TheLittleSongbird Was not expecting much from 'Last Man Standing'. Despite a good cast on paper and a competent director who did generally deserve a better reputation, its reception at the time was mixed to negative and today is not much better (though as one has seen with many films audience reaction has been a little kinder to it over time).Seeing it for myself when it aired last night, will admit to expecting the worst having heard more bad things than good. Including a long-running magazine that mostly gets a lot of respect from me when it comes to film critiquing, even when we're not always on the same page, that tore it to shreds. 'Last Man Standing' turned out to be a heavily flawed film and to me a not particularly good one but actually found it not that bad a film. Do agree with a lot of the criticisms against it, well almost all, but 'Last Man Standing' does have things in its favour (that have been mentioned in previous reviews here) and there are far worse films out there.'Last Man Standing' does have good things. Personally thought the look of the film was good, not always attractive and often very darkly bleak but then again it's not an attractive story that it has, it's very stylishly shot and cohesively edited with costumes and sets that are both evocative and brooding. Nice to see mention of the music score, which is very soothing in the opening sequence and although relatively understated fits well, and of the beautifully poetic opening sequence.Not all the performances are bad, though most are not great at all to put it lightly. Christopher Walken has a lot of fun as the villain and is rightly hissable, the best actor in 'Last Man Standing' by quite some way and one of few that seems to be trying. He is also a strong contender for the film's best assets. Bruce Dern also tries hard.Bruce Willis conversely is a completely flat lead, he doesn't look interested at all and when he's trying to be gritty he has two expressions, those of looking constipated and looking like he's half asleep. Most of the supporting cast are completely wasted in severely underwritten roles that fail to stand out from similar ones of their kind in the genre. The narration has been universally panned and for good reason, it is far too over-explanatory, serves very little point and is delivered terribly.After a promising start, 'Last Man Standing' has moments of tension and fun but mostly uses every Sergio Leone-indebted cliché in the book and drags them out until they are no longer interesting, the pacing suffers as a result with a lot of it being sluggish. The un-originality (with a strong influence of Sergio Leone and Akira Kurosawa's 'Yojimbo') of the story can be forgiven, the dullness, ridiculousness and that it takes itself far too seriously with the bleak atmosphere often laid on too thick can't be. The script is stilted, especially the narration, the action occasionally excites but generally it's clumsy and pedestrian and the downbeat ending is so indifferently done, intelligence insultingly ridiculous and very anti-climactic.In summation, not awful but not great or even good. A little better than has been reputed but to me it is very easy to understand the critical reaction. 5/10 Bethany Cox

Leofwine_draca Although the story's nothing new, this different action outing gets by on looks alone. Shot in sepia, the film brings a dead-end western town to life - along with all of the reptilian crooks and criminals who live in it. Walter Hill perhaps manages too well in recreating his lifeless town, as the whole film is weighted down by an oppressive atmosphere of boredom and depression. Or maybe that's just me… Bruce Willis stars as the down-at-heel hero, playing pretty much his usual early '90s world-weary turn. This is until the film takes a darker turn towards the finale, which sees our hero taking a brutal beating that leaves him half-dead, with only one eye. Thankfully, he's still fit enough to see off the rest of the remaining baddies with his guns that are seemingly filled with never-ending bullets. Willis is supported by a familiar cast, including Bruce Dern as the local Sheriff, William Sanderson as a bartender, and the hissable Christopher Walken as villainous henchman 'Hickey'.So anyway, this is a bleak, pessimistic film which constantly looks like it's about to burst into violent action - that is until Willis' soul-sapping narration pops up once more to drain your life away. The grumbled narration is certainly one thing I could have done without. Thankfully to make up for this miscalculation, we have some kinetic action scenes shot with a fluid energy and about a million bullets - all very impressive. In the end, though, LAST MAN STANDING is simply a passable thriller, that offers up nothing new to this genre.

Gabriel Teixeira A mysterious drifter, identifying himself as John Smith (Bruce Willis), arrives in the small town of Jericho, at the Mexican border. As the city is controlled by two warring gangs, Strozzi's (Ned Eisenberg) and Doyle's (David Patrick Kelly), Smith starts playing both gangs against each other as a means to earn some cash as a hired gun.Yet another adapted version of Akira Kurosawa's 'Yojimbo', this time turned into a gangster film (with a touch of western). It is proof of how good that story was that, decades and multiple re-adaptations later (my favorite being Sergio Leone's 'A Fistful of Dollars'), the story still manages to be interesting and entertaining.The movie is well directed by Walter Hill, who manages to give it a very stylish yet desolate look. The cast is absolutely perfect, everyone looking and acting their roles to perfection; in special: the gang bosses, Christopher Walken as Doyle's right-hand man, Bruce Dern as the sheriff and William Sanderson as the bartender and Willis' helping hand. It is a very good action film, never boring, with very good dialogues and very stylish and entertaining action scenes which are made to be quite similar to the old Italian westerns' shoot-outs. Speaking of Italian Westerns, Bruce Willis does his best Clint Eastwood impersonation (he is, after all, playing the same role Eastwood did in Leone's film). He does the eye-squinting, often silent and very, very muffled whispering-talking with a good deal of success; however, he often comes across as too silent, being difficult to hear him sometimes (though that is really my only complaint regarding his performance). Christopher Walken too, though his character at least is given a reason for doing that.Unlike Gian Maria Volonté or Tatsuya Nakadai, Christopher Walken actually manages to upstage Bruce Willis' nameless protagonist when in scene together. Bruce Dern and Ned Eisenberg, likewise, steal the show in their scenes.

meritcoba "One thing is for sure.. they're all better of dead.." Kristl repeated the lines. Kristl and Henry were having a cup of tea in their garage-turned-movie- theater while the movie credits rolled past. They had replayed that last part of the movie because they both liked the movie."Yes?" Henry said, looking at Kristl trying to figure out where she was going with those lines, quoted directly from the movie. "Pity they just forgot to finish the job properly and kill of the whole cast including Bruce Willis." Kristl said."Uhmm" Henry was somewhat distracted by the exit sign that was flickering at the edge of his vision. He suspected that the light-bulb would fail in the near future. "I mean, there is nothing against remaking a movie. And this is, I heard, the official remake of Yojimbo, the classic movie made by Kurosawa, which was redone some years later as a Fistful of Dollars with Clint Eastwood. But it has turned out to be a completely superfluous movie done by the numbers that does not compare in any way to either movies. There is simply nothing memorable about this movie unless it is the totally ridiculous fighting scenes where Bruce Willis somehow survives getting shot at by ten men armed with guns, shotguns, dual pistols, despite them fellows firing first and firing from distances down to ten paces." Kristl said."Well.. it was a nice try… and was entertaining.. I mean it has Bruce Willis and Christopher Walken. Walken is always a nice bad guy and he does that again, considering that he is only to be seen for a few minutes. And William Sanderson is in it. I always liked William.. He should get better roles.. maybe a main lead in a Coen brothers movie.""I just got the feeling his role resembled the one from Blade Runner a bit too much. Like somehow he is good at playing slightly retarded people.. or seemingly retarded people. And it is this role he plays here, again.""Heh.""When I try very hard, i mean really really hard, then what I can come up with, is that the music at the end is nice and some of the landscape shots, the few there are, are nice. The rest is just.. plain nothing. The whole story stumbles along and nothing remotely interesting happens.""I am sorry.. I can not remember anything else, except that it is a decent action film." Henry shrugged."When I try to think of what wrecks the film the most I have to either choose: the utterly ridiculous setting; a mob war in western town set in the mid-twenties, or casting mr smith(nobody) as a film noir guy that talks with an boring overvoice. I mean.. the overvoice simply wrecks the whole character because we know what he is thinking and through this thinking we know what his motives are.. and this is exactly that we do not know in the other two movies because we are left to wonder whether the destruction of both gangs by nobody is either the result of good intentions or bad intentions. This is an anti-hero.. ambiguous.. unknown. The overvoice simply kills that.""But what probably undoes the whole movie is that the movie does nothing remarkable with the new angles.. If it has to be a mob movie, then do something with it.. and if the character is a film noir character it is more than drinking whisky, having an overvoice and being beaten up.. and having someone vaguely act as a femme fatale. The dialogue is superior uninteresting.""Uhm." Henry said under the waterfall over sentences."But actually it is not surprising because the director, Walter Hill, has never made any remarkable movie. In fact he makes middle-of-the- road-action movies and when he gets the possibility to remake a classic movie and actually show he might be able to do more with the material he gets, he chickens out and makes another middle-of-the-road-action movie.. which is what the last man standing basically is.""Quite. You know the music is from Mr.Ry Cooder?""Oh.. That explains why I like it.""...Say, Kristl?" Henry said after a few moments of silence."Yeah?""What would you have done if you had been ask to make the movie?""Uhm.""Well.. considering you never made a movie in your life.. what would you have done?""Well you do not need to have made a movie to judge them..""Yes, I know.. but what would you have done.. I am curious.""Well. maybe it would..perhaps.. have taken William Sanderson character as the main or the undertaker.. or maybe… have them merged.. So that the whole story is from a different angle.. perhaps have the mob war really take place in a city.. where the mob is and have cut out the overvoice and make the hero Sanderson, a really film noir guy.""Ah.""And used an expressionistic movie style.. because I like the third man.""And have everyone die in the end?""Yeah.. ""Will be an arty movie, I suppose.""Probably. Not a middle of the road action movie.""No..and probably one that lost money.""Yeah.. but it would be memorable.. hah" Kristl said.Because someone lost a lot of money or because it was arty? Henry thought in overvoice."Either way.." Krislt said with a smile, "Or both.."www.meritcoba.com