What's black and white and red all over? Your Favorite Movie.
I like to pretend that I'm some kind of fucking journalist when I'm interviewing friends and family in back rooms of bars, with my little audio recorder and list of notes. But let me tell ya, it was really interesting interviewing an actual journalist for this one. My old friend Vinny Vella—current Inquirer beat writer, previous Collegian editor-in-chief, dude I hung out with at least twice a week in college but haven't seen in the eight years since, practically—volunteered to drink a few (too many) Hamm's and discuss his favorite movie.
I use the word "refreshing" more than once in this interview when referring to Vinny's favorite movie of all time, which is the early-'90s action flick, The Last Boy Scout. But don't misinterpret the choice of words—this was a shit movie. I loved watching it though, and I loved even more so discussing it (and I'm certainly not "bashing" it in this interview, regardless of however you Facebook miscreants are gonna misread it)... Even though Vinny absolutely defended it more than it probably deserved (your mileage may vary!).
So let's dig in, and see what Vinny Vella (not the dead Italian Sopranos actor, mind you) thinks about this shit. Our conversation is transcribed below, edited slightly for clarity's sake and to excise the various rumblings of the El train over the bar, and, as always, with the interviewee's permission (I even secured permission to use the surname this time). Enjoy.
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Vinny: Had you ever seen it before?
Joe: I had never even heard of it before.
Vinny: Excellent. Okay, good.
Joe: While I was watching it, I laughed a lot. I think, after it was over, and I was doing some research on it, maybe I got some Stockholm syndrome, in that, "maybe it's not that bad." But while I was watching it, it was like, "this is a shitty movie."
Vinny: Ya know, the way I kind of look at it is—I like a lot of movies, I'm a big movie fan. And when you asked me what my favorite movie was, I could've said any range of things. From like, really art house thought-provoking movies, to foreign language neorealist movies that talk about the human condition.
Joe: Thanks for not picking those.
Vinny: But I didn't pick those because, you didn't ask me what I think the best movie in the world was, you asked me what my favorite movie is. The way I thought about the question was, what is a movie that I can just put on, and enjoy, and not have to think too hard. To me, this movie is the best candidate for that.
Joe: So what does that say about you? If you had to self-analyze.
Vinny: That I chose this movie?
Joe: Yup.
Vinny: Ya know... I think this is a really complicated movie.
[laughter]
Vinny: I think there are a lot of things that are thrown into the plot. But I think it's got a lot of the tenants of media that I enjoy. Because it's about going up against public corruption. It's about friendship; it's about two guys coming up from completely different backgrounds, coming together, and fighting against, ya know, this really cartoonish embodiment of what's wrong with society. And I like that! I like that it's campy. I like that it doesn't take itself too seriously. I like that it doesn't hold your hand and say, ya know, "you have to pay attention to this part," or "this is important!" It's an easy movie to just sit back and relax and enjoy. But, it's kind of hilarious to me, because it also throws in plot elements that you wouldn't expect from a buddy cop movie.
Joe: Oh my god, dude... [laughter]
Vinny: I watched it last week to prepare myself, because I hadn't seen it in about a year. I forgot there's an entire B-plot about sports gambling, and how free agency is ruining the NFL! And... I went back and watched it, and was like, wow, some kind of profound statement is trying to be made here.
Joe: Is there, though?
Vinny: I don't know. I think they made a half-hearted attempt to... a popular theme on the movies you've had to watch is: "capitalism is bad." And I think there's shades of that here. Like, there's that scene where Bruce Willis is walking through the parking garage, and the cop stops Damon Wayans, and is like "Free agents are ruining the league!" And it's like... that's so random. The guy wrote it for a reason. Maybe he hated free agency? I don't know.
Joe: Oh my god. Is that ironic that this probably the first movie I watched and didn't think about my anti-capitalism themes at all? Just, like... maybe I was just so nonplussed by the explosions and the witty one-liners. Um, but... no, pretty much everything you just said, I agree with. I don't know if that all adds up to a good movie, but, I really really appreciate that you like this movie, and I really really appreciate that I get to talk about why you like this movie. There's a lot to unpack.
Vinny: I appreciate that as well.
Joe: Yes. Jesus Christ, where to start? Um... let's start lightly and have you tell me your favorite one-liner from this movie. Because there are many.
Vinny: Oh that's easy.
[laughter]
Vinny: So, at the very end of the movie, after the emotional crescendo where Bruce Willis reunites with his family, and mends his broken marriage, and he mends his relationship with his estranged daughter... the coda of the movie is Damon Wayans playing catch with Bruce Willis' daughter, and they [Wayans and Willis] are talking about partnership together. And I guess, if this movie were made today, that would be the set-up for the franchise. Like, The Last Boy Scout 2, right? So there's a conversation they have, where they're walking next to each other into the sunset. And Bruce Willis like, "Now that we're partners, you have to be smart about your one-liners." And then there's a callback to an earlier part of the movie where Bruce Willis' daughter drew, for her Christmas art project, a Santa Claus with devil horns, and she wrote—
Joe: Satan Claus!
Vinny: —Satan Claus, that's right. And Bruce Willis is like, he tells Daman Wayans, "We gotta be vigilant, because Satan Claus is out there, and he's only getting stronger." And ever time I hear it, it makes me laugh. I love it. It's my favorite line in the movie. And it's the last line that's said in the entire movie, maybe that's fitting, I dunno.
Joe: I definitely do appreciate the level of... the attention to detail that they used in the movie in order to justify the callbacks that eventually happened. Like when Jimmy talked about riding a horse—that was very unnecessary in the context of the conversation they were having at that point... but it justified him riding a horse in the football stadium later on.
Vinny: There were a lot of lines in this movie... so the guy that wrote it is Shane Black—
Joe: Definitely wanna talk about Shane Black.
Vinny: —he's the guy that wrote Lethal Weapon. And also, he directed Iron Man 3.
Joe: Wrote and directed, right?
Vinny: Yeah. So, there are multiple lines in the movie that he must've thought were the most hilarious thing in the world, because they're repeated several times in the movie. One of them is, so there's a conversation that Bruce Willis has, early on, with his wife, where his wife's like, "I want you to tell me that you hate me, that I'm a bitch, that if cops weren't here you'd spit in my face." You hear it at the beginning of the movie, you're like, whatever. And then you hear it again at the end of the movie—
Joe: It's, like, the emotional climax?!
Vinny: —it's the payoff, right. And there's another scene where people say Bruce Willis is a bastard, and he goes, "And then some." And he says that like five times in the movie! And part of the reason I love this movie is because it treats the viewer like we're stupid.
Joe: Oh absolutely.
Vinny: Like, "Oh this is a great line! Remember this line, and we're gonna repeat it a bunch of times!" I like that. It's charming in its own way.
Joe: Here's the thought I had—do you feel like he had these big set pieces in mind, like, "Oh, Damon Wayans is going to ride a horse through the stadium and throw a football at someone who's about to get shot at," and then retroactively went back into the script and wrote a scene in which he was talking about horses? Or do you feel like this happened naturally?
Vinny: That's a great question.
Joe: Here's another example that I found amusing. At one point, Bruce Willis says a bunch of jokes while pantomiming with a puppet—
Vinny: Furry Tom!
Joe: —while all the enemies are pointing guns at him. And then, and you know, as the audience, that there's a gun in the puppet, for sure. And he does eventually reveal the gun by murdering a bunch of people. But, his daughter introduced the puppet earlier in the movie... do you feel like she would've done that had [Shane Black] not thought, "Oh, this would be insane if his daughter gave him a puppet with a gun in it"?
Vinny: Yeah, I think that... I'd love to have a conversation with Shane Black about this, because I've thought about it many times. I don't know which came first. What was the base script? Was it a washed-up football player and washed-up cop partnering, and then the stuff formed around it? Or was it like, what you said, "Oh, I have five set pieces in mind, and I'm just gonna write a frame story that justifies it"? I'd like to think, based on the other movies that Shane Black has written that I've seen, that it was more the former. That he had an idea in his mind about what the basic plot would be, and he wrote scenes that were justified based on the characters' personalities. That's what I think. But I don't know, because I'm not him.
Joe: That's probably true. I want to drop my favorite line, and then we'll talk a little more about Shane Black, and what his purpose was in writing this "fiasco." With quotes around it, "fiasco."
Vinny: It's a beautiful disaster.
Joe: My favorite line was—I was afraid my coworkers were going to wonder what I was laughing at—I guess they're in Jimmy's apartment, and Jimmy is walking away, and Joe goes, "Where you going?" and Jimmy goes, "I'm going to the bathroom. What, do you want to come with me? My doctor says I can't lift anything too heavy."
[laughter]
Joe: It's so fucking bad. But it made me laugh! It made me appreciate what type of movie it was. What really made me appreciate what type of movie it was was that opening scene, where Billy Cole—
Vinny: Where the Tae Bo guy kills himself? That's actually... what's his name? His actual name, the guy who was behind Tae Bo, the Tae Bo video guy, that's him. That's his one big movie role, he plays this, like, roided up football player. Billy... not Billy Mays, that's the OxyClean guy. What the hell's his name? Go back later.
Joe: I'm going to have to research this. [Editor's note: His name is Billy Blanks, and he did indeed invent a workout routine. He has a decently long filmography, to be honest, but the only other movie I recognize is... oh my... Jack & Jill.]
Vinny: The guy that popularized Tae Bo, that's him. He plays that role. And then he kills himself. "Ain't life a bitch?" That's what he says, before he blows his brains out!
Joe: Like I said, I had never heard of The Last Boy Scout, I didn't know what type of movie this was. I thought maybe, based on the opening credits song, and the opening scene, that this might be a sports movie?
Vinny: What, like Any Given Sunday? [laughter]
Joe: Yeah! And then... he pulls out a gun from his jersey shorts, and murders the linebackers?!
Vinny: Murders like five players on the opposing team!
Joe: [laughter] Oh my god, like... I have so many things I want to say. Let's go in this direction. Was there any part of this that was purposefully a parody? Or was this a serious action movie, according to the people that made it?
Vinny: I'm going solely based on my own viewing, because I don't know the people that made it. I think this was intended to be a serious action movie. Let me rephrase that: I think it was intended to be a "buddy cop" movie that was lighthearted. But the reason I love this movie, and it's not forgettable to me, is because it's, on its face, a buddy cop comedy, but it also deals with a lot of heavy-handed, serious shit. Bruce Willis' character—by the way, should we explain what the plot is? If people haven't seen movie?
Joe: I guess. I'm on the fence about it, after fourteen interviews. Sometimes it works, sometimes it bores me. What do you think?
Vinny: You're the boss.
Joe: Explain this movie in three sentences.
Vinny: Okay.
Joe: Okay, no wait—you're trying to convince someone to watch this movie. Say three sentences to convince them to watch it.
Vinny: If I'm pitching it to someone who's never seen it before?
Joe: Yeah, and then after you do that, I will put a link in brackets to where they can watch it, if they believe in your pitch. How's that?
Vinny: That's fair. Let me gather my thoughts...
Joe: Sure.
Vinny: "A washed-up secret service agent and a disgraced NFL player unwittingly stumble upon a plot to legalize sports gambling."
Joe: [laughter]
Vinny: "As a result of that, they go through the seedy underbelly of southern California, wielding pistols and one-liners, while reveling in early '90s excess." That's two sentences!
Joe: There ya go, folks! If that sounds like a movie for you, click on this link! [https://movieninja.to/movie/the-last-boy-scout-wxgnj51y/watch#2mr87ex481yg0x59]
Vinny: Honestly, what I think happened was—and I don't know this—so Shane Black wrote the first Lethal Weapon, and I think he might've written the second one too. Those movies are sort of similar. You have a white guy and a black guy, and they're solving crimes. I think Shane Black took the stuff that was on the cutting room floor of those two movies, and slapped it together, and injected a "fresh" element, in the form of sports gambling. I don't know that to be a fact, but if I had to guess, just from his filmography, that's what I guess happened.
Joe: I—both while I was watching it, and also during the research after—I made more connections to Die Hard then I did Lethal Weapon. Shane Black did not write Die Hard, but Joel Silver, who is the producer, and who was apparently very hands-on in both of those movies. Apparently The Last Boy Scout was originally called "Die Hard"—
Vinny: I didn't know that.
Joe: —and Joel Silver convinced Shane Black to give up that title, to use in this other movie that he was producing. On the flip side, Bruce Willis filmed this right after Die Hard, and was like, "Shit man, this is another action where I'm trying to get back to my wife? Shit."
Vinny: In my head—you didn't ask me this, but I was going to bring it up—
Joe: Please.
Vinny: In my head, this is the spiritual sequel to the first Die Hard. So I've seen all the Die Hards, and after the first one, they're all pretty bad. If I could control reality, this would be the sequel to the first Die Hard, and Bruce Willis' character would be John McClain, instead of Joe Hallenbeck. Because, in my mind, it's the perfect continuation. Bruce Willis saves his wife in California, they reconcile, something happens in between, they have a break in their marriage, and it leads into The Last Boy Scout, which in this reality, is Die Hard 2. And I think it would have much more variety than the actual second Die Hard, which has him fighting... Russians?
Joe: Is that what it is?
Vinny: It's like a weird, Cold War analogy.
Joe: I only know about [Die Hard sequels] from that one Office episode. So you feel like John McClain would be the type of person to fuck a squirrel to death in a blackout stupor?
[laughter]
Vinny: I love this movie because one of the central themes is that—even if you're an underdog, even if you're down on your luck, you can do great things. I think that's why I like this movie. The first we see Bruce Willis, he's a drunk, he's passed out in his car, these little kids fucking mess with him and steal his watch, and he has this visceral reaction where he tries to kill them! And you think, "Wow, this guy is a piece of shit." Then, the movie gives him way more nuance than you would expect from an action movie. You find out that he was a secret service agent. He saved the president's life. He almost died! You find out that he has—and this is where the title of the movie comes in—he has this rigid moral compass where, his job is to turn a blind eye to whatever weird sexist bullshit this senator is doing. And he sees the senator—I'm spoiling the movie—he sees the senator assaulting a woman, so he beats the shit out of the senator, and he loses his job, and he gets disgraced, and he's forced to work as this scummy private eye. And he's simultaneously so rigid in his compass of right and wrong, but also kind of a dirtbag?
Joe: Right. Do you feel like the movie does a good job of portraying those two sides of the coin? He's living by the twelve points of the Scout Law, and yet he is... kind of an asshole to a lot of people? I know that's not the point of the movie, but...
Vinny: My one big criticism of the movie is—and I think it's kind of hilarious that we're over-analyzing a movie that's a popcorn-budget movie, but—I think it's kind of hilarious, the characterization of this guy. Because he's literally a national hero. He saves the president's life from an assassination attempt. Then he punches a senator in the face because the senator's a dirtbag... and he immediately loses his job, and loses all credibility, and has to work as a private eye. Let's pretend this happened in the real world.
Joe: Okay.
Vinny: Let's say the President—this was made in the '90s, let's say it was Bill Clinton. Clinton is abusing a woman, and a Secret Service agent punches Bill Clinton in the face. This guy would be lauded! And the press would lift him up as this, like, savior. But in this alternate Shane Black universe, he's a pariah. He has to scrape together a living as a weird private eye. It's kind of hilarious that we have to forget about all that. We have to accept: "Oh, of course he's going to be disgraced. Of course he's going to have to work as a private eye." Because if you punch a senator once, that's it—game over? That to me is kind of hilarious. Because it's not an automatic career death sentence in the real world.
Joe: Was it, in '91, though?
Vinny: It might've been! I don't know.
Joe: Here's what I'm reluctant to talk about because... I don't want to say "it was a different time," but, I think that movies can present characters doing shitty things—especially things that we in 2019 would consider to be "shitty"—and present them as "character building," versus presenting them as "this is just what happened." In this movie, there were definitely moments where I, in 2019, in our current climate, said, "Oh shit, maybe that doesn't 'hold up' right now?" I'm reluctant to say it, because I feel like a lot of those moments were character building. Like, John McClain—or... FUCK—
Vinny: Joe Hallenback
Joe: Joe Hallenback—goddamn it—is pretty sexist. Huge asshole. Way more of an asshole to the female characters in his life—his daughter, his wife—then, say, Jimmy, for instance.
Vinny: There's this weird... him and his wife have this shoddy relationship, and we don't know why. There's glimpses of how, she says, "I was lonely," and he's like, "get a dog." So you're led to believe that he spends too much time at his work. But there's not really a payoff to that, right? If that's the only issue in their relationship, wouldn't she be at fault? Like, if he's a really great, doting dad, but he just spends too much time working, whose fault is that she cheats? But the implication is that he's just kind of a dick otherwise, you see that through little moments here and there.
Joe: I guess my question is—should we look at these certain actions that the characters perform, and say, "Ah jeez, the people who made this movie didn't have the perspective that we do," or is it, "There are certain inalienable truths about respecting women, but this is just the characters revealing themselves to be assholes"?
Vinny: I think this is a very period-specific movie. You have to think of this movie through the lens of 1991. I think it's more of the former of what you said. At the time, if you were a screenwriter, the conversation you have with yourself is, how can we convey that the character feels this way. You use the stuff that was available to you at the time. A great example is—speaking of Shane Black—there's that scene in Predator, where they're all in the helicopter, and they're going to the jungle to fight the Predator, and Jesse "The Body" Ventura is like, "What, are you a bunch of slack-jawed—" and then he uses a gay slur. It's like... at the time, it was like, "Haha, masculinity, right?" And then you watch it now, and he's just a dickhead. It's just pointless bravado.
Joe: I've never seen Predator, but was that supposed to indicate to us that Jesse "The Body" Ventura's character was a dickhead, or do you, as a 2019 viewer, view him as more of a dickhead than he was intended to be?
Vinny: When the scene was written in the '80s, it was written like he was a no-nonsense, tough-as-nails guy. If people didn't live up his standards, then he saw them as that slur.
Joe: But he wasn't the villain.
Vinny: He wasn't the villain. He was just a member of the group. But now, when you watch it in 2019, it has this accidental effect, where he becomes just this crass asshole, and he's not as sophisticated or savvy as Arnold Schwarzenegger, who ends up winning.
Joe: I guess I was on the fence about Joe specifically, and some of the things he said toward female character. Is this supposed to be who he is, or was this normal to the people creating the movie in '91?
Vinny: I think they were trying to make him seem like this world-weary, jaded dude—
Joe: And they did a good job!
Vinny: —and he's not bothered by anything. And he got to that point because he had this career that he loved, and excelled at, and he put his life on the line, and his reward was to get blacklisted because he stood up for what he thought was right. So when the movie opens, he's at a point where he doesn't know what to believe in. Because all the ideals that he lived his whole life by, when he followed them, it lead to him losing his job. A woman was in distress, and he didn't ignore it because the guy was a senator. He felt that this is more important. If you're beating up a woman, and you're a U.S. Senator, it doesn't matter—you're still beating up a woman. He did what he thought was right, and he was rewarded for losing his job. So when the movie opens, we're seeing a guy who was just defeated, he's lost his way and he doesn't know what to do. Maybe his gruff exterior, and some of the shit that he says, is a by-product of that.
Joe: Okay, so, character building! It's definitely more nuanced when you talk about the main characters. When you talk about ancillary characters, I think about the scene where that asshole football player tried to drown a stripper in order to get a blowjob?
Vinny: Yeah, that's a weird scene. I think the screenwriters had a good intention—they were trying to show that Jimmy is a decent guy, and the other guy is a cartoonish asshole? I just wish they could've done it without the sexual assault.
Joe: To be clear, at no point did I feel that anyone producing the movie condoned what that football player was doing—
Vinny: Absolutely not. They used it as an example, like, "Hey, what's the worst thing you could do to a woman? Let's do that to show that this guy sucks!" And that's what they did. In a way, I guess it was progressive, in that they were trying to make a statement like, you shouldn't treat women this way, and if you do, that's a succinct way of showing you're a dickhead. There are probably better ways to illustrate that though.
Joe: For sure. For me personally—regarding these interviews that I'm doing—I'm trying to be more careful about "calling movies out," like, "This movie doesn't hold up because X, Y, and Z." Versus, "They are legitimately trying to do character building," as awkward, and as careless as the character building is, as opposed to something the movie was trying to say was okay. I didn't feel at any point that the production of The Last Boy Scout was trying to say that it was okay to drown a hooker.
Vinny: Yeah... that wasn't the "big message" of the movie.
Joe: Okay, do you feel like—so let me give some background for this question. There was a "witty" one-liner—okay, I laughed, I don't know why I gave "witty" quotes there—Jimmy was trying to tell the other car that there was a bomb in the car, but he misspelled "bomb" as "BOM," and Joe says "'Bom' is 'fuck you' in Polish." So I was curious, as one might be, as to whether "Bom" is actually "fuck you" in Polish. It is not. But in googling it, I came across a message board where they were listing "mistakes in the movie."
Vinny: So there are people who are even more nerdy about the movie than I am?!
Joe: [laughter] Yes! So someone said that a mistake in The Last Boy Scout was that "'Bom' doesn't actually mean 'fuck you' in Polish." Which, to me, is missing the entire point. Clearly, that was the joke. It doesn't matter that "Bom" doesn't mean "fuck you" in Polish. The joke was that it probably doesn't, and why would Joe know that—
Vinny: That he made it up, on the fly.
Joe: So... regarding the person that wrote that on the message board. [laughter] Do you feel like you can be too smart to appreciate this movie?
Vinny: Yeah, I think if you go into this movie expecting it to be a piece of art, or something that's going to impress upon you some message about life... you're going to be disappointed. And again, I go back to this—that's why I like this movie! It's not a movie that's going to make you think. It's not a movie that you're going to think about, years later, and be like, "Wow, this was a seminal moment in my movie-going career!" It's a movie that, in the two-and-a-half hours that you watch it, it's entertaining. But it's not... stupid to the point where you're like, "It insults my intelligence, I have to turn it off."
Joe: You're saying it strikes that balance.
Vinny: Yeah. There's enough meat in the movie, where you're like, "Oh, this is kind of interesting." It's not a just a stupid buddy cop movie. It's not just a dumb action movie. They're addressing different things that are happening. And I kind of like that! I dunno.
Joe: Do you feel like Shane Black, who wrote the movie, would agree with that sentiment? Or do you think he had more lofty aspirations?
Vinny: I really want to know why they put so much emphasis on free agency in sports betting. I feel like they were trying to send a message? I don't know Shane Black's history. I don't know if he's like a partial owner of an NFL team. And if he is, maybe that explains it. But he really hit that over the head, where a major tenant of the movie is that the NFL is being ruined by the amount of money that the players are being paid. I wish I knew why. But there's also a plot early on in the movie that I think gets kind of abandoned, where Jimmy is addicted to painkillers. And then later on in the movie, that's forgotten. Like, he takes a bunch of pills early on, and then he just stops taking them. If you're addicted to painkillers, you can't just do that. You have to take painkillers consistently throughout the movie, right? So, I guess the thesis is that there's a fall from grace, and he was this promising athlete. He got abused by the team, because he got hurt, and he wasn't performing up to standards, and that's a larger statement about the way we idolize football players...? I dunno. I think there's a lot of things this movie tried to say that they abandoned, and it became a dumb action movie. I separate it from like Beverly Hills Cop, or Lethal Weapon, or Midnight Run, or other buddy cop movies, because it's not just playing for laughs. It wants you to be invested in this plot. It wants you to seriously consider that... there are certain moments in the movie where you think Joe is going to get killed, and at the last moment something happens, and he doesn't. These guys are not... sterling action heroes. They fuck up a lot. They get hurt, they get shot at, they get injured. They have key evidence that could put away the main villain, and they destroy it within five minutes of getting it!
Joe: So, okay, do you feel like, as an action movie, this was a success?
Vinny: I think so. It depends on how you define an "action movie." Is an action movie enough to distract you... is there enough flashy setpieces to where you're entertained every second they're on the screen? I think so.
Joe: I'll tell you what Joel Silver, the producer, thinks about action movies, because he has produced a few of them. He believes that there should be an "explosion every ten minutes, to keep the audience entertained."
Vinny: There are a lot of explosions in this movie.
Joe: There are a shit ton of explosions.
Vinny: Probably more than necessary.
Joe: But he believes that the climax of any normal movie should happen every ten minutes of every movie that he produces. Which... I guess it's true of this movie.
Vinny: There are a lot of bombastic moments sprinkled throughout.
Joe: So I feel like that was all Joel Silver's doing. That was why—according to what I read—Shane Black wanted to work with Joel Silver, because he felt that the script would work well with the ethos that Joel Silver was espousing.
Vinny: I could see that.
Joe: So let's go back. Do you feel like Shane Black wrote the script... the script that he wrote achieved what he wanted it to achieve?
Vinny: If you're judging by the standards of Joel Silver, where something crazy has to happen every ten minutes? Yeah, I think so.
Joe: It's interesting, reading about the background of this movie, the troubled production of this movie. I don't know if you've ever read anything about that.
Vinny: Here and there.
Joe: One of the assistant producers described it as "a bunch of alpha males butting heads against each other."
Vinny: I know Bruce Willis and Damon Wayans did not get along.
Joe: Which is very interesting.
Vinny: Which is kind of hilarious! Because I felt like they had some pretty good chemistry on-screen. But then again, if you think about it, they spend the majority of the movie yelling at each other. So maybe that's not good acting, that's just natural, visceral hatred?
Joe: Maybe it's method acting? [laughter]
Vinny: I think it worked in the context of the movie. But maybe that's why there was never a The Last Boy Scout 2, where they open up a joint detective firm.
Joe: I definitely like thinking about the trouble that went into making this movie. About how everyone hated each other, apparently. How the script was chopped apart—which is also interesting. At the time Black sold the script, when he sold it to whatever fucking company made this, it set a record for the highest amount of money paid for a script, at the time. 1.75 million dollars.
Vinny: In 1991, that's a lot of dollars.
Joe: The record was broken like 60 days later. But, it was interesting to hear that, and then to also hear about how butchered the script was eventually. Apparently the whole third act took place on a boat? And apparently the wife had a way bigger part? And Milo, one of the main villains, had a side gig consisting of murdering porn stars? And the wife got wrapped up into the murdering-porn-stars aspect of it?!
Vinny: Wow.
Joe: All kinds of bullshit.
Vinny: What could have been, right? It definitely feels like... how do I put this. I don't think the movie was tonally inconsistent, but, you having told me that, it does kind of make sense that this was two different stories that got smushed together. It does kind of feel like it would be hard for one person to come up with all of this on his own. This kind of schizophrenic combination of different themes. Like—corruption, gambling, football, secret service agents! I don't think, in my wildest dreams, that I could come up with this plot.
Joe: It's very patched together.
Vinny: But in a weird way, it makes it work. It's not like a movie like Sharknado, where you see it and it's like, "That's fucking stupid, I don't want to watch that."
Joe: "So bad it's good"-type deal?
Vinny: You entertain [The Last Boy Scout] as a serious plot because I feel like they devote enough writing to certain aspects. Like, the villain is this cartoonish Texas cowboy character, and he shows up early in the movie, and he tells the Tae Bo guy, ya know, "You better win, or you're done." And he drives him insane, and he kills a bunch of people. And later on, he's like, "Yeah, I want to bribe all these politicians to legalize gambling, but this one guy is holding out, so I thought it'd be easier to kill him." They kind of justify him being in the movie. It wasn't slapdashed together. I feel like there are payoffs to a lot of what is say. It's not a perfectly written movie. It's not the Citizen Kane of action movies. But I feel like if you watch it with honest expectations, you'll enjoy this movie.
Joe: If your level of expectation is "everything that is ever said is eventually going to pay off with an action sequence," then The Last Boy Scout is your movie.
Vinny: Yes! If you are a very literal person, and you want to see exactly what is described, this is your movie.
Joe: If you think Joe saying, "When we win this, I'm going to dance a jig" means that he's being figurative, you're in for a rude awakening! Because he literally does a jig!
Vinny: There were a lot of fantastical elements about this that are hilarious when you're an adult person and you think about it. When you're a younger kid and you watch it, you're like, "Wow, that was so cool!
Joe: How about how he kind of wins over the person who was going to kill him originally with "Your wife is so fat" jokes?
Vinny: That's the one part of the movie where my suspension of disbelief is stretched to capacity.
Joe: That's the one part?!
Vinny: That's the one scene where I'm like, okay, if a bunch of random thugs are going to kill you, they're just going to kill you. They're not going to let you tell a bunch of jokes to the point where you can distract them enough to murder them with their gun. And that happens twice!
Joe: It's an action trope.
Vinny: Yeah, it's an action trope.
Joe: Were there a lot of moments in here—obviously, there are a lot of action movie tropes in this movie. Was there any that this movie created, or were they all established already, and used here? Like, okay, I'll give you an example—when they fucking crash the car over the highway, and they landed in the pool, and the trope that I'm think of was a random passerby is sitting by his pool, stroking his dog, and just the close-up on the look on his face, witnessing the action moves that we the audience are also witnessing, and to get his stranger's reaction to it... that's an action trope.
Vinny: I think so.
Joe: So, was The Last Boy Scout leaning into that? Or did they do it because it's a fucking action movie, and that's what action movies do?
Vinny: I don't think The Last Boy Scout invented any action tropes. If this movie had broken new ground in the action genre, it would be much better known. But, it's not. People don't know about this fucking movie.
Joe: Right, I didn't. And I wasn't sure if that was because I'm not familiar with the action genre in general, or because I just didn't know this movie particularly. [Editor's note: For what it's worth, here is a list of all the tropes that can be found in this movie.]
Vinny: No, it's a really obscure movie. And it came out in a particular time when action movies dominated the landscape. Tony Scott, the director, he was the guy behind Top Gun, and a bunch of other movies. And Shane Black—who we talked about way too much—wrote Lethal Weapon, and a bunch of other movies. So it's a buddy cop movie that came out five-to-ten years too late. If this came out in the '80s, I'm convinced it would've been a fucking hit. But it came out in the early '90s, and I don't think it caught on. Just missed it. It would've been another Die Hard if it had come out a little bit earlier. A lot of the action movies in the '90s were starting to address more serious themes. You look at Heat. Heat is about bank robbers, but it's also about bank robbers that have a human side. [Cutting the Heat plot explanation.] It makes a lot of other points. Or you look at Point Break, which is probably as dumb as this movie, but is canonized because it's endearing. [Cutting the Point Break plot explanation too.] The Last Boy Scout doesn't make any big statements, I don't think. I think it's just a fun movie to watch.
Joe: It's so interesting that it takes all these elements from other movies—like you said, the director is Top Gun, the star is Die Hard, the scriptwriter is Lethal Weapon—and it kind of becomes an amalgam of this action movie genre. And yet... it is your favorite movie of all time.
Vinny: [laughter] So, a couple people on your blog touched on this. It's really hard for me to pick one movie that I love. On any given day, my answer would change. But I picked this movie because it's a movie that I can put on, any time of day, no matter the state of my sobriety, and just enjoy the hell out of it. I can watch it stone sober, and love it. I can watch it blackout drunk, and love it. I've done it both ways! And my experience has remained pretty much the same.
Joe: I really appreciate the choice, because it's definitely a fresh type of movie that I haven't discussed yet. It's not a classic. It's a movie that I watched and said, "This is fucking stupid." But I'm really enjoying talking about it.
[An extended comparison between this movie and The Fast and the Furious is going to land on the cutting room floor. Also some more thoughts about how much the main characters fuck up, which we already touched upon. If I transcribed every damn thing we said over every damn El train that rumbles by, we'd be here all day, folks.]
Vinny: I love this movie because so much goes wrong, and these heroes are not invincible. Too many actions movies, from the Marvel movies, to the Fast and the Furious movies, too many of them are too perfect, too clean. The heroes are so clever, they think of everything. They never get hurt, and if they get hurt, they heal quickly. This movie—a lot of shit goes wrong, and somehow, through their own resourcefulness, the succeed. And I appreciate that.
Joe: I guess in retrospect, I reluctantly appreciated it as. I emphasize "reluctantly." I did appreciate Edgar Wright saying that he was inspired by this movie, to make Hot Fuzz. He said The Last Boy Scout was "an action thriller framed by flaming air quotes." Which is definitely the best way to describe this movie. That there are action sequences, and they are legit action sequences, explosions, car chases, guns shooting everywhere. And then, there is the acknowledgment that... this is an action movie, and we're going to say a funny little one-liner through every bit of this. We're going to reference Back to the Future and the music is very quickly going to play the first bit of the Back to the Future Theme while they're driving very fast. It's... I saw it as a self-aware movie. It certainly wasn't as self-aware as a movie like Hot Fuzz was—
Vinny: Yeah, I mean, that's a pretty blatant lampooning of the genre.
Joe: But I definitely... I can't imagine anyone in the production of The Last Boy Scout took it as seriously as a typical action movie. Like, come on. Someone had to know that this was butting up against that wall of lampooning a typical action movie.
Vinny: I think that's fair. It goes back to what I was saying where, in a typical action movie, a studio, pitch-perfect action movie, the heroes never really get hurt. They dust themselves off and ride into the sunset. But this movie, a lot of shit goes south, and they have to improvise. That in and of itself lampoons action movies. There's no "hero armor," so to speak. That's not always present in movies where the hero always knows more than the bad guys, and always outsmarts them.
Joe: Is there any movie you've seen since 1991 that follows that path? That's not a straight-up parody, but takes the action movie tropes to the extreme. I don't know if there is. I certainly don't know because I am not an action movie aficionado.
Vinny: I don't know. The closest parallel I can find—and you kind of touched on it [in another interview]—it's not an action movie, but it's a similar sort of framework. Ant Man. It came in a time in the Marvel Universe where all the origin stories were these neat little packages. Like, hero gets powers, hero overcomes villain who's exactly like him, hero becomes an established hero in the larger universe. Ant Man was different in that Paul Rudd was a thief, and he gets suckered into helping this crazy old man, and reluctantly becomes a superhero, and fucks up a lot in the movie. And Edgar Wright was tangentially involved in that project. That's the closest I've found to it, because it's a movie that lives up to a lot of the beats of the genre that it's a part of, but also finds a way to subvert your expectations. And I also independently love Ant Man, it's my favorite superhero movie of all time. I really like when heroes fail. I really like when a plan does not come together. Maybe that's a common theme in my media consumption.
Joe: That's legit. And either the plan fails a lot, or there is literally no plan at all, in The Last Boy Scout.
Vinny: Toward the end, they just kind of make it up as they go along.
Joe: Um... fuck. Let me talk about something real quick.
Vinny: Alright.
Joe: Are you aware of any awards that The Last Boy Scout was nominated for?
Vinny: ...no.
[laughter]
Joe: It won Best Picture at the Oscars... no. Okay, so, it... was nominated for two MTV movie awards. It lost both! It was nominated for "Best On-Screen Duo," and "Best Action Sequence."
Vinny: What did it lose "Best On-Screen Duo" to?
Joe: Dana Carvey and Mike Myers from... that movie... you know the one. Jesus Christ.
Vinny: Wayne's World.
Joe: Wayne's World. Of course.
Vinny: You confused me for a second.
Joe: "Best Action Sequence" lost to Terminator 2.
Vinny: Okay, well that is understandable. Was it the scene where Arnold Schwarzenegger racks the shotgun with one hand?
Joe: No fucking clue. "LA Freeway Scene"?!
Vinny: Yup, that's the one. I'm okay with that. Given the competition, I'm okay with that.
Joe: This'll pertain to you specifically—one of the quotes from this movie is, at the very beginning, when the dude is interviewing the guy who turns out to be the main villain—
Vinny: "Is this the death of journalism?"
Joe: "No, it's good journalism that's dead!" How do you relate to this as a journalist?
Vinny: I was not expecting to get this deep in a discussion about The Last Boy Scout. That's a tough question for me to succinctly answer. I'll say this. The industry is in a tailspin. There's not enough funding to go around to fully support journalism like our parents' generation expected and demanded. And what you're seeing is a lot of local news fall by the wayside. And my fear is that, in fifteen or twenty years, we're just going to have national news. We're going to have papers like New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, papers that have a national brand that are going to cherry pick what they want to write about outside of stuff they have to write about. So, in this scenario, the Inquirer wouldn't exist, and The New York Times would send a reporter to cover big ticket Philly stories every... three months? Unless the current course of events changes, I don't see that being avoided.
Joe: It... was definitely a throwaway line in The Last Boy Scout.
Vinny: Yeah, it was definitely played for laughs.
Joe: But it was definitely like, "Oh shit, I'm interviewing an actual journalist about this." What could that journalist in the movie have done differently?
Vinny: If I remember correctly, this is a sideline reporter interviewing the owner of an NFL team...
Joe: [laughter] Yes.
Vinny: Which let's take a moment to inspect that. Can you imagine, or think of a situation where, like, Jeffrey Lurie was pulled onto the sideline by an NBC Philadelphia reporter? That never happens. But anyway.
Joe: I was picturing him as the Dallas Cowboys owner, the whole time. Even when he was murdering people. What's his name? [Editor's note: Jerry Jones]
Vinny: I was thinking more the guy who owns the Raiders, Al Davis?
Joe: Who moved [the team] to LA, I guess to fulfill The Last Boy Scout's destiny? [laughter]
Vinny: I thought more him than the Dallas Cowboys owner. Um, but what would that reporter say in the real world? He would try to deftly move the conversation on to something less insulting? [laughter] I mean, it's tough when you're in the moment like that, when you ask an innocuous question, and the hostile interviewee is like, "No, you're a fucking idiot." Thankfully, I don't report live, so I don't have to worry about that. I don't know what that guy should've done.
Joe: Do you feel like the whole idea of a "troubled production" with The Last Boy Scout—how they made the movie and all kinds of bullshit was happening behind the scenes—does that appeal to you as a journalist?
Vinny: Kind of, yeah. I like the idea of the movie being made despite itself. There are a lot of movies that are doomed to never be finished. But this one, despite the odds, got powered through. And we're left with this crazy action movie that isn't all that remarkable? Maybe it was made through sheer spite? And that kind of appeals to me too. When there's a difficult production, you think it was made because it was a passion project, right? Because somebody really cared that much. Maybe this one was made out of spite. Maybe they hated each other so much—and I don't know if this is true—but maybe they hated each other so much they just had to finish it. That makes me enjoy it a little bit more, if that's the case.
Joe: Is that ever reflected in the types of stories that you are attracted to as a suburban beat journalist? Are you attracted to stories, perhaps, where someone overcomes the odds? Are you attracted to stories that, these people hate each other, and there's a certain amount of conflict, to which there may never be a solution?
Vinny: I like stories that deal with the fallout from intense situations. Because you're trying to explain something that is not easily explained. And that translates most directly to court cases. So when you're writing about a murder, for example, the first story is: so-and-so was murdered. The second story is: so-and-so was arrested for so-and-so's murder. Months removed from that, you get to sit in the courtroom, and you get to listen to very highly paid attorneys on both sides argue either for or against the suspect. And that's always fascinated me. You're removing the emotional element from it. You're talking about taking the facts that are known, and casting them in the light that either benefits you or hurts the person on the other side of the story. I like those stories because there's never really—very rarely is there a true accounting of what happened. You get to watch a defense attorney convince a panel of twelve people, "this is really what happened." And then you watch a prosecutor, if they're a really good prosecutor, say, "that's ridiculous, you know what happened, this is how you should make your decision." So I guess I am attracted to the stories that are not simple. I'm attracted to stories that can be interpreted different ways. And I'm attracted to stories that people will be interested in, because they can see themselves in it, to an extent. I'm not saying everybody who reads the newspaper can say, "Oh yeah, I can commit a murder." But if it's presented in the correct light, you can say, "I can understand why somebody, under the correct set of circumstances, could kill somebody else." And you explain it in a human way. I didn't become a reporter to investigate corruption, or to be a Pulitzer Prize-winning person, I became a reporter because I wanted to find interesting stories. And I think a lot of the stories I write are interesting. And I choose to write them because I want other people to also be interested by them. If that makes sense.
Joe: So let's say hypothetically that the story of The Last Boy Scout is a real story in this world.
Vinny: Like, somebody from the LA Times is writing about this?
Joe: Sure. How does this story that you appreciating on a movie level apply to what you appreciate on a journalistic level?
Vinny: I think if this happened in the real world... it would be a book.
[laughter]
Vinny: It would be a story that a journalist would write about, and it would just take off. Because think of all the elements that we know about, because it is a movie. Ex-Secret Service agent. Disgraced career. Partners with the most unlikely partner—a pill-popping, injured quarterback. And together, against all odds, they take down a corrupt senator, and the owner of the football team the guy played for! If that were a real story in the newspaper, people would lose their minds. And maybe that's why I'm attracted to it. Because I think of it as, if I were a bystander in this universe, I wouldn't believe half the stuff. Or it would take a really good reporter to concisely explain it. I have to say—it's a compelling story.
Joe: Yeah, when I watched it, I was curious as to whether a journalistic mind saw this in a different light then just a fucking neophyte, just watching it.
Vinny: You think of action movies, right? Most action movies, the villain is this international villain.
Joe: A mustache-twirling dude.
Vinny: Or, a billionaire. With lofty goals of nuclear destruction. Or, ya know, ridding the world of all its money, or amassing a giant fortune. The Last Boy Scout is a very localized plot. It's a California business who's trying to convince a senator to legalize gambling in California. That is a believable plot. And you throw in a kind of believable backstory! I could see that. The least believable character arc is Bruce Willis' character.
Joe: Who is the "last boy scout."
Vinny: Yes.
Joe: So I guess the title of this movie is referring to, what? His Boy Scout-esque actions? Or is it just a clever quip, Jimmy saying, sarcastically, "You're the last Boy Scout"?
Vinny: I think it's referring to the fact that when Jimmy first meets Joe, he sees him as an alcoholic, a scruffy, grungy P.I. They have that seen at the bar where he tries to punch Joe and he catches his fist and knocks him over—
Joe: It was a strip club. Don't sell it short.
Vinny: Right, strip club. And Damon Wayans was like, "Okay, this guy's a drunk, he hangs out in strip clubs, he takes shitty assignments, he's probably okay with me doing drugs in his bathroom." And then he finds out that he's not okay with it. And then he finds out that he saved the President's life. So it kind of clashes with Willis' character, that he's not a total scumbag. He's not a guy with no scruples—he has very specific scruples. And I think that's why he's called "the last Boy Scout." It's a weird title because it's very specific to that one scene. If I was naming the movie, I would probably call it something different.
Joe: Well, at one point, Bruce Willis' character says "Be prepared," that that's his motto. That's literally the Boy Scout Motto.
Vinny: That's one of the last lines in the movie. Right before the "Satan Claus" callback!
Joe: I don't know how familiar you are with the Boy Scouts. I know you wrote a story called "Scouts Honor: Hartford Men Reunite with Troop Leader Who Saved Them from Gang Culture"...
Vinny: Wow. [laughter] Deep cuts!
Joe: So speak to me about how the Hartford gangs would react to a movie called The Last Boy Scout.
Vinny: I am legitimately impressed. Um... how would the Hartford gangs respond...?
Joe: [laughter]
Vinny: I don't think they'd take it seriously? It's an indulgent movie. The story you reference is one of the coolest stories I've ever written. How would the Hartford gangs respond to The Last Boy Scout...?!
Joe: I guess it was kind of a sarcastic question. I googled "vinny vella boy scout" and that's what came up.
Vinny: I think that most kids in Hartford would be like, "This is a stupid movie, I don't want to watch it."
[laughter]
Vinny: The appeal of Damon Wayans might attract people of a certain generation to watch it. But most millennials or Gen-Z kids would be like, "Who the fuck is Damon Wayans?" They wouldn't even bother with it.
Joe: As an Eagle Scout—were you in the Scouts?
Vinny: I was not.
Joe: Well, as an Eagle Scout—
Vinny: What was your project?
Joe: Some bullshit. I did a blood drive. It's the easiest thing I could've done. I didn't build anything... But as a Boy Scout myself, I certainly questioned... my first question was, why is it called The Last Boy Scout.
Vinny: If your question is, what would I call it alternatively?
Joe: Sure.
Vinny: I don't have an easy answer.
Joe: Well it was already an alternative title to begin with.
Vinny: I think there's a case to be made for a more relevant title to the movie, rather then a gag that isn't even played up besides the one scene it's in.
Joe: So let's call it... Horse Riders Throw Deadly Footballs.
Vinny: That's a little too specific.
Joe: How about Puppet Me Up, Daughter!
Vinny: I don't know about that one.
Joe: How about—
Vinny: You've thought about this a lot, I can tell.
Joe: I have not.
Vinny: These are on the fly?
Joe: I am riffing after... how many Hamm's?
Vinny: Too many. A whole pigpen's worth of Hamm's.
Joe: Okay, so...
Vinny: I think what fascinates this movie is that I don't remember why I watched it in the first place. I tried to remember—
Joe: You don't remember the first time you watched it?
Vinny: Well, no, I remember the first time I watched it. I don't remember why I sought it out. I've done a lot of hallucinogenics over my best fifteen years, so that might be part of it. I own this movie on DVD. It came in a four-pack of other action movies. It was this movie, it was Eraser with Arnold Schwarzenegger, it was Passenger 57, and some Bridget Fonda movie that nobody cares about—
Joe: I don't think I'll be discussing any of those with people.
Vinny: You don't need to see any of them. But, I don't know if I sought this movie out, or this movie found me. I just know that I have it in my DVD collection, and at some point during my formative years, I watched it, and was immediately enamored by it. I've probably seen this movie a good six or seven times. There was a point when I watched it, and I was immediately drawn in. As I said at the outset of this, there are better movies that I have seen. There are a lot of better movies that I have seen. But this movie has a sort of endearing quality, because I can watch it any point, at any time, at any point in the runtime of the movie, and be like, I'm going to finish this movie. And I know a lot of the people that you ask, they say they have "strong emotional bonds" or "strong familial bonds" for these movies. I don't think my parents know what the fuck this movie is. My girlfriend was like, "This is your favorite movie? I've never heard you talk about it!"
Joe: Right.
Vinny: Because I don't want to admit, idly, that this is my favorite movie! But it is! I'm being honest. It is one of my favorite movies. Because it's just an enjoyable movie, through and through, and I laugh, I still get antsy during certain action scenes, and I appreciate the writing. That's what it comes down to.
Joe: I just kind of picture you with a big tub of popcorn, just shoveling popcorn in your mouth, looking up at the screen, saying—and your eyes are saying it too—"This is my favorite movie!"
Vinny: That's a fair assessment.
Joe: There's nothing wrong with that! It's refreshingly unpretentious.
Vinny: I've walked out of movie theaters, like, "Wow, this is profound, and there's a statement being made here." And I wouldn't say those are my favorite movies to watch. Sometimes I like turning my brain off. There is no better movie to turn off your brain to than The Last Boy Scout.
Joe: And who doesn't like turning their brain off? That is the country we live in right now! It's tough having your brain on.
Vinny: I have to keep my brain on so much during the workday that I appreciate a movie that I can just watch and not think too hard about, I guess is what I'm getting at. I think people are going to see this and say, "this is a dumb movie," or "this is a stupid choice." And that's fine. But at the time that it came out, and the time that I watched it, I think it made sense to who I am as a person. Because, I've always been a fan of stuff that's not super mainstream. I think if you have something that appeals to everybody, it's not making too concrete of a statement. So, this is not a well-known movie. You could argue that it's not well-known because it came out in December, I think?
Joe: A week before Christmas.
Vinny: And it was kind of positioned as a Christmas movie? There's scant references to Santa Claus. You can argue that it's not well-known because it came at a time when Bruce Willis' career was in a tailspin.
Joe: Fair.
Vinny: It's a movie where, if you're looking for something entertaining, that's off the beaten path, you can't find something better than this movie. It's not in the category of "it's so bad it's good," because I do think it's legitimately a decent movie. It's just a movie that requires you to forget about the real world. And it came out at a time when the economy was really good. People were willing to suspend their disbelief. I think movies today are very cynical. Movies today try to "make a message." This movie doesn't have a message. It's just about... shit going crazy, and I've always appreciated that... That's a really rambling answer, but...
Joe: Let's end it with this. If you were to guess, what would Stu Bykofsky think of this movie?!
Vinny: I think Stu would appreciate the scenes in the strip club.
[laughter]
Vinny: And I think Stu would probably stop watching it because he thought that it was too long, and too loud.
Joe: Yeah, fuck that guy.
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