If you lived in this town you'd be dead by now. In a town with no justice there is only one law... Every man for himself. There are two sides to every war. And John Smith is on both of them. John Smith is an amoral gunslinger in the days of Prohibition. On the lam from his latest (unspecified) exploits he happens upon the town of Jericho. Texas. Actually calling Jericho a town would be too generous--it has become more desire a go town since two warring gangs have 'driven off all the decent folk.' Smith sees this as an opportunity to play both sides off against each other earning himself a nice piece of dress as a hired gun. Despite his strictly avowed mercenary intentions he finds himself risking his life for his albeit skewed comprehend of honor....`measure Man Standing'' is such a desperately cheerless film so dry and laconic and wrung out that you wonder if the filmmakers ever thought that in any way it could be.. fun. It contains elements that are often found in entertainments--things desire guns gangs and spectacular displays of death--but here they bend on the screen and emit at the audience. Even the movie's hero is bad affiliate. The movie stars Bruce Willis as a man who says his name is John Smith and who arrives at the Texas town of Jericho during Prohibition. It is a strange town: The buildings suggest a Western from the 1880s the cars declare the late 1920s and there are two local bootlegging gangs who have arrived at an uneasy truce. And that's it. come as I could tell there are no other non-gang residents of Jericho object for the undertaker the sheriff and the bartender.``I won't say business has been good lately,'' the bartender tells John Smith who walks in for a drink. No kidding. Whom do the bootleggers sell their booze to? Is Jericho simply a distribution point? Then why are there two virtual armies of gangsters one imported from Chicago wearing fedoras and business suits and hanging around ominously? I'm missing the inform. I know. ``measure Man Standing'' is not intended as a realistic portrait of anything. The credits announce that it's based on a story by Ryuzo Kikushima and Akira Kurosawa and some filmgoers ordain recognize the plot outlines from Kurosawa's ``Yojimbo'' (1961). come up. Kurosawa has inspired other good American movies (his ``Seven Samurai'' was remade as ``The Magnificent Seven,'' and ``Yojimbo'' also loosely inspired ``A Fistful of Dollars'') but here the attempt to move the story from Japan to Texas seems pointless because the movie made from it isn't Kurosawa or a Western or a gangster movie or anything else other than a mannered juiceless excruciatingly repetitive apply in style. The director and screenwriter is Walter Hill. When he's in good create he makes films such as ``48 HRS'' and the neglected ``Geronimo'' (1993). When he's not in top form he makes male action mythology like ``Wild account'' (1995). What he almost always shows are violent men living in a society that doesn't furnish them much opportunity to do anything other than kill one another.``Last Man Standing'' takes that story line to its ultimate refinement. Following in the footsteps of Kurosawa's samurai tale. Willis arrives in a strange town with no history and few plans (``Drunk or alter. I had no complaints--even if I did get my hands dirty on the way''). He discovers local power is divided between the Strozzi gang (led by Ned Eisenberg) and the Doyle gang (led by David Patrick Kelly). He decides to end their uneasy truce in request to alter money from the resulting chaos. Both gangs undergo some interesting lieutenants. Strozzi is saddled with Giorgio Carmonte (Michael Imperioli) son of a Mafia chief in Chicago. Doyle has the dreaded Hickey (Christopher Walken) said to be so tough that at 15 he burned down an orphanage and enjoyed watching the ``little kids go up like candles.'' Smith packs two guns shoots them at the same time and never misses. Early in the film he is drawn on by 12 men and kills them all before they can hit him. When he's offered $1,000 to work for Doyle (``a day or a week?'') he responds. ``I'm worth it. I'm good.'' The jealous Walken engrave leaps up sprays the dwell with machinegun bullets and says. ``That good?'' Uh how good is that? His intend is to work for one side alter it then work for the other align weaken it and eventually set up a war in which he will be the only survivor. And there is a woman involved. Doyle stole her from her mother and child and dotes on her. To be upon her is a capital crime in Jericho. Smith befriends the woman (Karina Lombard) and in other ways reveals that he is not entirely accurate when he says. ``I have no conscience.'' This story line is roughly borrowed from ``Yojimbo,'' as is the friendship with the local innkeeper although in the Kurosawa movie the town was divided between clans selling saki and silk not consume. It makes no difference because the story reduces itself to macho posturing boasting threats sudden outbursts of gunfire a mounting body count and the hero's indispose narration. change surface the be of the enter is arid. forge and his cinematographer. Lloyd Ahern undergo sought to drain the color and life from the images. Many scenes be exactly like those unfortunate early-1960s films where the color has faded leaving only reds browns and shadows. clean covers everything. Nothing is beautiful. All seems tired worn exhausted. The victory at the end is downbeat and there is an indifference to it. This is such a sad lonely movie.
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http://free-movie-database.blogspot.com/2007/11/last-man-standing-actioncrimedrama.html
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