Bullet Points: The Last Boy Scout (1991)

The Last Boy Scout hit theaters on December 13, 1991 and it was the recent anniversary that prompted me to revisit one of the more unsung movies of the Golden Age of Action…

• Are You Ready For Some Football?: The movie begins in rainy Cleveland, as the Los Angeles Stallions are battling the Cleveland Cats at Municipal Stadium, under the bright lights of a network TV professional football broadcast. At halftime the Stallions are down, and that’s when star player, Billy Cole (Billy Blanks, Showdown) gets a phone call in the locker room that freaks him out. The voice on the other end tells Billy he better start scoring some points.. Meanwhile, out on the field, Lynn Swann is interviewing Stallions owner, Sheldon Marcone (Noble Willingham, Blind Fury), who shares his thoughts on the state of professional football.. the voice on the other end tells him he better start scoring some points… Back in the locker room, Billy pops some pills before heading out for the second half. Once the game resumes, Billy ends up popping some of the opposing team with the gun he brought with him! Nobody can believe what is happening and before you know it, Billy is on his knees on the field and takes his own life. An absolute tragedy has unfolded. Football in Cleveland, amirite?
• Down and Out: When we first meet private detective, Joe Hallenbeck (Bruce Willis, Die Hard), he’s asleep in the front seat of his car while some neighborhood kids put a dead squirrel on him, before they try to steal his watch. When he finally makes it to his office, Joe gets a call from his “best friend” Mike Matthews (Bruce McGill, TimeCop) asking him if he would be interested in taking a job protecting an exotic dancer. Joe will soon find out that his “best friend” is sleeping with his wife, Sarah (Chelsea Field, Masters of the Universe)! Throw in the fact that Joe’s teenage daughter hates his guts and it makes sense why Joe has some seriously low self esteem… a condition that started when he was fired from his Secret Service gig, after he got into with a Senator, who believed he was above the law.

• Sad Sacked: When we first meet Jimmy Dix (Damon Wayans, Major Payne) it’s the morning after a wild party and Jimmy is doing a walk of shame, before heading over to the strip club where his exotic dancer girlfriend, Cory (Halle Berry, John Wick: Chapter 3) works… the same stripper Joe has been hired to protect. At one time Jimmy Dix was the best quarterback in the league, but pain killers and gambling ended up being his undoing. Later in the film, we also learn that Jimmy had to deal with some serious personal loss that also added to his eventual professional downfall. When Jimmy arrives at the strip club, he sees Cory talking to Joe. When he talks to Cory about it, he finds out that she is in some sort of trouble and is somewhat offended she’s turning to a private detective for help and not him. This leads to an unpleasant first meeting between Jimmy and Joe… but things are about to get a lot more unpleasant, when the guys who are after Cory, take out Joe, so she leaves on her own, with Jimmy following in his car. This turns out to be disastrous as Cory is gunned down in the street… Joe and Jimmy catch up to Cory, but is too late. Joe and Jimmy end up taking out the assassins, and the seeds of a team up are planted!

• Birds of a Feather: There is the natural resistance from Joe about taking on a partner to find out why anyone would want to kill Cory. But the past of our two fallen heroes is a big reason why Cory had no future. It turns out that Cory got wind of Jimmy’s former boss, Sheldon Marcone attempting to cut a deal with Senator Baynard (Chelcie Ross, Above the Law) to get professional sports gambling legalized, since professional football wasn’t the money making machine it used to be. Senator Baynard being the same Senator who cost Joe his Secret Service job. Cory had a taped conversation between Marcone and Baynard and was going to use it to blackmail Marcone into giving Jimmy his job back… but Marcone doesn’t play the blackmail game, so he had his goons take out Cory. To add an interesting wrinkle to things, Senator Baynard is playing hardball with Marcone on their deal… so Marcone decides he’s going to off Baynard too!
• The Last Bullet Point: Now Joe finds himself in a position where he has to save the asshole who cost him his job, so another asshole who ordered the death of Cory, can’t get even more rich and powerful. Marcone’s weapon of choice to take out the Senator, is an assassin named Milo. Milo was played by Taylor Negron… which I would classify as an unconventional casting choice, but damn if he didn’t pull it off. Milo proved to be one tough sonofabitch, who gave our heroes almost more trouble than they could handle… especially when Joe’s rebellious daughter, Darian (Danielle Harris, Marked for Death) gets caught up in the action, much to her father’s dismay.

I feel like the world has taken The Last Boy Scout for granted ever since it was released back in 1991. Why? It’s not because the movie didn’t contain enough action… there are shootouts, car bombs, car chases and a final showdown at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum! It’s not because the movie lacked star power… Bruce Willis was at the height of his powers in 1991 and Damon Wayans was a star on the rise. It’s not because the story was uninteresting, the sports betting angle was not something that had been done to death, and it gave us some bad guys that were easy to hate.

The only explanation I can come up with, is that we were all spoiled in the Golden Age of Action. The Law Boy Scout is a great movie, but there were a ton of great action movies in that era. One right after another, making it really easy for some movies to get lost in the shuffle or slept on altogether.

Now let me spoil all of you with some Bonus Bullet Points…

• Familiar Faces: The often creepy Kim Coates (Officer Downe and Black Hawk Down) plays Chet, another one of Marcone’s henchmen… Joe Santos (The Rockford Files and Fear City) played Lt. Bessalo, the obligatory exasperated cop in charge… Tony Longo (Rapid Fire and Eraser) plays Big Ray Walton of the L.A. Stallions, who is no fan of the ejected from the league Jimmy Dix.
• Bastard Count: The Last Boy Scout contained an impressive 12 “bastards”. Those types of numbers are usually reserved for classic Kung Fu films, so I tip my hat to Shane Black!
• Excellent Choice: Speaking of Shane Black… when Joe returns home to see his family, Darian is watching Lethal Weapon (specifically the Mel Gibson torture scene). Lethal Weapon was also written by Black and both films were produced by Joel Silver.
• Soundtraxx: The strip club provides some classic tunes, despite Joe Hallenbeck’s objections. There’s “I Wanna Be a Cowboy” by Boys Don’t Cry and the funky “Gett Off” by one of my all-time favorites, Prince!