Latest / Houselights: A Film Director Podcast / The Last Boy Scout (1991) - Tony Scott | Houselights #164

Transcript

The Last Boy Scout (1991) - Tony Scott | Houselights #164 · Houselights: A Film Director Podcast

0:03
Welcome to the ned Palty. Welcome back to House Lights, everybody, as
0:22
we continue our journey through the House of Scott, or maybe it's the House
0:26
of also Scott or House of Scott's, because this is a second Scott that
0:30
we're covering, but it's Tony Scott. We're looking at the works of Tony
0:34
Scott here on House Lights. And as part of this great journey, we
0:38
are coming upon now a nineteen ninety one cult classic question Mark, The Last
0:43
Boy Scout, starring Bruce Willis and Damon Wayans, and joining me, your
0:48
esteemed terrible person who happens to be a protagonist. Are my fellow terrible people
0:53
who happen to be co protagonists, Tristan Medell and Darren Moser. Gentlemen,
0:59
are you ready to smoke cigarette butts off of the wet pavement and save the
1:03
life of a senator who's a scumbag? Or as I like to call it,
1:06
Thursday, There you go, There you go, very film noirri without
1:11
the narration as it were. This has got all of the elements of it,
1:15
doesn't it. I just always make sure when I'm walking off into the
1:18
sunset, I'm behind a tree, so you know well, it's you know,
1:21
it's the realism. It's you don't want to break the fourth wall.
1:25
You want to make the audience imagine and participate with their imaginations. Of course,
1:29
as we're getting ready to talk about The Last Boy Scout, please if
1:33
this is one of the best podcasts you've ever listened to, or if it
1:36
simply is not one of the worst, give us a five star rating over
1:38
on Apple Podcasts. We'd really appreciate it, and of course you can reach
1:42
out to us at the nerd party dot com slash contact. But gentlemen,
1:46
I returned to The Last Boy Scout, and I was very excited too,
1:51
because it's been many years since I watched it, and when I did see
1:53
it for the first time many years ago, I really truly enjoyed it.
1:57
Now, it was more years ago than I care to remember the first time
2:00
I watched it. I have watched it in between, but I was truly
2:05
delighted by the first viewing. I can also tell you that I was so
2:09
young. I was delighted by many things during that age that maybe I wouldn't
2:14
be delighted by now. But as is tradition, of course, I'm presuming
2:17
that neither one of you is well versed in the lore of the Last Boy
2:22
Scout Tristan, would that be a fair assumption. Yeah, this was my
2:25
first time watching the movie. In preparation for this podcast, was watching this
2:29
movie. I had never seen it. This was one of those movies that
2:32
I would pass in Blockbuster all the time, Like I'd see the cover and
2:36
I would recognize the cover. I'm like, oh, it's Bruce Willis and
2:38
Damon Wayns and Damon Wayne's is holding a football for some reason, Okay,
2:43
and yeah, it was just one of those things that was in the back
2:46
of my mind, but I never had the urge to watch it. I
2:47
didn't know that this was a Tony Scott film. If I knew it was
2:50
a Tony Scott film, I probably would have given it a shot. But
2:53
as I was watching this, in the first scene when we see that football
2:58
player shoot like let a gun and shoot people, yes, I remember seeing
3:04
that on TV. Like I remember seeing that scene and like me, my
3:07
dad and I think my uncle all just kind of looked at each other were
3:09
like, that's weird, Like you know, like it's an image that you've
3:14
never seen in your life, and you probably will never see again is a
3:16
football player on the field pulling out a handgun. But I really thought that
3:23
that that would have gotten a little bit more attention in the movie, considering
3:27
it was the first scene, and like, that's that is a holy crap
3:30
moment. It's definitely a showstopper, Darren. Do you think it had anything
3:34
to do with the NFL not being a partner and letting them use licensed team
3:38
names? Oh? Man, Yeah, I did kind of pick up on
3:40
that too, where I was like, wait, these aren't I know,
3:44
I know, I don't. I know, I don't know a lot about
3:46
football, but I know that these aren't actual football. No, the NFL
3:52
would charge so much. That's why you never see an actual football team,
3:55
to see them watching this or reading the script and being like I don't want
4:00
to go near this. Oh yeah, I promise you. They never bothered
4:03
asking the NFL. There's no point because the NFL is Yeah, whenever they
4:09
do fake it always makes me think of Canadian football. Yeah, like I
4:15
wish there was. I wish the XFL was like a viable alternative league because
4:18
I could actually plug into those sorts of things, these sorts of movies.
4:23
I could be like Okay, it makes sense. I've never heard of this
4:26
team because it's just you know, it's the Juggernaut. But you know,
4:30
Darren, do you think that now? I don't know of any football game
4:33
ever in history, at least not one that I've ever watched where anybody got
4:36
shot on the field. Do you think that taking that out of it?
4:41
How did you feel about the opening with the football game and the rain and
4:44
everything like that. Did you feel thrown into it or did you feel more
4:46
what the hell is happening right now? I was in it definitely because there
4:50
wasn't a wide shot to be seen. I mean, true, there was,
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but you know, hey, it's set a style. I was like,
4:58
okay, it's one. It's really rating like a lot, which you
5:01
know they do invent stadiums that close, but whatever, like seems unsafe amount
5:06
of red? Yeah, like yes, and uh yeah, just everything it
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was given me kind of like some of all fear vibes, like I felt
5:16
like something was going to happen like that. It successfully conveyed that tone because
5:21
of how it's panning around. I don't because we don't even see the lead
5:27
ballplayer who's kind of wigging out for a while. Like, it's definitely setting
5:31
up a lot of these shots. Uh, but in a way, it's
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it's laying the groundwork, but it's laying the groundwork that football is involved period.
5:43
Like okay, which isn't a bad thing. It's just I wouldn't have
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guessed that that's like the main It's kind of like football's also involved in ace
5:51
Ventura Pet Detective. And I say that is a key point to that movie.
5:58
No, but it is the backdrop if you want to go there,
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very very true. I I loved revisiting this simply because I'd forgotten about the
6:10
opening credit sequence. And how can you not instantly fall in love with a
6:14
movie that is that this idea is so certifiably nuts. You don't. I
6:19
don't understand how it even happened. I'm sitting there. These are these are
6:25
the actual titles. These are I recognize these names? What is going on?
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I'm glad that you guys brought that up, because as it was going
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on and then we saw the names pop up, I was like, like,
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it took me about like the third or fourth name for me to realize,
6:39
wait, oh, wait, oh oh, this is part of the
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movie titles, Like we're not just seeing a segment from Friday Night Football.
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But I was blown away Friday night. It was a Thursday night, I
6:49
can't remember it was, so I think it was Friday night, pretty sure
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Friday, because yeah, well either way, it's it's a crazy way that
6:58
whole thing they made it and feel they were going to show you that entire
7:01
song and played it again over the final credits. God bless them. They
7:05
played it again over the final credits, and I listened to the whole thing.
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I know, Trista, I'll toss it back to you. I consider
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this whole opening, for lack of a better term, a declaration of crazy.
7:17
This is this is the movie kicking you in the teeth and saying,
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I'm not even going to hide how nuts this whole two hour, almost two
7:26
hours is going to be. You're either on board from this from the from
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the start, or you're just walking out of the theater and trying to get
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into a different movie after those opening credits. Do you agree? Or is
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this is this something where you know it's magnetic enough you don't understand how anybody
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would be turned off by it. No, it felt like a betrayal of
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tone. I think for the rest of the picture. Really yeah, like
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I didn't, I didn't dig it. I mean I was first I thought
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it was cool that, you know, they did the whole fake NFL thing,
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and because you know, I have such fond memories of you know,
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are you ready for some football? And you know, like the guy,
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you know, screaming and singing and everything like that, Like I had a
8:01
dog that would sing, you know, with with the guy every Monday night
8:05
or Sunday night. I can't remember which one. But it was so that,
8:07
you know, brought back warm memories. But then immediately we cut to
8:11
you know, what we were talking about, like a deluge of water on
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the in the of World War two, I mean yeah, and then like
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I don't know how they got it so like they showed these giant lights and
8:24
I don't know how they got it so dark even though the lights were right,
8:28
the contrast was turned up a little too high. You took the end
8:31
filter off, right, you took it off before you that you did,
8:35
you shot the whole opening sequence like that. Okay, we'll make it work.
8:39
We'll make it work. It will make it work, you know,
8:41
but yeah, it was it was strange, like I thought it was it's
8:45
I think sometimes it can be done well where you know, you have something
8:48
crazy and it kind of slaps you in the face, where like one thing
8:50
that I'm thinking of this isn't really a fair comparison, but it's what makes
8:52
me think of is you know, across the Spider Verse, where it's just
8:56
absolutely insane banana as opening titles where you're just kind of like, oh my
9:03
god, like what is happening to me? Like my brain is starting to
9:05
bleed, and then we get into like normal narration. I think that does
9:09
a really good job of showing you like, this is going to be insane,
9:13
this is going to have some crazy moments, the animation is going to
9:16
be you know, stellar. But with Last Boy Scout, it just it
9:20
was too much of a tonal shift, and I think, honestly to kind
9:22
of like not to tip my hat a little too much. But I think
9:26
that was one major problem with the picture was that I had it had no
9:30
idea what it wanted to be. When I was talking about the opening,
9:33
I was including the football game because I would say that I'm sorry you're talking
9:37
about the song. Oh it's okay, It's it's okay. Because I agree
9:39
with you where like the song is funny and you're like, oh, it's
9:43
going to be sort of like a comedy sort of thing, and then the
9:45
football game happens. You're like, what, okay, no, fine,
9:48
if we're just talking about the football game. I really like that alone,
9:52
even though it was preposterous, like that alone, like with most Tony Scott
9:58
films, right when you want why you're in here, like this is a
10:01
Tony Scott film, even though it's a completely different cinematographer from his last two
10:03
films. You know this guy. I think actually this cinematographer worked with him
10:07
on Days of Thunder. I could be wrong about that, but I think
10:09
so. Oh, I'm sorry, I meant the last two films that we
10:11
were talking about. Oh okay, I gotcha. Sorry, Like with a
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I actually know what what I was thinking about was Top Gun and Beverly Hills
10:20
cop To and Beverly Hills cop To. Guy, Okay, I'm sorry about
10:22
that. I understand what you're saying, and I see what you're saying too,
10:24
yatcha. So it's that moment where you know how we asked that question
10:28
where in the wayback machine with when we were talking about Nolan and Fister left
10:35
to go do his own thing, and we're like, Okay, what's a
10:37
Nolan movie without Fister going to look like? And You're like, Oh,
10:41
it's going to look like a Nolan movie. And that's kind of what I
10:43
feel like we've discovered with Tony Scott here is that the director has his own
10:48
vision and style and he gets his cinematographer to match that. Now there,
10:54
this is a legendarily troubled production that goes all the way through the editing bay.
10:58
Apparently, according to legend, many editors hired and fired a lot of
11:03
clash of wills about what the movie's going to look like. At the end
11:07
before as as he's typically been known for throughout his career, Stuart Baird rides
11:11
in on his white horse and says, I got this, fellas, and
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he puts something together that they can release now. Darren, I would say
11:18
that the editorial flow shows that sort of back and forth over the first half
11:24
hour, and then it settles into what I would expect from a Tony Scott
11:28
movie. It feels more the way that Beverly Hills Cop two did and the
11:31
way that I have in my brain Top Gun or Days of Thunder or even
11:35
some of his later stuff. Do you agree with that or do you think
11:39
that it looks and feels like you're used to a Tony Scott movie being cut?
11:43
Yeah, I mean there's I kind of agree with Tristan where like there's
11:48
a lot of stuff going on in this movie because we spend a lot of
11:54
time with Bruce willis like learning to hate him cool Like no, no,
12:01
no, they're not wanting us to hate him, but he hates himself and
12:05
they want to make sure we understand that he hates himself. Maybe that's what
12:07
it is. But like the one time that Bruce Willis like cracked a smile,
12:11
you know, I thought he was gonna punch the guy like the next
12:15
second, like or the guy's gonna be like, oh, don't smile.
12:16
It scares me when he smiled, because he's very the opposite of like Axel
12:20
Foley. Axel Foley's like cracking a grin the whole time and like just rolling
12:24
with it. This guy I almost expected, like some noir narration to creep
12:31
over like that was back in the gutter again and it was you know,
12:35
Thursday, it was raining and I thought of her something like that. Well,
12:39
I definitely. I definitely think that you can looking at The Last Boy
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Scout, Tristan, I don't know if you would agree with this, but
12:43
like I think, looking at The Last Boy Scout you can see where Tony
12:48
Scott's natural tendency toward hard edged action wasn't really like it sort of explains what
12:56
we heard about with Beverly Hills Cop Too, where they had to go back
12:58
and like sort of punch it up with some comedy reshoots. Do you think
13:01
that Last Boy Scout points us in the direction of where he was taking Beverly
13:05
Hills Cop Too before they stepped in and lightened the tone. I don't really
13:09
know how to answer your question other than I think he was the wrong director
13:13
for this script. Personally, Yeah, I do. I do. I
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think you know, I'm a big Shane Black fan. I'm not like the
13:20
biggest Shane Black fan because I think he's He's done some pretty horrible stuff,
13:22
but you know, like you know, some really great stuff too. I
13:28
feel while I was watching this, like like you could tell it was a
13:31
Tony Scott film, and the action really felt like Tony Scott film, but
13:35
the script felt like a bastardized Shane black script and you know, and it's
13:41
one of those things where like when I learned more about the production behind the
13:45
scenes after the fact, it all made made sense. Like this very much
13:50
felt like, you know, like everybody had their say and Tony Scott had
13:54
it taken away from him. Like it really felt like that. And I'm
13:58
not saying he did a poor I'm not saying that they should have gotten a
14:03
quote unquote better director. I think Tony Scott is amazing. He's a phenomenal
14:07
director, one of the best. But for this source material and working with
14:09
Joel Silver and Bruce Willis, I think I think they needed a journeyman.
14:13
I think they needed a worker. They needed someone who would show up and
14:18
just make sure the production was running. And I think Tony Scott is too
14:22
much of a creative to take orders from too many people, like apparently,
14:26
like I heard that Bruce Willis and Joel Silver took over almost all aspects of
14:30
the production and Tony Scott was threatened of being fired and having a salary taken
14:37
away if he didn't shoot certain scenes that he didn't want to shoot. And
14:39
to me, that all makes sense, and I think it comes across on
14:43
screen where it feels like we get a haphazard Shane blackscript and we get a
14:48
haphazard Tony Scott film, and we just get this muddled piece that is Is
14:52
it comedy? Is it noir? I mean, you know you want to
14:56
watch Kiss. You want to watch something that makes sense with comedy noir?
14:58
Watch Kisskiss, Bang Bang, which was written and directed by Shane Black,
15:01
and that was his baby and well done. This one feels just tonality,
15:05
totally schizophrenic. I don't agree wholeheartedly with that, but I'll hold back on
15:11
my own take on what you're saying and kick it over to you, Darren,
15:16
like, is there where do you fall compared to Tristan? Do you
15:20
feel that this is just a movie that can't find itself through the whole thing.
15:24
Do you feel it settles down at any point? Do you feel that
15:26
it succeeds in spite of itself? So I was looking through Shane Black because
15:31
I was like, Okay, Tristan Scott his finger on the pulse of this
15:35
guy. What has he done and done a few things? Seeing that he
15:39
wrote Last Action Hero makes a lot of sense because Last Action Hero is kind
15:46
of we're combining all of this action e nineties and it's not quite hitting.
15:52
This had a very similar feel to me, where you have you know,
15:58
you have action, you have dialogue. I still don't know why this football
16:02
player is involved in the story. So there's lots of things that are kind
16:07
of coming together, and it just never you know, I enjoyed watching it,
16:11
but it never hit the mark for me. It was never like,
16:14
oh man, and then they did this, or even the big set pieces
16:18
like the you know, fighting the guy in the lights of the stadium or
16:22
the car chases were just it felt like they were all just things that were
16:26
kind of you would have in an early nineties action movie. Yeah, well,
16:33
it was hard to hit the mark for me. What's interesting to me,
16:37
and let me put this out there to you, Tristan, is the
16:41
fact that, apparently in the original script, Bruce Willis was trying to save
16:45
his wife and that got changed because he said, I've already done this in
16:48
Diehard. I don't want to have to do it again. And technically he
16:51
did it in die Hard too as well, so he felt like maybe he
16:53
was falling into a rhythm without trying to play armchair rewrite or anything like that.
16:59
If you think the all goal was the protection of his wife, was
17:02
saving her from some sort of daring situation, or she's tied up in the
17:07
daring situation. He has a savor. Do you think the film would have
17:11
benefited from that, from a larger role for missus last boy Scout. No,
17:15
I don't think it was necessarily his motivation. I thought his motivation was
17:19
fine. You know, like a woman died on his watch and so he
17:22
needs to investigate it until its end. That was enough motivation for me,
17:26
So I don't think it was needed more motivation. I read a little bit
17:30
more about Shane Black's original script and how he was going to include the character
17:36
of Sarah Moore was actually pretty disgusting where it was going to be. Oh,
17:41
I haven't read that. Yeah, the guy Milo played by Taylor Negron,
17:45
he was going to be a snuff film director, oh dear, And
17:48
so that was we were going to get some pretty violent and disgusting scenes of
17:53
Milo capturing young women and torturing them on camera and then ultimately killing them.
17:59
And so he was going to do that to Bruce Willis's wife, and he
18:02
had to rescue her from being killed with a chainsaw. And that was one
18:07
thing that I actually was pretty disgusted with with this movie was how every single
18:12
female character except for the daughter, was just a disposable sex object. That's
18:18
it. I mean, I know that some people listening are probably rolling their
18:21
eyes, but every single female character, the ones with words and the ones
18:25
without, was just a disposable sex object. And it's it was pretty pretty
18:30
blatant. It was. It was pretty disgusting, and when I read that
18:33
Shane Black wanted to take it even further in his original scripts, I'm pretty
18:37
glad that that didn't happen. I don't know that I would I would characterize
18:41
it specifically like that. I think that every character has an issue with being
18:48
a fully realized person, if that makes sense. I think that the fact
18:52
that you know, Halle Berry's the stripper, the wife is naturally unfaithful.
18:57
You have the hot tub scene, which is, you know, I guess,
19:02
supposed to function as a commentary on the sleezebag football player or something,
19:07
and then you have the prostitute that the senator is whipping and beating. Yeah.
19:11
I but that's the thing, is like, I think that that's more
19:14
of a function of the fact that we're dealing with caricatures throughout the entire thing,
19:18
and in a pulpy, trashy sort of thing. I'm not excusing it.
19:23
I'm not saying you should like it. I'm just saying like, in
19:26
a sense, it doesn't register with me in the same way because I'm like
19:30
everybody sort of it doesn't even approach archetype at a certain point, like it's
19:34
it really is caricature, Like the Senator is a caricature, and the main
19:40
bad guy is a caricature and stuff like that. I don't discount what you're
19:44
saying, right, fair criticism. I just think we're coming at it from
19:48
sort of like different angles of it. I do want a car with the
19:52
trunk with the flip, you know, turntable. That was like the coolest
19:55
part. That would be incredibly useful. That would be incredibly man. I
19:59
mean when I when I first saw that, I was just like, man,
20:00
that that should have been in a James Bond film. How have we
20:03
not gotten that in a James Bond film. That's a very very valid question.
20:08
Although you know what, let's go ahead, since we've already jumped to
20:14
the trunk and the switcheroo with the briefcase and everything I want to say,
20:18
and this is definitely a function of me as a person, now, is
20:22
I actually wind up feeling bad at the end when scumbag football owner opens the
20:26
case because he has live dogs around him. And my initial reaction was those
20:30
dogs didn't deserve anything that was wrong with you. It was the only thing
20:36
that pumped up into my brain. It was just like, but the dogs
20:37
are there, right exactly, it's not their fault. What the hell did
20:41
they do? It's the weirdest thing and it but if you think about it,
20:45
it also sort of prefigures why because we all make fun of the trope
20:49
where it's like they always save the dog, or they always save the pet,
20:52
they always save the cat. And it's like, because, honestly,
20:55
even when the bad guy is getting blown up by ten pounds of C four,
21:00
my first reaction is, why'd you hurt the dog? Like it's now
21:03
I get it. Like if anything, it just casts into relief. Well,
21:07
there was a movie with Sam Rockwell and Christopher walk and it was something
21:11
like twenty seven Psychos or something like that. I can't remember the name of
21:15
it, but it was a really tongue in cheek dark comedy and Sam Rockwell
21:18
was at a campfire and he's holding a dog and it was really about a
21:22
movie about making movies, and Sam Rockle was just like, hey, hey,
21:26
you can't kill the dog, only the women. Those are the rules
21:32
that would pertain to this movie too. You know that's the bylight of this
21:37
movie. Well, and you killed the dog too, but yeah, yeah,
21:40
you know it's It is interesting though, because, if anything, Shane
21:45
Black has been known for having a predilection toward not fully realized female characters.
21:52
To put it in a polite way, Darren, did it register with you
21:56
as exceptionally bad for the female characters here? Or are you more in my
22:03
Camphre's like nobody's really even a character so much in this movie. So it
22:07
didn't land in quite the same way for me. Maybe caricature is, like
22:11
you said, is the right phrase. We just didn't get a lot of
22:15
any of these characters, like and I kept thinking of other movies again is
22:21
what it made me think of. It was like, oh, this chase
22:22
scene, I liked the same kind of thing but better in this one.
22:26
Or like, oh, like the daughter role, like I like that better
22:30
in like True Lies, like A like that was a and I'm not saying
22:33
that that's on the actor or the actress, you know. I think it's
22:37
just the combination of troubled production, changing rewrites, you know. Again,
22:44
even you know, we have like the you know, oh, here's this
22:48
football player, and then we get this left turn of like oh and his
22:52
wife and kid died by it Like that felt so out of nowhere, Oh
22:56
my gosh. And that forced blocking of him getting up and walking towards the
23:02
window to tell the story. Yes, oh my gosh. Just I wanted
23:06
to just stab my eye with a fork like that was so ostentatious. Again,
23:11
I don't fall in the same extreme reaction that you did, but I'll
23:15
say that it didn't work quite well. You know. I think that what
23:18
is surprising to me about the script overall, and especially given other things that
23:26
Shane Black has written and given, other things Tony Scott has done, and
23:29
even other stuff that Joel Silver has produced, or Bruce Willis has been or
23:32
anything like that, is how unintelligent the movie is overall. And what I
23:37
mean by that is this feels like somebody went in a time machine and picked
23:42
up a film crew from nineteen sixty seven brought them forward gave them modern technology
23:48
and said okay, make a movie, and then banished them back to nineteen
23:52
sixty seven. So in a sense, for me and Darren, I am,
23:55
I am I coming at it weird. I almost feel like if I
23:59
watched this and I and it had been made in the sixties or the late
24:02
fifties or the early seventies, maybe people would have been even more lenient like
24:07
coming at it in the nineties or the two thousands, they'd be like,
24:10
ah, that's a product of the time, whereas this is. I mean,
24:14
if anything, this prefigures Tarantino by a short amount of time, because
24:18
Tarantino is right in that grindhouse thing, and this feels like a grindhouse movie
24:22
where it's not quite fully formed, but it's complete enough to release. No.
24:26
I get that vibe too if you had it in the sixties or seventies
24:33
but took out the action aspect of it, so you didn't have cars blowing
24:38
up here and there, and it was way more like a detective story like
24:44
this. You know, you have this interesting protagonist who and he does have
24:48
interesting things about him, like the save the President, and you know obviously
24:53
was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got his career ruined,
24:56
and you know he's having troubles with his you know, wife and kid.
25:02
Like that foundation is there, but then they're like throwing in and maybe I
25:07
don't know, maybe it's because it's Bruce Willis. I don't know. There's
25:11
just these it doesn't quite stick the landing on what it's kind of trying to
25:15
do. Like all the pieces are there, but you have so I think
25:21
you're right, Like because it's ninety one, because it's in this action era,
25:25
it's it's we're not being forgiving of it. We demand more and a
25:29
better title. Well, the original title was die Hard and Lethal Weapon.
25:36
Yeah, well no, but like it was legitimately Diehard. There was an
25:38
interview with Silver where he said when he first optioned the script or something like
25:42
that, that the original title was die Hard and the book that Diehard was
25:47
based almost called Nothing Lasts Forever, which is a lot like this book in
25:52
terms of its pulpy, nineteen seventies ish sort of thing. So that's that's
25:56
an example of how well we'll table that. We already talked about Diehard whatever,
26:00
but it's just an interesting sort of thing where they said, Okay,
26:03
Diehard is a great title. I'm gonna option the script. Hey Shane,
26:07
I'm going to take your title, and then I'll produce this movie later,
26:11
but it'll be under a different title. And so you know that's the aals
26:15
me question then, I mean, Darren, I think we're already got you.
26:18
But like Tristan, do you think the Last Boy Scout even makes sense?
26:21
Is that just too shoehorned in? It is way too shoehorned in?
26:23
Like it was. It was one of those moments when like a family guy,
26:30
when it's like, uh oh, they said it. They said the
26:32
name of the movies, yes, uh and like when he signed which is
26:37
the Boy Scout model the I'm like like, come on, it's yeah.
26:41
It felt like they they're like, oh, yeah, well we'll make them
26:42
the Last Boy Scout except not really, and except he breaks the rules all
26:48
the time. Uh and he punches the senator which is a felony. But
26:51
uh yeah, it was like when they signed the card. Yeah, I
26:56
love that. There's a line from Parks and rec where Amy Puller's care says,
27:00
I believe assault should be legal if the person is a jerk. There's
27:06
an argument to be made. No, I thought it was absolutely shoehorned in.
27:10
It was. It's so weird. I love I love hearing the history
27:14
of scripts, I really do. It has to be so maddening to be
27:17
a writer in Hollywood. I mean, I can't even imagine it. Where
27:21
you write. You come up with an idea in eighty two, you write
27:23
the script in eighty four, it gets bought in eighty six, it gets
27:27
produced in ninety seven. You know, it's just it's so crazy how it
27:33
happened and gets it gets rewritten by three other people that you have had no
27:37
contact with. You get an award, but yet you only have like three
27:40
lines in there that's left. It's just I'm going off on the rails here.
27:44
Well, I mean, it's just so long as we're off on the
27:45
rails. I'll never forget being a speech now. I like to think the
27:48
Academy, Yeah I didn't write any of that, and then just walk away
27:51
now, but I'll never forget being at Star Wars Celebration two. And Jonathan
27:56
Hale, the guy who's the he also he co wrote the script for episode
28:00
two with Lucas, and somebody asked him, well, you know you also
28:03
co wrote the Scorpion King and I'll never forget being in the session with him,
28:08
you know, And he's sitting there talking, he goes, yeah,
28:11
I wanted to take my name off of that script. And then my agent
28:14
looked at me and said, are you nuts. We're gonna make a lot
28:17
of money, You're gonna leave your name on the script. So apparently he
28:18
didn't want anything to do with the Scorpion King, but his agent was like,
28:22
but I would like to get paid. Therefore, your name's going to
28:25
stay on there. So I imagine a lot of that you know is in
28:27
there too. And after you get paid so much like Shane Black did for
28:30
this script, how do you Yeah, Oh my gosh, you got to
28:33
do everything in your power to try to get it as good as you possibly
28:37
can. I have a question for you, John, Yes, so you're
28:40
a big diehard fan, very much. So you're a Bruce Willis fan.
28:44
Yes, I am Bald people got to stick together, man, And I'm
28:48
a fan of both of those things too. So I want to ask you
28:52
about his performance in this movie, because this is supposed to be a noir
28:56
action comedy. Yeah, and do you feel like Bruce will plays it like
29:00
a comedy? Does he play it like a nor piece. Does he play
29:03
it like an action film? And depending on your answer, do you feel
29:07
like he was trying too hard to distance himself from Moonlighting and die Hard and
29:14
everything that came with that, and so he was trying to play it straighter.
29:18
I'm very much leading your response, but yeah, if he was,
29:22
he was not successful. I think that Bruce Willis in an action role is
29:27
sort of like a satellite trying to escape its orbit. Its trajectory is its
29:33
trajectory, and the only thing it can do is stay in orbit or crash.
29:37
And the question with a role like this for willis where I am is
29:41
he either stays in orbit where he crashes? And let's take for instance,
29:45
the fourth Diehard movie. I think there's a crash involved, but it's you
29:49
know, with this, I think that it is very much a performance where
29:56
since his character is what it is, it doesn't matter. I mean,
30:02
I'd say that, if anything, what is disappointing is Bruce Willis is unnecessary
30:07
to this role. He doesn't bring anything to it to redeem it or make
30:11
it better. And hearing about how involved Silver and Willis are, I don't
30:17
understand why the character isn't more deserving of the title the last voice Scout,
30:22
because like you said, he's anything but. But there's this weird thing that
30:26
I do want to give credit for. And I know this will sound forced,
30:30
right, but I do want to give credit for the fact that at
30:33
the end he forgives his wife. Let's set aside everything else, but he's
30:38
found his wife was cheating on him. He forgives her, and she's like,
30:41
what are we going to do? He goes, We'll do one day
30:42
at a time. We'll figure it out as we go. And I feel
30:45
like that's a kernel of goodness that's left over in there, because it shows
30:49
a very human sort of thing and a very noble sort of thing. I
30:53
just wish i'd seen more of that nobility earlier in the character's arc, some
30:59
sort of hint that I'm going to get that before I got there. That
31:00
makes sense, Yeah, No, I think that absolutely makes sense. I
31:03
think that's that that was a that was an honest moment, that that was
31:08
a real human moment. That's very complicated and messy, because you know,
31:12
we are as people in our relationships are I think to me, when I
31:17
was watching it, it's just felt like he was trying to distance himself from
31:19
from Diehard so much that he was moving more towards his performance in Sin City.
31:26
You know that we would get years later, which was amazing. I
31:29
loved him in Sin City, but I feel like it was the wrong performance,
31:34
in the wrong moving I would say he's done no favors by the fact
31:37
that there's no real chemistry between him and Wayn's oh yes each other. Yes,
31:42
they hated working each other and there was no chemistry. I felt like
31:45
I felt like Damon Wayans understood the assignment a little bit better than Bruce Willis,
31:49
but not by much. I see that this is what's tough, though
31:55
is, and I'll go ahead and telegraph a little bit for myself. Is.
31:59
I think that this is one of those things where part of it being
32:02
nostalgia from my first viewing, but also looking at it this time, this
32:07
is what I would call a lovable failure in the sense that Damon Wayns with
32:12
another lead, this movie's probably better. Bruce Willis with somebody instead of Damon
32:15
Wayns, this movie's probably better. Joel Silver being less involved, this movie's
32:20
probably better. A different editing flow before the last hour, like the first
32:23
half hour, is an absolute what the hell is going on? Who cares?
32:27
But then once it hits that mark, it's almost like literally one hour
32:31
left in the film, when it seems like somebody just stepped back and said,
32:36
you know what, just make it an action movie. Then it's like,
32:37
yeah, okay, this is the movie I thought I was gonna get
32:40
the whole time. And so it's like it's one of those things where all
32:44
of these things that I can just sort of hammer the movie on. Once
32:46
I guess Joel Silver got distracted and Tony Scott could sit down with Stuart and
32:52
Baird and like figure something out, it's like, oh, oh, okay,
32:54
well, it's a shame that the first half hour wasn't like this,
32:57
but now I'm getting the movie that I signed up for. You know.
33:00
Does that make sense? Yeah? Yeah, and I think so. I
33:02
think it was. It's interesting though, that you you say that and phrase
33:07
it that way, because I think about the forty eight minute mark, and
33:12
at the hour mark I kept checking the time. I was like, oh
33:15
god, how long have I been watching this movie? How long has this
33:17
been going on? And I'm like, oh god, I still have forty
33:21
five minutes left. It's really funny because I watched it over two days and
33:23
I literally stopped at like the forty minute mark, and then when I picked
33:27
it back up, it was like, you have one hour left. I'm
33:29
like, okay, Like it was right when the movie changed. Yeah,
33:32
everybody took a pause. Yeah, when I was saying half hour mark,
33:36
I was being very I was I wasn't quite as nerdy as the two of
33:38
you, and and checking the time. It's kind of kind of eyeball in
33:43
it there, you know. But Darren, you know, so long as
33:46
we're talking about some of the positive aspects of everything, what are some of
33:51
the positive things that you come away with with the last Boy scout? What
33:53
works for you? You know? I like Bruce McGill. Anytime Bruce McGill
33:57
shows up, it's it's great, Like it's one of those actors that you're
34:01
like, oh, I know I've seen him in something. You know,
34:05
he's an either wahyether he's a judge or a disgredtled cop or you know,
34:08
something's on the line, Like just give that man a mustache and some surly
34:14
words and it always works. I liked I think halle Berry did did good.
34:17
I think her you know, she was very very young at this was
34:22
this her first role or close to it? I would guess it was definitely
34:27
not her first role, but she was not Oscar winner halle Berry by this
34:30
point. That is true. Yeah, no, it's just positive positive ary,
34:36
I think positive. No. I did like how I liked the villain's
34:43
plan. It was very convoluted getting there, but once we learned what it
34:47
was of like, oh, we're going to frame you for shooting this senator
34:52
and we're gonna do it here, and we're gonna again, you know,
34:55
we're gonna subsidue this bomb. And at first I thought they were going to
34:59
blow him up up with the bomb, but I guess it's shooting him instead.
35:01
But all that to say, I like that plan. It was just
35:06
a very convoluted road to get there. Yes, but you no, no,
35:10
I mean good you know the ninety one, But those are eighties villains
35:15
there. You know, we've seen them all. They got those shades with
35:19
the you know, the fade on it, like they all have those sunglasses,
35:22
those those types of villain they go to the same store. But yeah,
35:28
no, it just you know, you have the football. I want
35:30
to say, Barn, I know it's not his title but the football owner,
35:35
Yeah, owner, who's you know, pulling the strings? And man,
35:38
I knew that actor was there before, like from the eagle eyed the
35:43
Bird's eye shot. When they said and here comes the Owner, Sheldon McCune,
35:47
I was just like, oh my god, that's Nobel Willingham. I
35:50
know that's going to be Nobel Willingham. It's ninety one. He's wearing a
35:52
cowboy cat hat. That's got to be Nobel Willingham. And it was.
35:57
But this had such a great character act cast it did. I mean Nobel
36:01
Willingham, Bruce McGill, Taylor Negron, Badja, Jola, Kim Coates,
36:07
Joe Santos, Chelsea Ross, Frank Cullison. I mean, these are some
36:10
fantastic actors. We even had somebody we saw in the Burbs, Rick Ducommon.
36:16
Yes, he popped up out of nowhere. Who's who's actually also in
36:20
Diehard, another Joel Silver production, So there you go. When I saw
36:23
him appear on the screen, I was like, yay, I love this
36:27
guy. He's always fun. Why on earth did he get murdered? The
36:30
bad guy wanted to murder him? Come on? There was There were so
36:35
many times in this film where like if the bad guys were smart, so
36:38
much of this wouldn't happen. And I think that was really frustrating to me,
36:43
is that the bad guys were so friggin dumb. But see, this
36:46
is where I come in defense of the movie. Is after I just said
36:52
the bad guys are smart, I liked their play. Now I will say
36:54
their play was good, but you're right, they executed it terrible well.
36:59
Idiot had That's always the problem is like, you know, Thanos has morons
37:05
working for him, that sort of thing, and it's always the thing that
37:07
undoes it. You always wonder why the HR Department for Evil Incorporated is so
37:12
bad. You would think, like if I ever, if I ever become
37:15
a you know, a global dominating villain, I'm gonna have a very rigorous
37:20
screening process for my henchmen. I really really am bad news for both of
37:23
you. But outside of that, you know, I'm optimistic about how well
37:27
my organization will run. But I think that the the overarching thing about this
37:34
is it when it was released, it got politely put mixed reviews, but
37:42
it has since found a quote unquote cult following and I went on letterboxed and
37:47
saw that it had a whole bunch of four and five star reviews. I
37:51
was like, what, but see this. This is one of those things
37:53
where I can understand and sympathize with that, because this is one of those
37:59
things where it is lovably bad, enjoyably bad in the sense that it's the
38:05
same reason I watch. It's not the exact same reason, but it's the
38:08
same reason I can watch The Room more than once is there's effort there and
38:14
even when things now, this is not as bad as The Room. I'm
38:16
not comparing it to a Neil Breen movie. I'm just trying to use an
38:20
extreme example. Darren. Wait, I don't think you can get much more
38:23
extreme than The Room. Oh, yes you can. We should do House
38:29
of Breen sometime and I'll just enjoy watching you You gentlemen look at me and
38:34
say why have you seen all of these more than once? And I'll go,
38:37
I don't know. I can't stop watching them. But Darren, is
38:40
there sort of a greasy Hamburger quality about this movie? Does the cult following
38:46
make sense to you in any way? Yeah? I can. I could
38:52
see it to a point. Like you said, I mean, you had
38:55
fonder memories on seeing this in the past, you know, for those people
39:00
who did pick it up off the Blockbuster shelf, Like, yeah, I
39:05
too had that experience where you know, when you're scanning the list of titles,
39:08
like, oh, it is an interesting title. Does it apply to
39:12
this movie at all? But it's an interesting title? Kind of makes me
39:16
think of like The Lost Boys or the like again, like these kind of
39:21
wordy titles that don't they're like, what is this? So I could see
39:23
those people who would pick it up off the shelf. I don't know if
39:28
I'd be happy with myself if I actually spend money to rent this at Blockbuster
39:31
and return it, but yeah, I guess. I guess I could see
39:37
the cult following. But it's hard because there's so many other better movies by
39:42
Willis. There's better movies by everybody involved. This is not one of them.
39:47
Do you think that there is Tristan any sort of grindhouse death proof,
39:52
Planet Terror sort of appeal to the Last Boy Scout where you can understand why
39:57
somebody would have some sort of deep affection for it. No, I feel
40:00
like it doesn't go far enough in that direction. And as I was saying
40:05
earlier in the in the podcast, I feel like that's its problem. It
40:07
doesn't. It's it doesn't know what it's trying to be. If it was
40:09
going towards grindhouse, it should have gone towards grindhouse. It was going to
40:13
go towards noir, should have gone towards noir. If it was going to
40:15
go towards comedy, it should be funny. If it was going to go
40:17
towards action, then don't start your action sequences, you know, over a
40:22
halfway through the film. Okay. Now the thing is, you, gentlemen,
40:25
are way off base in terms of the MTV Movie Awards. Which are
40:30
those still a thing? Are they still are? I don't know. Probably,
40:34
well they survived the channel, Yeah, they'll be the only thing that
40:37
survives the nuclear war and future civilizations of evolved cockroaches will wonder what the hell
40:40
these little popcorn movie awards were. But it was actually nominated, did not
40:46
win, nominated for two MTV Movie Awards, ironically Best on Screen Duo of
40:52
Bruce Willison David Wayans. Somehow I feel like they didn't show up to the
40:57
awards together, and Best Act Sequence for the Helicopter Blade Sequence. Now,
41:04
Tristan, that is where I challenge you shot at a shot. It's one
41:10
shot, maybe two. Listen, I didn't come up with the category titles
41:15
for the MTV movie of Wars. You go take it up with Kurt Loader
41:17
and figure that out. Okay, But don't you think that that maybe means
41:22
they did sort of figure out, at least in the editing bay, Tristan,
41:25
that they knew what they had and made the best of it, like
41:30
they were trying to to sew a silk purse out of a sal's ears.
41:32
As the saying goes like somebody getting somebody falling after being shot into the blades
41:39
of helicopter and getting turned into pure right. That that seems like a real
41:44
commitment to just sort of like bonkers filmmaking, doesn't it. No, not
41:49
really, No, No, No, I don't. I'm sorry, I
41:50
don't. I don't follow that at all. I don't think so. I
41:52
think it's I think it's a I mean, you kind of see that in
41:55
action movies all the time. You can see that in comedy movies, like
41:58
I mean, I watched it the other the other night with Game Night where
42:01
Rachel mcadam's character, she's fourth, she's against a private plane and it's on
42:07
the ground and all of a sudden, his engines start up and the bad
42:09
guy who's pointing a gun at her gets sucked into the engine and turns into
42:14
goop and she goes, yes, oh no, he died, you know,
42:20
one of those moments. So no, not at all. I know,
42:22
I completely disagree with that concept. That's a really inappropriate comparison, But
42:28
I hear what you're saying. I mean, honestly, during that whole end
42:31
sequence in the stadium and him fighting the sniper, in my mind I had
42:37
the music cue from Diehard where he's fighting like Hans and he's dangling out the
42:45
window like that, you know, like that was playing in my head.
42:50
That could sort of have to do with the fact that Michael Caman did the
42:52
music for both of them. I mean, I would argue, this isn't
42:55
Cayman's best work that he's I read that came and hated this movie. He
43:01
absolutely hated this movie. And the only reason why he did the music was
43:06
as a favorite silver which you know, and as composer you got to watch
43:10
it as they spun it up and recorded over and like he probably hated anybody
43:16
that missed a Q when they were recording the music so well. I think
43:22
it's pretty clear where you gentlemen are going to fall with your ratings on this,
43:28
and I know that we're going to get angry letters from those who are
43:31
in that cult classic camp. Before we start, I will kick things off
43:39
with what Desson Howe of the Washington Post called the film. This is a
43:45
direct quote cited on the Wikipedia page. He called it the filmic equivalent of
43:50
a hate crime. It's mindless anti civilization formula for boys who can't get enough,
43:55
which really feels like Desin really really overshot the mark with his specific criticism
44:01
there. But because Darren is sick of going first, Tristan, Tristan,
44:07
what did you think of the Last Boy Scout? Just give me your rating
44:09
without a lot of preamble. I was gonna say, I'm glad to go
44:14
first on this one, Darren. I'm so happy to go first. I
44:16
have not hid my feelings at all. I have not been cheeky or tried
44:21
to like be KOI you know, just a little coy about wow. I
44:23
felt about the movie. This is a bad movie. This is a bad
44:27
movie. I think it's a bastardized script. I think it's a bastardized direction
44:31
job. I think Bruce Willis was the wrong choice for this role. I
44:37
think he can play this role well, he just chose not to. I
44:39
think he wanted to be in a different movie or he was trying to make
44:43
this movie into a different movie and didn't succeed. And it's just I thought
44:47
it was hateful, and I thought it was not funny enough to be a
44:52
comedy and not enough action to be an action film. This was a movie
44:55
that had no idea what it wanted to be. It is a straight up
44:58
bad movie. A generous two stars. Darren, Where do you fall with
45:01
your rating? Or should I go next? I'll let you you found decide.
45:07
It's all good. No, I also gave it a two. Like
45:10
I said, you know, if I picked this up because the title happened
45:14
to spark a curiosity, I would have been kind of sad having to having
45:19
watched this and spent a dollar fifty or whatever at Blockbuster. But uh yeah
45:23
it again, lots of elements. I felt like I was watching it's it's
45:29
a really weird cut. But if if you guys remember in Really Weird,
45:35
If you guys remember in The Holiday that Cameron Diaz, his character cuts trailers.
45:39
That's her job. And there's a fake trailer in it with like James
45:44
Franco and Lindsay Lohan and it's and it feels like a fake trailer because it's
45:52
you know, over the top, and they're like, why do you have
45:53
few guns? Because I didn't think one would be enough this summer? You
45:57
know, it's and it's playing on that joke because it's it's it's in a
46:00
movie. It's a movie within a movie. This kind of feels like that
46:05
where I see things like Last Action Hero and other amalgamations of genres and it's
46:14
like, I don't know what this movie is trying to do. I don't
46:15
know if we're supposed to even like this character. He's a terrible person that
46:22
kills people and has a terrible home life, Like I don't know, maybe
46:27
give me John McCain the Home Years in New York, like you know,
46:31
something like that. I don't know. It's I think, like you also
46:36
said, Tristan, where if if it wasn't Bruce Willis you get a little
46:38
better. If it wasn't this, it'd be like all these little things were
46:42
stacked against it and we ended up getting this. And I don't think it's
46:45
memorable. I think it's just you know, I'll put it in my bucket
46:50
of we'll probably never ever watch this movie again. So two two bullets in
46:55
the hand or were as there? As much as that it's worth which as
47:00
somebody who has broken their hand before, I can tell you that being shot
47:05
in the hand, I highly doubt you're gonna be able to throw that football
47:08
quite as well from horseback. Hey, you know what it's talent is what
47:15
it is. He never should have been cut from the team. Now,
47:16
before I give my review, I will point out that a critic from Rolling
47:22
Stone in two thousand and two included The Last Boy Scout in a list called
47:28
the best of Bruce Willis, and he said that it was was the list
47:31
fifty films long, and it was no, it was ten. And he
47:37
referred to it as quote on some level. Also trash bookended by wildly over
47:43
the top action sequences dot dot dot, elevated by director Tony Scott's self awareness
47:49
of how ridiculous it all is, and crediting Willis's performance as a sheer force
47:54
of will Now, I'm not going to be that kind, nor am I
47:58
going to be as kind as some might think I would be, But this
48:01
is a five star movie masquerading as a three star movie. It's it's a
48:07
three from me. And it's if I were to say, if you were
48:10
to sit me down, and we've now done in the House of Also Scott
48:15
two films, Beverly Hills, Coop two and The Last Boy Scout, and
48:17
you were to say to me, because I've now rated both of them three
48:21
stars, which one am I going to watch again? I can honestly tell
48:23
you the Last Boy Scout because this is just enjoyable awful ness with punctuated by
48:30
moments of laughably over the top nonsense. And I have a good time with
48:37
that John. We've been friends for I don't know how long, uh huh.
48:40
And you still you still you still surprise me. You know. That's
48:44
what I'm here for, man, And that's what I'm here to give to
48:46
the audience's wouse Boy Scout. No, because I would never even in my
48:52
worst moments. No wait, I did smoke an old cigarette out of an
48:54
ashtray one time. So moving on, I will say that the House of
49:00
Also Scott has gotten off to a weird start for us, because we all
49:04
professed our love of Tony Scott as a director coming in. We have not
49:07
praised these last two films. It's been there and you liked it. I
49:12
like the last one. You're forgetting that. Well, you gave it three
49:15
and a half. We gave it three. You guys gave this two.
49:17
I gave it three. It's not the most auspicious beginning for somebody. We
49:21
are lauding tons of praise on Well, we haven't. I mean we didn't
49:24
talk about top Gun first. I mean, like this is kind of like
49:27
a trunk Kate in Tony Scott film. You wouldn't talk about Days of Thunder.
49:30
That is true, Yeah, with good reason. But you know I
49:34
was making a point, but Trisian asked, you know, you drive next
49:37
time. That's fine, That's fine, that's fine. But this sets us
49:39
all up for our next film, which I cannot wait to discuss with the
49:45
two of you. Darren, what are we going to cover next week?
49:49
Next week, we're going to nineteen ninety three's true Romance here on house Lands,
49:54
Join the Revolution, Join the net Party.