION".La-La Land Records.
  17. ^Adler, Leslie (December 17, 1991)."Movie Studios Urgently Need Christmas Hits".The Los Angeles Times.RetrievedDecember 12,2010.
  18. ^Fox, David J. (December 23, 1991)."JFK, 'Hook' Bring Out the Crowds 'Hook' Stays Atop Weekend Box Office".The Los Angeles Times.RetrievedDecember 12,2010.
  19. ^Fox, David J. (December 17, 1991)."Weekend Box Office Holiday Sweepstakes Starts This Week".The Los Angeles Times.RetrievedDecember 12,2010.
  20. ^"The Last Boy Scout".Box Office Mojo.RetrievedJanuary 18,2016.
  21. ^Groves, Don (February 22, 1993). "Hollywood Wows World Wickets".Variety.p. 85.
  22. ^ab"The Last Boy Scout".Entertainment Weekly.January 10, 1992. Archived fromthe originalon October 29, 2013.RetrievedDecember 12,2010.
  23. ^ab"The Last Boy Scout".Washington Post.December 13, 1991.RetrievedDecember 12,2010.
  24. ^ab"The Last Boy Scout".Variety.December 31, 1990.Archivedfrom the original on November 7, 2012.RetrievedDecember 12,2020.
  25. ^Hunt, Dennis (April 30, 1992)."Video Rental Chart: 'Last Boy Scout' Eyes First Place".The Los Angeles Times.RetrievedFebruary 3,2012.
  26. ^Hochman, Steve (May 14, 1992)."Video Rental Chart: A 'Boy Scout' Unseats a 'King'".The Los Angeles Times.RetrievedFebruary 3,2012.
  27. ^"The Last Boy Scout (1991)".Rotten Tomatoes.Fandango.RetrievedOctober 6,2021.
  28. ^"The Last Boy Scout".Metacritic.
  29. ^"CinemaScore".Archived fromthe originalon December 20, 2018.
  30. ^"Looking back at Tony Scott's The Last Boy Scout".Den of Geek.May 31, 2013.
  31. ^"The Best of Bruce Willis: 10 Memorable TV and Movie Performances".Rolling Stone.March 30, 2022.
  32. ^"Shane Black Reveals The Hero Of 'Predator' and It's Not Arnold Schwarzenegger, Talks Time Travel Horror Script And More".June 9, 2016.RetrievedApril 4,2017.
  33. ^Movie Scripts: Last Boy Scout 1991
  34. ^""The Last Boy Scout" Both Satirized and Reveled in Buddy-Cop Movie Excess ".Collider. January 23, 2023.RetrievedAugust 13,2023.
  35. ^Edison Smith (February 19, 2021)."You're So Cool: True Romance A Pop Culture Fairy Tale".RetrievedAugust 13,2023.
  36. ^"Maxim and the Astonishingly Interesting True Romance Article".MTV. Archived fromthe originalon August 13, 2023.RetrievedAugust 13,2023.
  37. ^"The films of Tony Scott:The Last Boy Scout".CBS News.RetrievedJanuary 18,2016.
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