The Last Boy Scout

--- TL;DR version --- 1) The Last Boy Scout enjoys the reputation of being a cult classic only in the Czech Republic. 2) It defined a form of masculine coolness for a generation of Czech viewers, but in doing so, it unfortunately set for them a pattern of chauvinistic behaviour. 3) At its core, it disturbingly has a lot in common with Tommy Wiseau’s The Room. 4) It’s a minor miracle, or rather proof of the talent of everyone involved, that the result ultimately holds together so well despite all of the problems that arose during production. --- long version with arguments --- Among Czech movie fans, especially those born in the 1980s, The Last Boy Scout is regarded as an absolute cult classic and the benchmark of the buddy/action-movie category. But that is only a local phenomenon. In the country of its origin, The Last Boy Scout conversely has the status of an obscure genre flick that few people remember fondly. This is illustrated by the variation in ratings in Czech and international film databases (IMDB: 7/10, Leterboxd: 3.4/5) and the low average of foreign ratings (Rotten Tomatoes: 46%, Metacritic: 52%). The film was also re-released on Blu-ray in the past decade. Unlike many other titles from the filmographies of the people involved – including The Last Action Hero and Hudson Hawk – The Last Boy Scout shows no potential for re-release by its parent studio, or even by any of the labels like Shout, Imprint, Arrow or Lorber that focus exclusively on releasing both popular and niche cult flicks. After all, the international rights manager for cinema releases marvelled at the fact that we returned this film to the big screen in the Czech Republic with screenings at the Aero and Scala cinemas. _____ The renown enjoyed by The Last Boy Scout in the Czech Republic is largely due to the original ultra-vulgar dubbing of the first VHS release in the country, which in the 1990s made the film a generational cult classic among adolescent boys and became a legend quoted in school classrooms. I myself was then one of the boys who watched the main characters’ macho trash talk based on cutting each other down, or at least brushing off an unseemly remark. I was also impressed by the adoration of the film’s masculine formulas and posturing. The Last Boy Scout celebrates heroes who show their feelings only for a fraction of a second and wrapped up in tough-guy one-liners or pathos-ridden fatefulness. I believed that the hallmarks of male coolness were sullen expressions, smart-assery, bitterness, cynicism and permanent pain, none of which could bring on a bout of whining. A significant part of The Last Boy Scout’s local cultural capital is due to how well it is able to sell and implement patterns of chauvinistic hypermasculinity. The film’s tepid or rather negative reception in the US was due to the fact that at the time of its release, critics there were already turning against not only excessive violence, but also the country’s gender dynamics, toxic masculinity and concentrated misogyny. In other words, things that were on the way out in Hollywood productions at the time were conversely welcomed with belated enthusiasm in the Eastern Bloc, which was intoxicated with new, unrestrained freedom. Actually, it is thus no wonder that in some local boys, their enchantment turned into uncritical acceptance not only of the film, but unfortunately also of the values that it so successfully foisted on them. My counterparts from MovieZone may indulgently turn a blind eye to this, but I venture to say that their confident personas, which they present not only to their readers and viewers of their video/pod-casts, but also to each other, are a telling illustration of the influence of The Last Boy Scout. After all, it’s not a coincidence that they possessively defend it with overly clever (post-)90s bullshitting about how foreign critics simply don’t know what is good. However, they are far from being alone in this attitude, as they are merely the most popular voices of that specific form of guyness (at least feigned in public), which, in comparison with younger bros, is imbued with Black’s typical cynicism with a significant helping of overweening arrogance and self-flagellating martyrdom. _____ Which brings us to the screenplay, which (when we strip away the fannish adoration) is nothing more than the misogynistic fantasy of a bitter egoist after a breakup. That someone would write himself out of the misery of a breakup is not a bad thing in and of itself. The same roots gave rise to, for example, the superbly self-reflective and cathartic (500) Days of Summer. But they also gave rise to Tommy Wiseau’s legendarily off-the-rails ego trip The Room. Shane Black shares with Wiseau the ethos that the hero is the world’s greatest guy. But whereas in The Room everyone else knows that about the hero, with the exception of the “unfaithful bitch” who betrayed him, in The Last Boy Scout Black wrote his own pomposity into a messianic hero who is opposed by everyone and everything. The greater gratification thus naturally comes when the hero, despite all setbacks, sticks to his guns, thus ultimately showing everyone that his way is the right way. Where Wiseau indulges in pompous gratification in the climax of conceited martyrdom, Black comes up with a less theatrical but all the more terrifying conclusion. The happy ending of The Last Boy Scout prescriptively re-establishes the traditional family and order, while at the same time highlighting their toxicity. The idyll sketched out in the epilogue is purely one-sided with the absolute authority of the father, to whom absolutely everyone submits and humbly salutes. Not to mention that the entire situation of the hero and his family is derived solely from certain preconceived patriarchal delusions that the man is supposed to take care of his family and be respected for it. Joe Hallenbeck is the idealised projection screen for all frustrated men who bottle up their fucked-up lives and think that the highest form of expressing their feelings is to tell someone to fuck off with a roguish smile.  _____ Unlike The Room, however, The Last Boy Scout is not artless, off-kilter dreck, but a very inventively constructed and tremendously effective spectacle. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, Shane Black was a screenwriting star, combining would-be nonconformity with clever reflection of genre formulas. But at the core of all of Black’s work there is a typically fierce fanboyish desire to give back to the classic physical genres their coolness and wow effect with which they seduced their most loyal and enchanted audience, which, despite the age ratings, was always composed of boys on the threshold of adolescence. Black most honestly materialised this in what is clearly his best work, namely his debut screenplay for The Monster Squad, an excellent self-reflective children’s adventure with its roots in classic horror movies. But characteristically for the action genre as an obstinately would-be adult spectacle, his later works abandon the unbridled childlike exuberance and instead get buried in conservative myths about debauched and corrupt elites opposed by ordinary good guys. It is thus unsurprising that The Last Boy Scout is the cinematic equivalent of Frank Miller’s Sin City comic book series, which began publication in the same period but, due to the medium, could dare to be more ostentatious, objectifying, explicit and brutal. _____  In the end, however, the craftsmanship of the resulting film is praiseworthy, especially in light of the emerging stories of how the bloated egos of four men at the supposed peak of their careers – screenwriter Shane Black, producer Joel Silver, director Tony Scott and star Bruce Willis – clashed during production. In short, Black turned in a boorishly nihilistic and extreme screenplay (peculiarly elevated to the level of myth by Czech fans of The Last Boy Scout) for which he received a record-breaking fee in advance. The notorious control freak Silver meddled in every aspect of production, toned down Black’s rampant misogynistic fantasies and, after shooting had been completed, removed Scott, who was in the process of developing his impressionistic style with the film. And Willis couldn’t get along with his equally megalomaniacal co-star Damon Wayans, whose star was on the rise while Willis’s career was going in circles and his star was shining brightly only in the eastern territories. Unlike other productions plagued by creative differences, none of this is obviously evident in the final result, which Stuart Baird edited into shape. Since Scott was not involved in the final cut, it is rather surprising that the material that he shot was assembled into a final form that fits perfectly into the director’s filmography with its style, impressive surreal neon-noir visuals and fast-paced editing. (2023-07-08) (less) (more)