Iro's One Movie a Day Thread

→ in
Tools    





Welcome to the human race...
#700 - The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara
Errol Morris, 2003



Former U.S. Secretary of Defence Robert S. McNamara discusses his experiences as both a soldier in World War II and as Secretary of Defence during the Vietnam War.

Though I've watched my fair share of documentaries, I'm not sure how many of the best ones that I've watched really hold up on repeated viewings (if I give them another viewing, of course). This was running through my mind when I opted to re-watch Errol Morris' The Fog of War, which took the form of an interview with Robert Strange McNamara, a World War II veteran who later went on to serve as the Secretary of Defence under both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. As of writing, the only other Morris film I've seen is The Thin Blue Line, which offered a fascinating insight into a miscarriage of justice and the various individuals involved. The Fog of War focuses mainly on one individual and is intended to be framed as a face-to-face conversation for the most part. To this end, Morris uses a device known as the "Interrotron" that results in a visually creative method of simulating McNamara speaking directly to the audience. McNamara's topics of conversation cover a variety of subjects from his upbringing and personal life through to his time as both a soldier and as a strategist; Morris adds clarity and structure by sorting McNamara's monologues into eleven simple "lessons" about the art of war.

On a visual level, Morris uses a heady mix of archival footage, reconstructions, and atypical camera angles when filming McNamara (shots of McNamara are often noticeably slanted or distorted due to the Interrotron's design) and cuts from scene to scene with a speed that does not prove disorienting. Philip Glass provides a modern classical score that manages to be appropriately tense yet subtle as it bubbles away under images of falling bombs or high-powered assemblies. These prove compelling elements that serve to accentuate (rather than distract from) McNamara himself. The film aims to be impartial and it seems to succeed as McNamara's reasoning is definitely open to interpretation regardless of one's own political bias. Some of his explanations for certain objectionable actions taken by the United States during wartime do come across as attempts to rationalise what happened for reasons other than the sake of mere description. These are balanced against moments that do humanise him regardless of whether or not they render him sympathetic in an audience's eyes - his tearful recollection of the Kennedy assassination is the best example of this and is matched only by the final line of the film.

As a documentary, The Fog of War succeeds on multiple levels. Morris' decision to frame McNamara's anecdotes and insights through the framework of him imparting lessons is a brilliant one. The film does not explicitly seek to praise or condemn McNamara - it just wants to learn from him. As a result, the film produces a fascinating portrait of a man who had to make tough choices and live with the consequences. Much like the person who imparts them, the lessons about war are not meant to encourage conflict so much as try to help others reach a better understanding of what's important about conflict regardless of their attitudes. Obviously, these are not liable to actually prevent war completely, but this doesn't make them come across as empty platitudes either. In addition to providing an interesting perspective on the theatre of war, the film also offers enough visual and sonic flair so that you're not likely to get bored even on a second viewing.

__________________
I really just want you all angry and confused the whole time.
Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0



Welcome to the human race...
#701 - Ultraviolet
Kurt Wimmer, 2006



In a dystopia that has developed following the release of a vampire-like virus, a member of the resistance recovers the key to the conflict's resolution.

I remember really liking Kurt Wimmer's Equilibrium when I first saw it over a decade ago. It may have been little more than a mishmash of dystopian clichés that shamelessly borrowed its visual aesthetic of leather trenchcoats and acrobatic gunplay from The Matrix, but I still enjoyed it well enough. Despite that, I put off watching Wimmer's follow-up film Ultraviolet for years - a lot of that had to do with the unfortunate reputation that it earned even from people who had liked Equilibrium, especially when one takes into account that Wimmer hasn't directed a film in the years since. The basic premise certainly does make the man out to be a one-trick pony as it recycles a lot of the same elements from Equilibrium. A futuristic dystopia where a corrupt government works to oppress a resistance movement that depends on an extremely proficient yet conflicted warrior to save the day? It is awfully familiar. This time around the nature of the conflict isn't rooted in the repressing of people's emotions to prevent war; rather, Ultraviolet takes place following the dissemination of a virus that infects people with vampiric characteristics, with the infected individuals being referred to as "hemophages". One such individual (Milla Jovovich) emerges as the unlikely heroine who is carrying out a heist for her fellow rebels when she learns that her cargo is actually a small child who might hold the key to curing the plague...

Ultraviolet seems to be caught between rehashing Equilibrium or making conscious efforts to define itself in opposition, which only leads me to wonder which of these outcomes is worse or if their combination just makes things into more of a mess. The comic-book style of the opening credits primes viewers for a vibrant and fantastic adventure far away from the deliberately dull and lifeless world of Equilibrium, but the special effects used to bring the world of Ultraviolet to life make the film look like a cartoon in a bad way. The plot does throw in a bunch of tiresome twists to its well-worn "living MacGuffin" narrative and makes you feel way too much of its extremely brief running time, especially when it delves into its convoluted mythology. The film tries to deliver a blend of gunplay, swordplay, and martial arts but nothing stands out on its own terms. Performances aren't much better - Jovovich once again gets to play a capable action hero with a tragic back-story to barely emote over, while Nick Chinlund plays yet another creepy, gravel-voiced villain. At this point, I'm honestly struggling to think of things to write about Ultraviolet. Its grossly derivative nature renders it such a non-entity of a film that the only thing I can be sure of is that there was nothing to like about it. Even if you tried to take it as a style-over-substance type of film (and that's probably the intent), you'd still be let down by the fact that the style is ultimately pretty awful.




#701 - Ultraviolet
Kurt Wimmer, 2006




Even if you tried to take it as a style-over-substance type of film (and that's probably the intent), you'd still be let down by the fact that the style is ultimately pretty awful.

I bought this on Bluray for $5 and I was robbed
__________________
Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
Buddha



Some more excellent reviews, Videodrome is one of my favourite films...

it still remains one of the most indelible movie-watching experiences I've ever had. The storytelling was swift and unpredictable, the effects were disturbing, the film as a whole was extremely unsettling...in other words, it was the opposite of The Fly. Even watching it now, it's still a decidedly uncomfortable experience, but that's just a sign that it's lost none of its potency.
This describes how I felt when I watched it very well. I'm not sure what it was, but from the beginning the film felt dirty too me, like it was getting under my skin, uncomfortable and unsettling as you say.
__________________



You seem to buy an awful lot of bad movies, nebbit. Why?
I don't have a video shop nearby so I buy movies sometimes just because they are cheap that I haven't seen then give then to the salvation army op shop



Welcome to the human race...
I don't have a video shop nearby so I buy movies sometimes just because they are cheap that I haven't seen then give then to the salvation army op shop
That's understandable. Fortunately, I still have a video store within easy access but since they're dropping like flies there's no telling how long this one will last. I'm sure I'll become slightly more discerning if I have to resort to blind-buying DVDs.



That's understandable. Fortunately, I still have a video store within easy access but since they're dropping like flies there's no telling how long this one will last. I'm sure I'll become slightly more discerning if I have to resort to blind-buying DVDs.
I have become more discerning as I have watched a lot of rubbish buy this method



Welcome to the human race...
#702 - Spectre
Sam Mendes, 2015



A British secret agent goes rogue in order to track down a clandestine organisation of terrorists.

Spectre had some pretty difficult expectations to live up to. Not only is it following the wildly successful Skyfall but it's also coming at the tail end of 2015, which has been quite the banner year for spy movies. Kingsman: The Secret Service, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation are just a handful of the spy films that have come out this year with the intention of providing rip-roaring escapism that invoked everything from comedic pastiche to retro homage to straight-up action. Unfortunately, while these would seem to serve as apparent appetisers for the main course that is the latest installment in the world's premiere spy franchise, they also serve to undermine Spectre by exposing just how similar it is to those particular films. While I naturally have to take the long-running franchise's widespread influence into account before accusing it of being a rip-off, that still doesn't prevent Spectre itself from feeling all kinds of familiar. For starters, there's the fact that the plot is eerily similar to that of Rogue Nation, though it's not without justification. While Bond (Daniel Craig) is like Ethan Hunt in that he is made to go rogue in pursuit of a shadowy collective of operatives looking to cause global mayhem for fun and profit, that is at least backed up by the previous Craig films working to establish the existence of such a collective.

To be fair, it's not like Spectre doesn't lack for ambition at times - if nothing else, the opening sequence that crafts an elaborate tracking shot following Bond as he makes his way through the crowded streets of Mexico City is definitely a stand-out even before it leads into a daring fight on board an out-of-control helicopter. Of course, that ambition peters out very quickly over the course of 148 incredibly staggering minutes. Granted, even the shortest Bond movies do have their fair share of sluggish moments, but this only becomes more pronounced in Spectre as it drags things out unnecessarily during Bond's investigations in ways that feel like they're forced to fill out formulaic criteria. A good example of this is the entire series of scenes involving Monica Bellucci as one villain's widow (and a potential lead for Bond), which could have been axed without the film losing anything of worth (Bellucci herself notwithstanding). The fact that the film keeps trying to tease out the mystery behind Spectre and the rather unsurprising revelations surrounding its leader (Christoph Waltz, whose trademark smarminess wears thin even during his limited amount of screen-time) only contributes to the film being an overly long bore. That's without bringing up the extremely clunky (even for Bond) romantic sub-plot that develops between Bond and the young doctor (Léa Seydoux) who has a very personal connection to the conspiracy.

Given how much Spectre is content to stretch things out, one might expect it to offer some decent characterisation to go along with its lengthy narrative. The past three Craig films have worked as one massive origin story for Bond that detailed his journey from rough-edged recruit to dispassionate professional as he endures greater and greater trials and also saw the assembly of whole new versions of series regulars such as M (Ralph Fiennes), Q (Ben Whishaw), and Moneypenny (Naomie Harris). Here, they lapse into the well-worn roles that existed in classic Bond and each have their own recognisable modes of banter with Bond - M's cultured British variation on the turn-in-your-badge boss, Q's prim yet sardonic lecturing, and Moneypenny's cheeky yet distant flirtations. The actors involved are solid enough, but the writing isn't there to back them up. Craig himself doesn't fare much better; though his Bond has always been a stony-faced cad whose sentimental side is barely glimpsed and often has ulterior motives (especially when it comes to the majority of the women he's encountered), this shouldn't translate into him coming across as a grouchy dullard for most of this film. While Bond girls don't exactly get the most nuanced development at the best of times, here it's just so messy and the actresses' ability isn't enough to make a difference. I already pointed out how incredibly extraneous Bellucci's character ends up being, but Seydoux's ostensibly meatier role definitely doesn't make much of its potential and instead lapses into not only a lot of the usual Bond clichés but some decidedly more generic action movie love-interest clichés.

These problems are pretty severe, but the main problem with the Bond series in general is that it attempts to reinvent the character year after year in response to not just cinematic trends but also to changing social and political norms. While this ostensibly makes sense as it needs to stay fresh one way or another, it only serves to create an inherently conflicted franchise, especially when the reinventions tend not to stick and Bond movies invariably lapse back into ludicrous goofiness - just look at Pierce Brosnan's tenure. James Bond's original status as a power fantasy for white males resulted in a lot of the work being quite racist, sexist, and politically conservative, so of course there have been several attempt to redefine Bond in ways that try to correct or at least criticise the character's more problematic flaws while still trying to stay true to the character's basic appeal. This much is represented in the film by a smug executive (Andrew Scott) whose plan to launch an all-encompassing surveillance network will supposedly render field agents like Bond obsolete, while the film does pay some more lip-service to criticism by having characters straight-up ask Bond just why he keeps doing what he does. The problem with such acknowledgements of Bond fiction's fundamental shortcomings is that they do ultimately feel insincere when faced with the demands of a Bond narrative (or at least in this particular Bond narrative). A large part of Spectre is about Bond confronting even more of his past traumas in the name of revenge, but even when the film opts to delve into the man's psychology it's usually just serving as filler between action scenes or plot-related exposition.

Even though the plot of a Bond movie only serves as the foundation on which a variety of entertaining assets can be built, there is still a lot left to be desired about Spectre. The aforementioned opening only goes so far when the film runs through yet another collection of familiar Bond set-pieces to largely unremarkable effect. While the earlier Craig films have tried to re-invent Bond in a way that avoids the series' more fantastic elements such as cartoonish supervillains and elaborate gadgets, those elements slowly but surely bled through into Skyfall and are now in full-force with Spectre. This would be tolerable if only they yielded decent results. To be fair, there is a nice little homage to the series' various train-carriage battles with a fight between Bond and a henchman (Dave Bautista, whose role as a silent brute echoes classic Bond henchmen like Oddjob or Jaws without quite managing the same level of personality as those two, which is a shame considering how well Bautista played an eccentric yet dangerous warrior in Guardians in the Galaxy). However, this is compromised by the fact that the vehicular chases tend to be rather tedious affairs that are dependent on creating spectacular destruction or easy character-based humour in lieu of any serious thrills. This also ends up providing another example of how the film's length works against it as the deliberate subversion of the standard Bond movie climax only serves to make one look at their watch rather than get excited for what could possibly be coming next.

One of the most striking things about Skyfall was the studied high-contrast cinematography courtesy of veteran Roger Deakins, so replacing him with Hoyte van Hoytema is a noticeable shift that may result in some technical flair (case in point - the opening shot) and avoids devolving into empty shakycam but its emphasis on low-contrast camerawork definitely makes the film look more than a little bland. To this end, Thomas Newman's score mixes classic Bond bombast with contemporary guitar-based chugging to debatable effect; that's without mentioning the incredibly limp theme song performed by Sam Smith over the tiresome opening credits. Such elements combine to make for a film that could generously be described as one of the most middling Bond films ever made, which definitely makes it a far cry from being a genuinely good film. The fact that it is not only the most expensive Bond film to date but also one of the most expensive films ever made does make it feel extremely safe. It attempts to temper the classic Bond formula with the sensibilities of Craig-era Bond and also throws in some straightforward blockbuster traits for good measure, though the resulting mixture doesn't gel smoothly. If this is to be the final instance of Craig donning a tuxedo and wielding a Walther PPK, then it's hardly the worst film with which to leave the franchise - unfortunately, it is hardly the best either.




Women will be your undoing, Pépé
finally had a chance to back-log some of your reviews; some very solid reviews an CONGRATS on hitting #1 for most reviews -- SH*T that's a lot!!

Agree a lot with Ultraviolet. It always seems to be like there's a bunch of the film sitting on the cutting floor and kept it on a low radar for a possible Director's Cut. Whether or not it would save it or not is anyone's guess.



Welcome to the human race...
#703 - Ulzana's Raid
Robert Aldrich, 1972



When a vicious gang of Apache warriors breaks loose to wreak havoc, a military unit is sent to track them down.

I wasn't too impressed by Apache, the other Western I'd seen that starred Burt Lancaster and was directed by Robert Aldrich. It was a lean film with a potentially interesting premise about an escaped Apache warrior looking to return to his old life despite being pursued by the law, but it was too underweight and Lancaster was not very convincing as a Native American. In this context, the duo's 1972 collaboration Ulzana's Raid seems to subvert that very same premise. The story is once again about an Apache warrior (the Ulzana of the title) escaping the white man's custody; unlike the noble savage played in Lancaster in Apache, Ulzana gets together a war party and plans to wreak vengeful havoc upon any defenceless whites he can find. To this end, a posse of soldiers (including Lancaster as an ageing Army scout) and an Apache scout with ties to Ulzana are sent out to find the marauders and stop them.

Ulzana's Raid is a technically decent film and it takes advantage of the less restricted censorship codes to show scenes of violence that are surprisingly bloody even when considering that this film came out in 1972. Lancaster definitely makes a better fit as a world-weary white man than he does as a beat-down Apache, while Bruce Davison and Jorge Luke make for good foils to both him and one another as the naive, religious lieutenant and the embittered Apache scout respectively. The straightforward search-and-destroy narrative is supplanted reasonably well by some commentary on the nature of Native American genocide (with some decent exchanges between Davison and Luke) but all things considered this feels very par for the course as far as Westerns go. I grant it credit for trying to add depth to what could have been an extremely simple cowboys-and-Indians kind of movie but beyond that it doesn't feel all that special.




Welcome to the human race...
#704 - Broken Arrow
Delmer Daves, 1950



In 1880s Arizona, a white man befriends an Apache war chief and becomes embroiled in a multi-sided conflict.

Another day, another movie about the unsurprisingly complicated relations between white Americans and Native Americans. Broken Arrow is rooted in historical fact as it sees Jimmy Stewart play a white man whose basic human decency towards a wounded Apache boy gradually results in him earning their trust, though his fellow whites still regard the tribe as bloodthirsty savages and have trouble believing that he was able to maintain genuinely peaceful relations with them. Stewart's character then does his best to broker something stronger than an uneasy cease-fire as he becomes more and more involved with the Apaches as he befriends their leader (Jeff Chandler) and starts to warm to one of the tribe's women (Debra Paget).

Broken Arrow is another lean movie so I think it deserves a lean review. It has the usual brand of old Hollywood workmanship to it so the craft doesn't draw attention for either the right or wrong reasons. Stewart naturally proves a good centre around which to build the film, while Chandler and Paget give serviceable performances that compensate for some rather distracting redface. I do give films like this credit for at least attempting to offer sympathetic portrayals of Native Americans in a mainstream 1950s film, but even so the resulting film is arguably a bit too thin even when considering its brief running time.




Welcome to the human race...
#705 - Munich
Steven Spielberg, 2005



Based on the true story of a team of international Jewish operatives who join forces in order to assassinate the group of Palestinians responsible for orchestrating a massacre at the Munich Olympics.

I'm still a bit hesitant to call Steven Spielberg one of my favourite directors, though I don't entirely buy into the idea that he is just a really popular hack whose serious films lack depth. Munich is another example of such a film in that it is based on yet another story that could have played its protagonist's struggle as an unambiguous conflict with clearly-defined villains to defeat but instead opts to try for something more complex in the process. The protagonist here is Eric Bana as a Mossad agent who is sent on a secret mission with a handful of Jewish operatives from around the world in order to target the Arabic terrorists responsible for organising the execution of eleven Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics. While Bana's initial development is pretty straightforward - he is a loving husband and expectant father who is willing to do right by his country - that soon gives way as his decidedly more dedicated handler (Geoffrey Rush) orders him to feign resignation so he can go undercover with the rest of his anti-terrorist cell. Once he's working with his fellow operatives, things gradually become more and more tense as their attempts to take out their targets are fraught with many difficulties.

Munich has just about all the hallmarks of late-period Spielberg as he opts for a quasi-documentarian approach, carefully teasing out snippets showing what happened to the murdered athletes amidst the tale of the men assigned to take revenge. There are a number of other factors in play such as an air of paranoia not unlike those from actual thrillers of the film's era, to say nothing of the ways in which this seemingly justified revenge mission ends up proving not only difficult from a logistical standpoint but also from a moral one as various circumstances (such as a prospective victim's young daughter being a potential victim for a trap) serve to poke holes in the apparent righteousness of our protagonists' squad. Unfortunately, one of those hallmarks ends up being that it's probably a bit too long for its own good - there are moments that could have used a little tightening, especially towards the end. Otherwise, Munich proves a rather solid (if not exactly great) film. It has the same sort of moral ambiguity that has persisted throughout a few of Spielberg's more serious films (I could spot similarities to this year's Bridge of Spies, though that film was ever-so-slightly more cut-and-dried in its approach and content) and, at the very least, it's a serviceable thriller that doesn't get too bogged down in talkative drama for its own good.




Welcome to the human race...
#706 - The 39 Steps
Alfred Hitchcock, 1935



A Canadian national is framed for murdering a woman and soon becomes embroiled in a plot involving an organisation of spies.

Quite possibly the first great film that Hitchcock ever directed (though I concede that I have not seen all of them), The 39 Steps gave me the same feeling that I got when I first watched Hayao Miyazaki's Laputa: Castle in the Sky, namely that I was watching a cinematic master coat the silver screen with all his raw creativity but with the caveat that many of these same concepts would definitely be refined in the director's later, greater films. The 39 Steps most prominently features one of the key concepts that would come to define Hitchcock's career, namely that of the "wrong man". In this film, the wrong man is Robert Donat's priggish Canadian who goes home with a woman following a shoot-out at a prominent London nightspot only for her to reveal that not only was she responsible for the shooting but that she has knowledge of something known only as "the thirty-nine steps". Donat later wakes up to find that the woman is dead and he's being framed for her murder so he quickly goes on the run and must search for the truth so he can clear his name. A pretty simple concept, but hey, this is 1935, complex film stories hadn't been invented yet.

Hitchcock's mastery comes from the myriad ways in which he would work around the moral codes of the day and The 39 Steps does that considerably well. It even works well enough to sell the occasional off moment, such as Donat attempting to hide from pursuing police officers by suddenly snogging Madeleine Carroll's prim train passenger - the fact that it doesn't work in the slightest only works in the film's favour. The film doesn't feel dependent on music to ratchet up the tension either as many a scene plays out with only the diegetic sounds echoing throughout the audience's ears. It may lapse into screwball comedy once Donat and Carroll end up being handcuffed to one another through circumstance, but that's not enough to sink the tense mood that Hitchcock has already built up through the preceding film. The plot may also be dependent on the kind of plot device that the director would later refer to as a MacGuffin, but that hardly makes a difference as it crafts a very tight story that is over and done with inside of 90 minutes. While Hitchcock undoubtedly made many better films, he still makes a good one here as he uses a simplistic plot to create everything from darkly awkward comedy to persistent tension. A good enough film, but only really worth watching once you've exhausted enough of the man's later classics.




I haven't seen Ulzana's Raid yet, but I did see Apache which you referenced, and I agree with you about Lancaster playing a Native American-it took me out of the movie.

Saw Broken Arrow a couple months ago and thought it was decent.



Welcome to the human race...
#707 - The Last Boy Scout
Tony Scott, 1991



A washed-up detective and a disgraced football player reluctantly team up when the detective's partner and the player's girlfriend are brutally murdered.

In my experience, Tony Scott has proved a difficult director to like. Unlike his brother Ridley, he never had an Alien or Blade Runner to make up for his more mediocre films. The closest I'd ever seen him come to greatness was the 1993 crime caper True Romance; even then, that was arguably because the script was written by an up-and-comer by the name of Quentin Tarantino. Otherwise, Tony's work may have varied as much as Ridley's but none of these films did much for me, whether it was the unintentionally comical machismo of Top Gun, the Gothic camp of The Hunger, or the protracted vengeance of Man On Fire. His 1991 outing The Last Boy Scout didn't inspire that much confidence despite the presence of screenwriting auteur Shane Black, especially since the last Black-scripted film I'd seen had been the promising but ultimately underwhelming The Long Kiss Goodnight. Referring to Black as an auteur seems a little generous considering how much that reputation seems to be based on him reusing certain concepts and gimmicks - I'm honestly surprised that this movie didn't take place during Christmas. Be that as it may, The Last Boy Scout proved quite enjoyable despite all that it had going against it.

The plot is vintage Black as it involves a pair of unlikely partners being forced together to uncover a criminal conspiracy - Bruce Willis plays the former Secret Service agent turned private detective who naturally has problems at home (to the point where the film could be considered a stealth sequel to Die Hard) who starts investigating a case after his partner is killed. It involves a stripper (Halle Berry) who ultimately gets murdered, prompting her former football pro boyfriend (Damon Wayans Jr.) to join forces with Willis in his search for both answers and vengeance. Thus begins a film that packs in everything from explosive action to sharp dialogue during its relatively brief running time. A lot of one's tolerance for this movie will come for one's ability to tolerate Black's too-clever-by-half writing, where obvious Chekhov's guns can be easily identified amidst the barbed one-liners and melodramatic monologues. It still builds a decent enough neo-noir where Willis and Wayans Jr. must try to figure out what's going on while also contending with their difficult interpersonal dynamic and constant threats. Willis is definitely solid here, while any reservations I had about Wayans Jr. are easy enough to forget or ignore as he holds his own against Willis in some lovably ludicrous tough-talking exchanges.

Like just about any journeyman director, Scott is at his best when he's got a good story to work off. Black definitely provides in that regard; his framework may be familiar if you've seen just about any of the other movies he's written, but it definitely provides a consistently entertaining mix of snappy buddy comedy and lurid action scenes. The unlikely pairing of Willis and Wayans Jr. has to carry the film and, though it's hardly the greatest of pairings, the duo do have surprisingly decent chemistry. The film as a whole is not without its weaknesses, though - Scott's bombastic high-concept style of filmmaking means that it's easy to appreciate the more garish aspects of the film but doesn't do so well when it comes to capturing genuinely tragic moments. The early-'90s action aesthetic also leaves something to be desired even though it's clear from the gaudy opening credits that the film isn't interested in taking itself too seriously. The Last Boy Scout isn't a classic by any means but it's a reasonably enjoyable little film. It manages to revel in its silliness without becoming tiresome and offers its fair share of memorable moments as it powers through a narrative that may not be the most original but definitely doesn't hit too many lulls.




Nice review, as usual, of The Last Boy Scout. I can't disagree with anything you wrote. I seem to remember some discussion about Crimson Tide a couple months ago, which I'm thinking may have been in this thread. Anyway, I think that is Scott's second best behind True Romance.