The Last Boy Scout (DVD)

note: also appears on Flixster and The Student Room in part The Last Boy Scout harkens back to a more innocent time where one could get away with a rousing R-rated buddy cop film that also had some smart laughs and charismatic leads. The buddy cop genre, sadly, has mostly degenerated into crude laughs and leads that just don't have the "wow" factor to carry off what is otherwise a decent enough idea. The Last Boy Scout makes me wish we were still in the 1990s mindset of cinema, instead of crudely churning out brainless flicks that don't really deliver the action either. This film is an antidote to that creative stagnation. Bruce Willis ...  Read the complete review

Bruce Willis must have had a wonderfully fun time in the late 1980s and early 1990s with the run of action films he had the chance to apply his stubble to. The 1991 film Last Boy Scout was one such film, and combined Willis' ability to play the detective in hard times with one of the fast talking Wayans brothers, Damon in this case. Tony Scott took the director's chair for this ride. Joe Hallenbeck is a private detective down on his luck. His estranged wife is seeing another man and wants Joe out of her life, while his daughter is growing up and out of control, becoming more aware of the dangers of daddy's job. When Joe teams up with disgraced former ...  Read the complete review

For some, Bruce Willis has fashioned a fine acting career from little actual acting talent. For those in that camp, they'll point to the usual Willis actioners in which, more often than not, he'll run around wearing little but sweat spray, a gun and a vest. Others will point to his fine understated performances in M. Night Shyamalan's best works to date, Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. They'll point out that people forget his superb performance in Twelve Monkeys (where, remarkably he's overshadowed by an amazing performance from Brad Pitt - who in turn is overshadowed by Gilliam's direction), or a performance in The Fifth Element that presented a controlled air ...  Read the complete review

Hey, Bruce, our man! Dateline: Deepest, Darkest 1991 Dear Mr Willis, Bruckheimer, your agent here,wishing you well. I'm happy to inform you that I have recently been successful in securing a marvellous new film role for you in what looks set to be a wonderful project, apparently to be known as 'The Last Boy Scout' (amazingly quirky title, don't you think? Just how you like them, Mr Willis, good for your very hip image isn't it?). The job in question is to play a very deep and instantly credible lead character by the name of Joe Hallenbeck, a former Presidential security guard who once took a bullet intended for ...  Read the complete review

My first idea for a title on this was: "Touch me again and I'll kill you". But I see that this title has already been stolen from me. Which would explain my pretty naff one. I think that this film is excellent. Although I seem to have a bad habit of watching films that I like again and again, I still enjoy this one. It has all the qualitys needed for a great action film, a great actor(thats Bruce Willis by the way), lots of explosions and stuff and of course a bit of good old fashioned humour. Although this film doesn't have the audience rolling around in hysterics, it has lots of those small "Bruce Willis" style jokes which make ...  Read the complete review