Last Man Standing (1996)
Last Man Standing is a 1996 American action film written and directed by Walter Hill and starring Bruce Willis, Christopher Walken, and Bruce Dern. It is a credited remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo.RELATED:
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Plot.
In Prohibition-era Texas, a wanderer named John Smith (Bruce Willis) drives his Ford Model A Coupe into the small bordertown of Jericho. As he arrives, a young woman named Felina (Karina Lombard) crosses the street, catching Smith’s eye. Moments later, a group of Irish mobsters, led by Finn (Patrick Kilpatrick), surround Smith’s car. They warn him against staring at “Doyle’s property” and smash up his car. Stranded and with no money to get his car fixed, Smith goes to see Sheriff Ed Galt (Bruce Dern); the cowardly Galt refuses to help him. Instead, Smith walks to the town hotel, run by Joe Monday (William Sanderson), gets a drink and a room, and arms himself. He then goes to Doyle’s headquarters and challenges Finn to a duel, which Smith wins with alarming speed. Smith departs and returns to the hotel bar, much to the surprise of Jericho’s residents. Learning of Finn’s death, Fredo Strozzi (Ned Eisenberg), the head of Jericho’s Italian gang, offers Smith a job in his outfit. Strozzi is eager to wipe out his rivals, and is hiring anyone who can fight to build up his gang.
Smith agrees to his offer and meets Giorgio Carmonte (Michael Imperioli), son of a prominent Chicago mobster who is monitoring Strozzi’s activities in Jericho. Carmonte expresses his immediate distrust and dislike of Smith, who leaves, and meets and seduces Strozzi’s mistress, Lucy (Alexandra Powers).
Smith accompanies Strozzi and his men to a backcountry road, where they meet Ramirez, a corrupt Mexican police official on Doyle’s payroll. The gang ambushes and kills Doyle’s men and seizes a caravan of illicit liquor. Carmonte travels to Mexico to cut more deals with Ramirez, while Doyle (David Patrick Kelly) and his chief enforcer, Hickey (Christopher Walken) return to Jericho and are informed of Finn’s death and the loss of the shipment. Smith defects to Doyle’s side and reveals Ramirez’s betrayal. Hickey travels to Mexico, kills Ramirez and a corrupt Border Patrol officer involved in the liquor trade, and kidnaps Carmonte.
Development and writing.
Walter Hill was approached by producer Arthur Sarkassian to remake the Japanese film Yojimbo (1961), which Akira Kurosawa not only directed but also co-wrote with Ryūzō Kikushima. Hill says, “It took me a long time to be persuaded to do it. I thought the very idea of adapting Mr. Kurosawa was insanity for the obvious reasons. The first movie was very, very good and in addition I would be in the long shadow of Mr. Kurosawa who is probably our most revered filmmaker.” When he learned that Kurosawa was supportive of an American remake, Hill agreed to write and direct—but on the condition that the film not be a Western (there had already been an unauthorized European remake, the Spaghetti Western A Fistful of Dollars, which had been the subject of litigation). He decided to do it as a 1930s gangster film using techniques of 1940s film noir. “This is the story of a bad man, who as soon as he arrives begins pushing buttons and doing things only for himself”, said Hill.RELATED:
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“But we also discover that this man is at a point of spiritual crisis with himself and his own past. And this man decides that maybe he should do one good deed, even if it goes against all the rules of his life as he understands it … The action and the violence must be organic to the story being told. I think this is obviously by its nature a very dark and very hard movie, so I think it would be dishonest to tell the story and present the physicality in a softer way. Besides, I don’t think this is the most brutal film imaginable. There’s actually very little blood other than in the sequence where Bruce gets beaten up.”
He admitted the film was not realistic. “I don’t think anything akin to the social realism movies of the 1930s is being attempted”, he said. “We’re into a ‘once upon a time’ mythic-poetic situation.”
Hill signed to make the project in 1994. The film was green lit by New Line Cinema’s head of production Michael De Luca who allocated a $40 million budget. The film was known by several titles including “Gundown”, then “Gangster”, then “Welcome to Jericho.”