Hard to believe no one reviewer made the connection between this movie, and the 2 I believe this to be remakes of sorts, 1] A Fistful Of Dollars -1964 & 2] For A Few Dollars More -1965., both from Clint's classic Man With No Name Collection.If you liked this then you should watch the 2 originals along with The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly as well as Hang' Em High - 1968.Looking forward to the thoughts of those reviewers and other after they watch the aforementioned Clint Eastwood movies and compare them to Bruce Willis' entry of Last Man Standing.

Last Man Standing (1996): Dir: Walter Hill / Cast: Bruce Willis, Christopher Walken, Bruce Dern, Alexandra Powers, William Sanderson: Mindless exercise in violence and mayhem. Title seems to indicate that everyone thinks with their fists. Bruce Willis arrives in a western town and notices a woman then he encounters a group of hoodlums who state that she is their boss's woman and underline the threat by bashing a window in his car. In response Willis shoots a dozen of them or so. This catches on and soon his services are up for auction. Two gangs run the town and Willis is paid off by both. The results are predictable, repetitious and dull. Director Walter Hill succeeds in painting the western atmosphere but he also creates one of the worst films of the year. Hill is a celebrated filmmaker whose weird and wacky The Warriors has strangely gained cult status. Willis delivers one of his worst performances as this gun slinging moron. Christopher Walken is wasted as a villain whom Willis is suppose to fear. Their showdown lacks the dramatic payoff and suspense generally associated with it. Bruce Dern, William Sanderson and Alexandra Powers are wasted in roles that are beneath them. This is a pathetic piece of trash and an insult to the western genre. It leaves one to wonder which member of the audience will be the last man waking. Score: 1 / 10

You ever have a film in your mind that you loved as a kid but have since drifted away from? I remember watching this around the time of release and fell for its overly stylised, excessive violence and moody, oppressive atmosphere. But watching it again last night, I was left wondering exactly why I fell for it so badly. It might not be the most original picture out there and it certainly isn't what you'd call uplifting. But there is a strange, almost cartoon-y level of carnage that action fans will lap up. A pity then, that the film is about as deep as your average burst of Tom & Jerry.Bruce Willis plays a drifter who goes by the name of John Smith who winds up in the dead-end ghost town of Jericho, Texas. Quickly discovering that the town is the site of a vicious dispute between two gangs of bootleggers, Smith senses an opportunity to make a quick buck by playing the gangs off against each other. After working with the Italians led by Strozzi (Ned Eisenberg) and then the Irish families led by Doyle (David Patrick Kelly), Smith's plan quickly unravels when Doyle's psychotic right-hand man Hickey (Christopher Walken) reappears in town and takes exception to Smith's quickly-earned reputation as the ultimate gun-for-hire...Shot in a warm orange glow that's reminiscent of a sepia photograph, "Last Man Standing" is a real oddity that blends westerns, gangsters and even Kurosawa in a not-entirely-successful picture. The setting is an odd mix of a hot and sticky western town and even has a corrupt sheriff (Bruce Dern) but seems populated almost entirely by sharp-suited gangsters in old Fords, a snivelling bartender (William Sanderson) and an undertaker for whom business is good. The plot, which shouldn't be that confusing to follow, is lost in a mire of mumbling characters and possibly the dullest voice-over in history by Willis who appears to have suffered from a personality bypass. The problem is exacerbated when Willis and Walken share the screen as each of them sneer and growl at each other like a couple of grumpy old dogs instead of lighting the screen up with sparkling dialogue like the stars they are. At times, it's almost laughable.But then a scene appears when Willis gets to do some serious ass-kicking and indeed, "Last Man Standing" does not disappoint in this department. There is a strong sense that writer/director Walter Hill spent a lot of time watching "Desperado" because this film also has baddies flying through the air, bullets raining down from Willis's dual pistols (which only run out of ammo when the baddies are either dead or reloading themselves) as the screen lights up with muzzle flashes. It is jolly well done and very exciting but when the guns are holstered and Willis is smooth-talking his way into the bed of moll Lucy (Alexandra Powers), the film badly sags. There's no real pulse behind it as the film continues to tell its story, which is one that really hasn't any got much substance to it. Certainly, nothing ever feels at stake and Willis's enigmatic loner is a difficult hero to get behind. Seasoned action fans will get a kick out of this but I can't avoid the feeling that it needed something else. "Desperado" has a feeling of fun to it, a sense that its OK to laugh in places - not to mention the sexiest sidekick of the 90's, Salma Hayek. "Last Man Standing" has no joy or fun to it and in many ways, it's like Smith himself - awesome when there is a gun in its hand but without it, it's a load of nothing.

"One thing is for sure.. they're all better of dead.." Kristl repeated the lines. Kristl and Henry were having a cup of tea in their garage-turned-movie- theater while the movie credits rolled past. They had replayed that last part of the movie because they both liked the movie."Yes?" Henry said, looking at Kristl trying to figure out where she was going with those lines, quoted directly from the movie. "Pity they just forgot to finish the job properly and kill of the whole cast including Bruce Willis." Kristl said."Uhmm" Henry was somewhat distracted by the exit sign that was flickering at the edge of his vision. He suspected that the light-bulb would fail in the near future. "I mean, there is nothing against remaking a movie. And this is, I heard, the official remake of Yojimbo, the classic movie made by Kurosawa, which was redone some years later as a Fistful of Dollars with Clint Eastwood. But it has turned out to be a completely superfluous movie done by the numbers that does not compare in any way to either movies. There is simply nothing memorable about this movie unless it is the totally ridiculous fighting scenes where Bruce Willis somehow survives getting shot at by ten men armed with guns, shotguns, dual pistols, despite them fellows firing first and firing from distances down to ten paces." Kristl said."Well.. it was a nice try… and was entertaining.. I mean it has Bruce Willis and Christopher Walken. Walken is always a nice bad guy and he does that again, considering that he is only to be seen for a few minutes. And William Sanderson is in it. I always liked William.. He should get better roles.. maybe a main lead in a Coen brothers movie.""I just got the feeling his role resembled the one from Blade Runner a bit too much. Like somehow he is good at playing slightly retarded people.. or seemingly retarded people. And it is this role he plays here, again.""Heh.""When I try very hard, i mean really really hard, then what I can come up with, is that the music at the end is nice and some of the landscape shots, the few there are, are nice. The rest is just.. plain nothing. The whole story stumbles along and nothing remotely interesting happens.""I am sorry.. I can not remember anything else, except that it is a decent action film." Henry shrugged."When I try to think of what wrecks the film the most I have to either choose: the utterly ridiculous setting; a mob war in western town set in the mid-twenties, or casting mr smith(nobody) as a film noir guy that talks with an boring overvoice. I mean.. the overvoice simply wrecks the whole character because we know what he is thinking and through this thinking we know what his motives are.. and this is exactly that we do not know in the other two movies because we are left to wonder whether the destruction of both gangs by nobody is either the result of good intentions or bad intentions. This is an anti-hero.. ambiguous.. unknown. The overvoice simply kills that.""But what probably undoes the whole movie is that the movie does nothing remarkable with the new angles.. If it has to be a mob movie, then do something with it.. and if the character is a film noir character it is more than drinking whisky, having an overvoice and being beaten up.. and having someone vaguely act as a femme fatale. The dialogue is superior uninteresting.""Uhm." Henry said under the waterfall over sentences."But actually it is not surprising because the director, Walter Hill, has never made any remarkable movie. In fact he makes middle-of-the- road-action movies and when he gets the possibility to remake a classic movie and actually show he might be able to do more with the material he gets, he chickens out and makes another middle-of-the-road-action movie.. which is what the last man standing basically is.""Quite. You know the music is from Mr.Ry Cooder?""Oh.. That explains why I like it.""...Say, Kristl?" Henry said after a few moments of silence."Yeah?""What would you have done if you had been ask to make the movie?""Uhm.""Well.. considering you never made a movie in your life.. what would you have done?""Well you do not need to have made a movie to judge them..""Yes, I know.. but what would you have done.. I am curious.""Well. maybe it would..perhaps.. have taken William Sanderson character as the main or the undertaker.. or maybe… have them merged.. So that the whole story is from a different angle.. perhaps have the mob war really take place in a city.. where the mob is and have cut out the overvoice and make the hero Sanderson, a really film noir guy.""Ah.""And used an expressionistic movie style.. because I like the third man.""And have everyone die in the end?""Yeah.. ""Will be an arty movie, I suppose.""Probably. Not a middle of the road action movie.""No..and probably one that lost money.""Yeah.. but it would be memorable.. hah" Kristl said.Because someone lost a lot of money or because it was arty? Henry thought in overvoice."Either way.." Krislt said with a smile, "Or both.."www.meritcoba.com