The Last Boy Scout (1991)

The Last Boy Scout is a 1991 American buddy action comedy film directed by Tony Scott, written by Shane Black, and produced by Joel Silver. The film stars Bruce Willis, Damon Wayans, Chelsea Field, Noble Willingham, Taylor Negron and Danielle Harris. The film was released in the United States on December 13, 1991.

The Hitman (1991) Biography, Plot, Production, Box office, Scene.

Plot.

During halftime at a televised football game, L A. Stallions running back Billy Cole receives a phone call from a mysterious man named Milo, who warns him to win the game or he will be killed. Cole ingests PCP and in a drug-induced rage, brings a gun onto the field, shooting three opposing players to reach the end zone before shooting himself in the head. Meanwhile, private investigator Joseph Hallenbeck, a disgraced former Secret Service agent, discovers that his wife Sarah is having an affair with his friend and business partner, Mike Matthews. Mike gives Joe an assignment to act as bodyguard for a stripper named Cory. Mike is then killed by a car bomb outside Joe’s house.

Joe is approached by Cory’s boyfriend, former Stallions quarterback Jimmy Dix, who was banned from the league on gambling charges and alleged drug abuse. After an argument between Joe and Jimmy, an annoyed Jimmy takes Cory from the stage while she is performing. Joe plans to wait outside, where he is knocked out by a team of hitmen. Jimmy and Cory leave the bar in separate cars while Joe is able to overpower the single hitman left to dispatch him. When Cory is struck from behind and stops to confront the other driver, she is killed by the hitmen. Jimmy is fired upon and pinned down, but is saved by Joe.

At Cory’s house, Jimmy and Joe find a taped phone conversation between Senator Calvin Baynard, who is leading a congressional investigation into gambling in sports, and Stallions owner Sheldon Marcone. When the tape is ruined in Joe’s faulty car stereo, Jimmy realizes that Cory tried using the tape against Marcone to put Jimmy back on the team, prompting Marcone to send the hitmen. Joe saves Jimmy from another car bomb, and tricks two hitmen into blowing themselves up. However, the explosion destroys the remaining evidence.

Development and writing

The film was based on an original script by Shane Black. He wrote the script after having taken a two-year break from writing, triggered in part by the end of a relationship. The Geffen Film Company outbid other companies, paying a record $1.75 million for the script, with over a $1 million guaranteed up front. Black later recalled: I was busy mourning my life and, in many ways, the loss of my first real love. I didn’t feel much like doing anything except smoking cigarettes and reading paperbacks. All things come around. Time passed and eventually I sat down and transformed some of that bitterness into a character, the central focus of a private eye story which became The Last Boy Scout. Writing that script was a very cathartic experience, one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. I spent so much time alone working on that. Days which I wouldn’t speak. Three, four days where I maybe said a couple words. It was a wonderfully intense time where my focus was better than it’s ever been.

Cover Up (1991) Biography, Plot, Trailer

And I was rewarded so handsomely ($1.75 million) for that script, it felt like a vindication and like I was back on track. Roger Ebert, commenting on the script, said “The original screenplay for The Last Boy Scout set a record for its purchase price; that was probably because of the humor of the locker-room dialogue, since the plot itself could have been rewritten out of the Lethal Weapon movies by any film school grad.” Joel Silver was guaranteed $1 million to produce. Silver said in a Q&A for The Nice Guys (2016) that Shane Black’s original title was Die Hard. Silver asked if he could take the title for a project he was working on at the time called Nothing Lasts Forever, which eventually became Die Hard (1988).[citation needed] Shane Black and Tony Scott both said in later years how the original script was far better than the final film.

Filming.

The Last Boy Scout was filmed in 90 days between March 11 and June 9, 1991. The movie had a very troubled production. Conflict and arguments flared between Joel Silver, Bruce Willis and Tony Scott. Although they partner up in the film, Willis and Damon Wayans hated working with each other. Silver was described as “insane, with long, horrible fits of sanity,” and was compared to a fighter pilot riding as a passenger. “As soon as you hit a little bit of turbulence, he’s right away going to throw the guy out of the window and take over the steering.” Taylor Negron, who played Milo, described Silver as extremely hands-on in every aspect of the production. Assistant director James Skotchdopole attributed the tension on-set to an “overabundance of alpha males on that project. Bruce was at the height of his stardom, so was Joel, so was Tony and so was Shane. There were a lot of people who had a lot of opinions about what to do. There were some heated, early-Nineties, testosterone charged personalities on the line. It was a ‘charged environment,’ shall we say.” Writer Shane Black had to wrestle with the script.

Box office.

The film under-performed expectations given the star power and hype surrounding the then record price paid for the screenplay by Shane Black ($1.75 million). It grossed $7.9 million in its opening weekend, and the total gross in the United States and Canada was $59.5 million. Internationally, the film grossed $55 million for a worldwide gross of $114.5 million. Reviews were mixed, and some critics cited the Christmas time release for such a violent film as a reason for its somewhat underwhelming box office. Although the film was not a blockbuster, it helped Bruce Willis recover his star status after the disastrous Hudson Hawk and became hugely popular in the video rental market.