In Jericho, Smith inserts himself in the middle of two warring gangster clans, one Irish and one Italian. He stops at the Depression era town of Jericho (the film’s original title before it changed to “Gundown” then finally “Last Man Standing”). As of now, while it certainly is not perfect, I find it to be a really great little action film with style to spare.īruce Willis is “Smith”, a gun for hire on the run from… something. Eventually I would see it a few more times and began to like it much better. Ten years later, I revisited the film, and I began to find the merits held within. When it hit home video,I saw it again and was still unsatisfied and racked it up as a loss. I knew the reviews were bad, so I was a bit nervous, even though I trusted Hill as a filmmaker and he has rarely let me down.Īs I watched the film for the first time, the whole thing felt a bit…off. It was a Saturday, and the theater was completely empty except for me and an old couple in the front.
I saw the film on its opening weekend, like any obedient Walter Hill fan should. The studio gave it lackluster promotion and audiences stayed away.īe it good or bad, for audiences to immediately rebuff a film directed by Walter Hill and starring box office sensation Bruce Willis seemed strange. In cinemas, Hill’s film came and went within a few weeks. The late great Roger Ebert branded the film with his dreaded 1-star rating while Leonard Maltin gave the film his lowest possible, the dreaded “BOMB”. Hill’s retelling of Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece “Yojimbo” was a huge flop upon release and most major film critics trashed it. Welcome to a special section of Action Rewind called When Action Films Had Balls where we look at the action films of yesteryear that had their own set of rules and made no apologies while carving out their own violent niche in cinematic history.ĭirected by master filmmaker Walter Hill, 1996’s “Last Man Standing” is certainly his most polarizing work.