LAST MAN STANDING
A remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, Last Man Standing is a western, with a lot of gunpowder, but pretty little imagination. While Sergio Leone’s A Fistful Of Dollars, an earlier remake of the Kurosawa classic, used style over substance to hold the viewer’s interest and succeeded, Last Man Standing tries to add testosterone-packed gunplay to achieve the same, but fails. I wish great films would be left alone, at least after they have been remade once.

Bruce Willis plays John Smith, who drives into the town of Jericho in his Ford jalopy. Prohibition is in force and the town, of course, is run by two rival bootleg gangs. One is an Irish gang run by Doyle (David Patrick Kelly) and his right hand, Hickey (Christopher Walken), while the other is an Italian mob led by Strozzi (Ned Eisenberg). Smith falls for Doyle’s girl, played by sexy Karina Lombard (the woman who seduced Cruise’s lawyer in The Firm), and provokes the ire of the Irish gang. The shoot-outs commence, with Strozzi seeking an ally in Smith. Soon, Smith pits one gang against the other and the original’s device sets in. But the story is merely an excuse for the gunfights, staged with finesse but lacking a suspenseful lead-up.

Willis gives a surprisingly pedestrian performance, wasting the classic role, relying upon his gun only. While the character never runs out of bullets, his performance does. He pales in comparison to Toshiro Mifune and Clint Eastwood, who were much more than their swords and their guns.