Special Coverage The Photo IssueThe Must List2008 Fall TV2008 Fall Movies2008 Fall Music
  • --
  • D

Writer-director Walter Hill follows up last year's nuanced, underrated Wild Bill with this numskull, overwrought shoot-'em-up. Bruce Willis is a 1930s gun for hire who drives into a Texas border town where two rival gangs are lying in wait for each other. Shifting his allegiance back and forth to whoever's offering more bucks, Willis is a soulless mercenary. But he ends up risking everything to help a woman — Karina Lombard (The Firm) — held hostage by one gang. Willis is stiff; Bruce Dern shrugs through the role of a squirrelly sheriff; Christopher Walken gives his umpteenth violent-maniac interpretation. Hill says Last is his version of Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961), but it's more reminiscent of Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest. Whatever Hill did this same laconic-loner redemption tale better 18 years ago, with The Driver. D


Posted Sep 20, 1996
 

Add Your Comments

The rules: Keep it clean, and stay on the subject or we might delete your comment. If you see inappropriate language, e-mail us. You must have javascript enabled to submit a comment.
--
Change/Edit your grade
characters remaining