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Amazon.co.uk Review
The Last Detail nearly didn't get a release. Columbia, for whom it was made, was alarmed by the movie's barrage of profanity and resented the unorthodox working style of its director, Hal Ashby, who loathed producers and made no secret of it. Only when the film picked up a Best Actor Award for Jack Nicholson at Cannes did the studio reluctantly grant it a release--with minimal promotion--to widespread critical acclaim. Nicholson, in one of his best roles, plays "Bad-ass" Buddusky, a naval petty officer detailed, along with his black colleague "Mule" Mulhall (Otis Young), to escort an offender from Virginia to the harsh naval prison at Portsmouth, NH. The miscreant is a naïve youngster, Meadows (Randy Quaid), who's been given eight years for stealing $40 from his CO's wife's favourite charity. The escorts, at first cynically detached, soon start feeling sorry for Meadows and decide to show him a good time in his last few days of freedom.
Ashby, a true son of 60s counterculture, avidly abets the anti-authoritarian tone of Robert Towne's script. Meadows is a sad victim of the system--but so too are Buddusky and Mulhall, as they gradually come to realise. A lot of the film is very funny. Nicholson gets to do one of his classic psychotic outbursts--"I am the fucking shore patrol!"--and there are some pungent scenes of male bonding pushed to the verge of desperation. But the overall tone is melancholy, pointed up by the jaunty military marches on the soundtrack. Shot amid bleak, wintry landscapes, in buses and trains and grey urban streets, The Last Detail is a film of constant, compulsive movement going nowhere--a powerful, finely acted study of institutional claustrophobia.
On the DVD: The Last Detail disc doesn't have much in the way of extras. There are abbreviated filmographies for Ashby, Nicholson and Quaid (though not for Young) and a trailer for A Few Good Men (1992). The mono sound comes up well in Dolby Digital, and the transfer preserves DoP Michael Chapman's subtle, subfusc palette and the 1.85:1 ratio of the original. --Philip Kemp
DVD Description
DVD Special Features:
Languages: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish
Subtitles: Arabic, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
25 of 25 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
'We ain't leaving this town until we've got ourselves a belly-full of beer!' Jack Nicholson's smile seems to spread halfway across the screen. This film's like the canal near my old house: it seems a lot shallower than it actually is. It's about lots of things - the way men bond; the effects of a broken home; America after Vietnam - but they're all wrapped up subtly in humourous scenes which could easily be misunderstood as merely 'laddish'. Fantastic script, fantastic editing, and all put together perfectly by Hal Ashby. In my opinion, this is an overlooked New Hollywood classic.
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
I watched this film for the first time ever last night and I thought it was outstanding. 2 US Navy Petty Officers have to escort a young rating who has been sentenced to eight years for stealing a $40 (which he never actually got). This seems harsh. well the money was destined for the rating's CO's wife's favourite charity! The PO's feel sorry for the 18 year old rating and decide to show him some of life before he serves his sentence, after which he was to be thrown out of the Navy anyway. They get him drunk, start a fight with some Marines, get him laid, teach him to stand up for himself, even stumble across a Hare Krisna prayer meeting! But this film isn't some buddy road movie. To me it's all about being caught up in something where you feel helpless and trying to beat the system, set as it is just at the end of the Vietnam War. Where there is injustice but everybody opts to do nothing. I can't wait to get my own copy of this DVD and share it with friends
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
This Jack Nicholson road movie made when he was pretty much still typecast as the anti hero drifter rebel type he played so convincingly, is choc full of those Kerouac type one liners he loved. A crackling screenplay with some good scenes gives the man real opportunities to do his party pieces, as well as show a real gift for world worn cynicism. His acting is just so natural, yet very, very powerful. Has there ever been another movie actor like him, I ask.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
sadly funny journey to nowhere
This is a surprisingly powerful film about two grunts who are charged to deliver a man across country to jail. Read more
Published 2 months ago by rob crawford
The Last Detail
As a Jack fan I love this film. Do not be fooled by the picture on the cover which makes it look rather camp (not that I have a problem with camp of course). Read more
Published 9 months ago by jotrala
Touching, well-acted film
Two older, grizzled sailors, transport a baby faced, vulnerable
young sailor to 8 years in prison for a pathetic, petty theft. Read more
young sailor to 8 years in prison for a pathetic, petty theft. Read more
Published 12 months ago by K. Gordon
Profoundly sad movie
This looks like a dream to me- putting Nicholson and Randy Quaid togther in a movie written by Robert Towne and directed by the great Hal AShby. I was disappointed. Read more
Published on 5 Jan 2009 by Billy Ray Cyrus
Buddhist
To the reviewer who said they stumbled across a hare krishna prayer meeting, they stumbled across a SGI Buddhist meeting. Nam Myoho Renge Kyo.
Fab film by the way.
Fab film by the way.
Published on 18 Oct 2007 by Rolling Stone
Classic New Hollywood film.
Hal Ashby was probably one of the most underrated of the New Hollywood directors (Bogdanovich, De Palma, Coppola, Friedkin, Scorsese, Spielberg, Rafelson etc)- which is bizarre... Read more
Published on 11 Dec 2002 by Jason Parkes
one of jack's best
this film is one of jack nicholson's best movies,made when he was at the top of the pile of box office hollywood actors-chinatown,one flew over the cookoos nest,five easy... Read more
Published on 4 July 2002 by Syd
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