The Last Boy Scout (91, Tony Scott)

What do you get when you mix a Shane Black script, Tony Scott's fog, Bruce Willis' drunkenness, and Damon Wayans? I'm not sure if it's "the Super Bowl of action movies" or a "flat-out blitz of entertainment" with "blow-you-away special effects" and "hilarious gimme-five humor" as the back of the DVD box says, but it may be the best example of an early 90's actioner. Despite my general dislike for Tony Scott, he was on a roll in the early 90's with flicks like Revenge, this, and True Romance. Here, he sets up basic conspiracy thriller involving pro football. As ridiculous as that world is, I must say that I was actually a bit disappointed that Scott and Black didn't bother to skewer it further. I can't say that the film's discourse on the death of heroes is terribly legitimate, but the kind of moral disintegration that professional sports continually faces makes for a nice lurid backdrop to the whole film's tone. Bruce Willis really goes wild here, continually throwing the replete one liners but never giving that moment of shining audience identification. Remember how he was down and out at the beginning of Die Hard with a Vengeance? He's like here throughout the entire film. Wayans basically spits out jokes and is generally harmless and uninteresting. Unsurprisingly, the inclusion of Danielle Harris (the young girl from Halloween 4 and 5) proves to be the worst decision made, but the early 90's action flick wouldn't quite be complete without the foul-mouthed kid, and she, well, does that okay, I guess. Scott's direction is as good as in True Romance or Revenge with a lot of smoke but occasional gleeful violence. Here, it seems like Scott watched Hard Boiled a lot before seeing it. Therefore, we get a lot of two gun scenes that aren't done super well but also refuse to flinch away from bloodier aspects. Unfortunately, the finale is pretty weak, and the whole film only ever gets up to being pleasantly unmediocre. Still, though, if you're feeling like a straight early 90's Hollywood actioner, I'm not sure you could do much better. *** out've *****