depending on your degree of cinematic acumen , last man standing is either a ) a prohibition-era remake of akira kurosawa's 1961 classic yojimbo ; b ) a prohibition-era remake of sergio leone's 1964 classic a fistful of dollars ; c ) a prohibition-era action drama with a completely original story-line . new line is certainly counting on the fact that there are far more potential viewers in category ( c ) than in the other two combined , much as the recent remakes of diabolique and the vanishing counted on avoiding such comparisons . the fact is that there is yet another way of looking at last man standing , which is as the first film version of the story which nods to the _real_ source material , the dashiell hammett novel _red harvest_ . it also shows that kurosawa and leone knew better what to do with that material than hammett himself . this time around , the man with no name is played by bruce willis , a fellow with a shady history of an undefined nature who rolls into the texas border town of jericho one day on his way to mexico . by all appearances , jericho is well on its way to becoming a ghost town , with the few remaining inhabitants generally belonging to one of two bootlegging operations fighting for control of liquor coming over the border . one is headed by an irishman named doyle ( david patrick kelly ) ; the other is run by chicago-connected italian mobster strozzi ( ned eisenberg ) . calling himself john smith , the man decides that there is money to be made from the conflict , and hires himself out as an enforcer to doyle's side . but smith's allegiance is as uncertain as his name , and he begins to play the two sides against each other while trying to stay one step ahead of both of them . viewers familiar with both previous incarnations of this story will find virtually nothing radically changed from a plotting standpoint , and that alone should make last man standing somewhat more respectable than other recent hollywood remakes-cum-bastardizations . there is the happily ineffectual lawman ( bruce dern ) , the unhappily detained object of one of the bosses' affections ( karina lombard ) , the barkeep who becomes our anti-hero's only friend ( william sanderson ) , suspicious lieutenants ( christopher walken and michael imperioli ) to question the bosses' trust in smith , a brutal beating , and a big fire . director walter hill gives the proceedings his usual injection of steroids , including a pair of guns for willis which have the ability to propel an assailant backward with sufficient thrust to achieve escape velocity , but at least he doesn't try to turn the story into a slasher film or a buddy picture . <NEG> what he _does_ do is nearly as big a mistake </NEG> , and that is to provide a running voice-over narration by willis which rings of the standard hard-boiled style of pulp detective fiction . yes , <NEG> that narration is full of cliches </NEG> , but those are are not particularly troubling . the problem is that both yojimbo and a fistful of dollars succeeded largely on the inscrutability of their lead characters . they were a mystery , to the other characters in the film and to the audience , their motives never entirely clear even after they have acted , and that quality contributed to their almost mythical status . with john smith's voice chattering on in the background and allowing us into his every thought , he becomes more mundane , just another tough guy trying to stay alive . it feels like a hammett novel , all right , and hill can plead faithfulness to his text for his choice , but <NEG> it simply doesn't work </NEG> . the narration allows the man with no name to take us into his confidence , and the man with no name takes _no one_ into his confidence . even if you walk into last man standing as a blank slate , i can't imagine it being much more than a heavily armed minor distraction . willis tones down his macho swagger as the taciturn smith , but there is still a level on which he always seems like he is counting on being tougher than everyone else rather than smarter than everyone else . christopher walken plays doyle's brutal henchman as a slight variation on his gallery of soft-spoken psychos , and <NEG> there isn't another single character whom makes even the slightest impression </NEG> . with no compelling antagonist for smith , <NEG> there is no build-up </NEG> towards the expected showdown , and when it does come , that showdown is over so quickly you wonder what all the fuss was about . cinematographer lloyd ahern ( who also did the only noteworthy work on hill's 1995 flop wild bill ) creates some nifty sunburned vistas , but his work is only to keep the eye distracted between the spurts of gunfire and the next bit of <NEG> counter-productive narration </NEG> . sometimes when someone sees <NEG> a lackluster remake </NEG> of a revered original , they'll wonder what all the talk was about . in the case of last man standing , it is those who know the originals who will wonder what all that talking was about .
