Last Man Standing (1996).

Review #1091: Last Man Standing.

Cast: 
Bruce Willis (John Smith), Bruce Dern (Sheriff Ed Galt), William Sanderson (Joe Monday), Christopher Walken (Hickey), David Patrick Kelly (Doyle), Karina Lombard (Felina), Ned Eisenberg (Fredo Strozzi), Michael Imperioli (Giorgio Carmonte), R. D. Call (Jack McCool), Alexandra Powers (Lucy Kolinski), Ken Jenkins (Capt. Tom Pickett), and Ted Markland (Deputy Bob) Directed by Walter Hill (#1072 - 48 Hrs)

Review: 
The film is a remake of Yojimbo (1961), directed by Akira Kurosawa, with the screenplay done by Ryūzō Kikushima and Kurosawa. It featured Toshiro Mifune as a rōnin (a samurai with no master) that arrived in a town with competing crime lords vying for supremacy that was set in 1860 in Japan. An unofficial and unlicensed remake followed in 1964 with Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars, but Last Man Standing is an official remake that gives Kukushima and Kurosawa credit for the story, with Hill providing the screenplay. With all of that information, how does this movie manage to be a dreary failure? It certainly is consistent with its tone of dry entertainment, in that it has its share of brutal action sequences and a look from Lloyd Ahern II that will certainly test the eyes of how many times the color orange dominates the screens - for better or worse. Even comparing its style to the film noirs that it seems to emulate goes against the movie's favor, since it isn't as alluring as those. It isn't so much that this is a boring thing to watch, it's just that it is a disappointing thing to see play out, with one-note characters and an execution that likes to throw its situations all over the place but not have them be readily interesting. Willis delivers a performance that seems to match the film in that it shifts between mild grinning and stale wanderer type. He may seem best when doing action sequences, but he doesn't seem to feel too comfortable in making this character seem less than stale. Dern is fairly decent, although he doesn't have too much time on screen. It is nice to see Walken when he's on screen, but there is something about the character (whether due to him or the writing) that doesn't really make him as menacing as you'd probably expect, which makes the final showdown seem less interesting than it probably should've been. The other cast members come and go with their performances, for better or worse. That's not to say that the movie would've been better if it had comedy bits, but there is certainly something lacking in terms of excitement, where one can't really revel in its attempts at trying to be compelling. In its 101 minute run-time, this isn't a terribly long slog to go through, but even as a bad film it isn't fun to pick at, more of a thing to just look at and ponder in its mundane nature.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.