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The Last Boy Scout poster

The Last Boy Scout

year 1991decade 90sdirector Tony Scottgenre Actiongenre Comedygenre Thriller

105 minutes

Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

Bruce Willis Joe Hallenbeck
Damon Wayans Jimmy Dix
Chelsea Field Sarah Hallenbeck
Noble Willingham Sheldon "Shelly" Marcone
Danielle Harris Darian Hallenbeck
Bruce McGill Mike Matthews
Kim Coates Chet
Chelcie Ross Senator Calvin Baynard
Joe Santos Lieutenant Ben Bessalo
Billy Blanks Billy Cole

The Last Boy Scout | The Rewatchables

host Bill Simmonshost Chris Ryanproducer Craig Horlbeck format 30th anniversary
Explore episodeClose episode

Most Rewatchable Scene

The opening Billy Cole scene

In the discussion (16)
Approx. transcript time · 00:23:33Read transcript
  • The scene is set at halftime of a Cleveland versus Los Angeles game with Vern Lundquist, Dick Buckkiss and Lynn Swan as sideline reporter, who berates the L.A. owner about ratings, attendance and where all the heroes have gone.
  • The hosts want sideline reporters to ask NBA players like Brandon Ingram and LeBron James where all the heroes have gone.
  • Billy Cole is alleged to take PCP in the locker room, though one host always thought it was cocaine until reading Wikipedia.
  • Early nits: whether he had the gun in his pants the whole quarter, how it did not affect his burst while breaking four tackles, and whether his touchdown would count for gamblers.
  • He says 'Ain't life a bitch' as he shoots himself, and the broadcast presumably cuts to a test signal.
  • Only one spotlight seems to be on in Cleveland Stadium, like a German expressionist film; Tony Scott's football is closer to Zach Snyder's 300 and the rain device returns in The Fan.
  • The scene was a watershed; the movie arguably peaks in the first six minutes, helped by the Bill Medley Friday Night Football song.
  • Other rewatchable scenes offered: Joe finding the guy in the closet, which leads to the first of several car bombs.
  • Jimmy's speech on the NFL stance on drugs and gambling, played back by Craig, reads like Shane Black at 3:30 in the morning.
  • Joe versus Kim Coats, where Joe warns him not to touch him again and then kills him.
  • The quirky hitmen, like Pablo playing piano and Taylor Negron, feel Tarantino-like before Tarantino made a movie.
  • The stuffed-animal scene with the car chase, despite not knowing how the gun fits in the stuffed animal.
  • The big football-game ending: a throw from a wounded hand to the senator's box, Damon Wayans on a horse, and Bruce Willis's fight with Taylor Negron ending in a jig.
  • The Hollywood Hills car chase with cars going down the hill that lands in the pool.
  • The strip club with Corey and the Corey car-chase murder right after it are offered as another rewatchable scene; the other side left it out because seeing Halle Berry murdered hurts, wishing she had just taken one in the shoulder.
  • Asked for a most rewatchable pick, the answer is the opening scene, watchable a hundred times in a row; it is jokingly why football had to leave L.A.

What’s Aged the Best?

Friday Night Football montage; Joe Hallenbeck's beatings; the title on the football card; the disgraced-hero backstory; bad guys saying a full name derisively; Wayans's hat; the witty exchanges; Halle Berry's brief role; the conspiracy explanation scene

In the discussion (11)
Approx. transcript time · 00:37:35Read transcript
  • The Friday Night Football montage, with a question about who Bill Medlay is.
  • Joe Hallenbeck is hit in the face seven times, three times in the back of the head, tasered and stabbed; he is compared with Marvin in Midnight Run for most abuse.
  • Nobody is better at getting beaten up in movies than Willis, who lacked the ego seen in the Pacino speech in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
  • The football card signed to the daughter works the title into the movie about as well as it gets; research traced it to the early-90s Pro Set.
  • The trope of a hero who did the right thing about something terrible, then falls into a much worse job, often a former Secret Service agent, with In the Line of Fire and The Sentinel cited.
  • Private detectives in movies are always drinking alcoholics sitting in cars.
  • Bad guys saying someone's full name derisively, as Taylor Negron does, is a great way to mark a villain.
  • Wayans's fez-style hat with the tassel is cool, also worn by Hallie Berry in Boomerang, and should come back.
  • The exchanges are witty in script form and Willis somehow pulls them off; the movie is tired, drunk, sarcastic and dead inside.
  • Hally Berry brings so much to a small part in only four or five minutes, which makes Boomerang's premise ludicrous.
  • The owner Shelley explaining the conspiracy recalls Donald Sutherland in JFK, and the gambling-and-blackmail conspiracy could still work today.

What’s Aged the Worst?

Joe's hatred for rap music; the Jimmy Carter look-alike; the first dad-daughter scene; Tony Scott's conception of football contact; the Joel Silver–Bruce Willis relationship

In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 00:50:19Read transcript
  • Joe's hatred for rap music was a throwaway grizzled line in 91 while rap and hip-hop were exploding.
  • The Jimmy Carter look-alike is terrible, like a doll from the Land of Confusion video, and would now be done with CGI.
  • The first dad-daughter scene is too long and the daughter too angry; Daniel Harris is praised for Halloween 4.
  • Homophobia and misogyny in the humor are noted but felt on brand for the late 80s and early 90s and did not stand out at the time.
  • The film's idea of roughing the passer is so violent that it questions whether Tony Scott ever watched a football game.
  • The movie aged better than expected; the Joel Silver and Bruce Willis relationship seemed combustible.

The Joey Pants “That Guy” Award

In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 00:54:27Read transcript
  • McGill doesn't count.
  • Kim Coates is chosen as someone long recognized without knowing his name.
  • Pablo is unquestionably that guy, and the actor playing Shelley the owner is also noted; Noble Willingham plays Sheldon Marcon.
  • Pablo is played by Frank Collison, chosen as the other pick, and the award is given as a tie between Kim Coates and Frank Collison.
  • Joe Santos, the police sergeant who had him in his hands, is another good That Guy who has faded after peaking in the 70s, 80s and 90s.

The Dion Waiters Award for Best Heat Check Performance

In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 00:56:43Read transcript
  • With respect to Kim Coates, Taylor Nagron is everything wanted from the award, in the best performance of his career.
  • He is one of the better bad guys, walking out of a burning car in a pool to keep shooting people; he is mesmerizing, and it is surprising he did not become a bigger star.
  • His formal-introductions scene set up the ironic, funny but scary villain later seen in Conair; Alan Rickman may have invented it, but Negron showed a lesser-known actor could do it.
  • Negron was a Los Angeles stand-up comic seen on Letterman and in Punchline; a modern equivalent would be Kyle Mooney.
  • Lines like 'Officer, there are too many bullets in this gun' push the movie to another level.

Apex Mountain

Bruce Willis; the Wayans brothers; L.A. NFL home games; $650 leather pants; dripping blood from the mouth and nose

In the discussion (9)
Approx. transcript time · 01:04:59Read transcript
  • Bruce Willis is an all-time yes.
  • The Wayans brothers get a yes, with Damon here and the family on In Living Color.
  • L.A. NFL home games get a yes because L.A. football never got better.
  • Halliberry is still Boomerang, and Daniel Harris is still Halloween 4.
  • Tony Scott is a no, and Joel Silver probably not because of The Matrix and Die Hard.
  • Early-90s kooky L.A. still goes to True Romance.
  • The $650 leather pants are called an apex.
  • The movie is proposed as the Apex Mountain for hangover acting, but Sonny Crockett and Jack Cates are raised against it and the claim is left contested rather than settled.
  • Later, dripping blood from the mouth and nose is added as an apex for this movie.

Who Won the Movie?

In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 01:16:50Read transcript
  • Willis is incredible, but the pick is Damon Wayans for a dynamite movie-star performance he never got the chance to repeat.
  • The pick is agreed with: multiple people could have played the Bruce Willis role, including Don Johnson, but nobody else in 1991 could have been Jimmy Dix (Eddie too old, Denzel too established, Wesley Snipes weird, Jamie Fox too early).
  • It was right time, right place for Wayans, who is likable, and it is a bummer he never got better scripts.
  • Tony Scott was considered but rejected because this is not seen as a signature Tony Scott movie and it sounds agonizing to make.
  • In a book about cocaine-era late 80s and 90s movies, this would be a chapter.
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