![[Think Tank] Benchmark Movies](https://www.overthinkingit.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/benchmark-carousel.jpg)
The Last Boy Scout – Perich
The Last Boy Scout teeters so precariously on the fence between Awesome and Terrible that I’m amazed the DVD doesn’t actually fall out of my player and shatter.
This is as friendly as they get.
The writer (Shane Black) goes for the standard action movie trope of raising the stakes by simply painting them in bolder strokes. So Bruce Willis isn’t merely a private investigator – he’s a former Secret Service agent who used to guard the Vice President. Damon Wayans isn’t merely a football player – he’s one of the best quarterbacks ever to play the game! But he had to quit, because he got hooked on painkillers! But this was only after his wife miscarried! And it just so happens Bruce Willis’s daughter was a huge fan of his!
So why does it work at all? Because the movie itself acknowledges the ridiculousness of the situation. “You’re trying to the save the life of the man who ruined your career,” Wayans observes to Willis, “and avenge the death of the guy that fucked your wife.”
The Last Boy Scout is so dark of a movie that it borders on ghoulish. Nobody’s happy to see anyone. Nobody has a healthy mindset. Everybody’s corrupt, vicious or seedy. And yet, when the dialogue and pacing work, they keep the movie light and peppy.
The Last Boy Scout is my benchmark movie for action movies only because it works on luck alone. Were it any darker, it’d be too depressing to watch. Any zanier and it couldn’t be believed. And were the script any tighter, it’d be Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Shane Black’s 2005 directorial debut).
No time to over-think, except that you call Alan Rickman’s performance in Robin Hood “ham-fisted.” That means a very bungled performance, but you then say it’s very good. Do you mean his hammed-up performance, in which he would be over-acting? Or … something else? /confused
I have a few benchmark movies based on genre. All of them are closer to the bad end of the spectrum as opposed to being dead center but I still enjoy them and use them as a benchmark.
Action: The Scorpion King starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Remember when The Rock actual made acceptable movies? I certainly do. While it does have a pretty cliched plot and some questionable dialogue, the action is well done. It also has Michael Clarke Duncan in the role he was meant to play: large, angry pesudo-antagonist to the hero.
Superhero: Ghost Rider, starring Nicholas Cage. It’s faithful enough to the source material to keep my inner Comic Book Guy in check. Cage’s acting switches between being just a bit over-the-top and being too hammy for it’s own good. Special effects aren’t the greatest in the world but they get the job done. It also has a great driving sequence with Ghost Riders in the Sky.
Thriller: Trauma. The name of the lead escapes me but I’ll admit I picked this film up on a whim. It has a decent mystery with a slow burn. The climax has several unexpected reveals within a few minutes of another. They aren’t ultimately satisfying but they do allow the film to end on a disturbing note. It doesn’t hold up under intense scurtiny but given the limited information the viewer is given, it stands up well on its own.
Hate to nitpick an otherwise enlightening article, but your post-script at the end of page 1 loses a lot of its steam when one recalls that “George H.W.” actually refers to Dubya’s dad — meaning that the 1991 movie really only only (supposedly) predicted the results of the 1992 election. (And accurately, at that.)
Keep up the good work! :)
Good call, Jon. My reading kung fu is weak. With apologies to Film Freak Central…
I dunno… I think ham-fisted but awesome is a great way to describe that performance. Ham-fisted doesn’t really mean bungled, it means something like clumsy, too forceful, bereft of subtlety. Like, Carmina Burana is really, REALLY ham-fisted. That doesn’t mean it’s not also good.
So while a ham-fisted surgeon is always bad, a ham-fisted boxer can sometimes do pretty well, and a ham-fisted performance can be brilliant. My nominations for greatest of all time would be Rickman in Robin Hood, Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments, and Joan Crawford in Straight Jacket.
@stokes: And anything by Brian Blessed. If anyone doesn’t know who he is, look him up and be delighted.
The Boondock Saints is my benchmark. The casting was excellent, the production values so-so, the story semi-forgettable, and the action more than satisfying.
To me, it screams benchmark because it was good enough to warrant a sequel, but not popular enough that it is sill considered a cult hit.
Also, anything with Alan Rickman is awesome by default. The rest of the movie may suck, but Snape/Grueber/Marvin is great.
Aaaah, “Robin Hood: Prince of Theives.” Alan Rickman as the Sheriff of Nottingham is why I say I’ll stab/cut out someone’s eyes with a spoon (jokingly, of course). Best scene evar? “Because it’s dull, you twit, it’ll hurt more.” Over-acted, but so fantastic. And random trivia about the song: Kamen hated it and didn’t want to incorporate it into the score very much because he thought the piano sounded too modern. No problems with the guitar, bass, or drums, though. (Thanks, “Pop Up Video.”)
Greg: I like “Boondock Saints” as an example of that particular action movie, i.e. a gun-fight one. It’s lack of any sort of car chase sequence sets it apart from, say, the third “Die Hard,” a potential benchmark for the genre of action in general.