Film Review - Last Man Standing

Set in the era of prohibition in the 1920’s is the setting of ‘The Last Man Standing’. With the backdrop of a dying town called Jericho stuck in the shadow and attitude of the old west. The only feature setting this apart from a western is the presence of automobiles and the absence of cowboy hats.

Bruce Williss is convincing as the hard edged loner John Smith. Probably because it’s a character he’s comfortable with and could do in his sleep.

It doesn’t take much time from the arrival of John Smith that undertaking becomes a boom industry.

The town is torn between two gangs who for some reason want control and ownership over a ghost town whose sparse population consists of a sheriff who offers information to the highest bidder, a brothel, a saloon that remains open despite no customers and the undertaker who boasts more new clients then the aforementioned saloon.

John Smith is quick on the draw and even though he has a habit of killing members from each gang the bosses are falling over themselves to sign him up.

Smith takes advantage of the situation and uses his position… or lack of it… to play off one against the other, making a few dollars in the process. The only match for Williss’s character is Hickey (Christopher Walken) who is the only to equal Smith’s brains and balls.

As the body count rises and the cast diminishes you catch on to the meaning of the title ‘the last man standing’. It doesn’t take too much to figure who that’s going to be but what makes it interesting is not the end but the journey getting there.