History Film / LastManStanding

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/last_man_standing_1522.jpg]]

->''In a town with no justice, there is only one law: Every man for himself.''

''Last Man Standing'' is a 1996 action film by Creator/WalterHill, a cross between a {{Western}} and a hard-bitten FilmNoir tale taking place in a dusty ghost town during Prohibition and effectively straddling the transitional period between the two. [[AFistfulOfRehashes The plot is a remake of]] ''Film/AFistfulOfDollars''[=/=]''Film/{{Yojimbo}}''.

"John Smith" (Creator/BruceWillis) is a wandering gun-for-hire with few morals and a lot of ammo for his pair of .45s. The town, despite being a tiny speck in the middle of nowhere, is home to two fairly large ethnic gangs comprised of Doyle's Irish and Strozzi's Italians, as the town makes a convenient place to smuggle alcohol in from across the border. John immediately makes an impression on Irish gang leader Doyle by blasting the hell out of his best man Finn, and he is soon deeply caught up in the bitter and heated gang war. His presence does ''nothing'' to prevent tensions from getting out of hand. He befriends the town's barkeep and forms a sort of working relationship with the already corrupt sheriff, determined to milk the situation for all it's worth, but in the process finds himself helping out the girlfriends of the two gang leaders. Eventually he's informed by a Texas Ranger that the law will abide one gang in town, but not two, and when he returns in a few days' time there had better be one gang or no gangs, but definitely no John Smith.

Things go downhill from there.

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!!''Last Man Standing'' provides examples of the following tropes:

* AchillesHeel: John can't stand to leave a woman hurting. The sheriff even [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] this tendency when he sees it in action.
--> "You know something, amigo? I think I just spotted the chink in your armor. [[{{Foreshadowing}} When you go down...it's gonna be over a skirt]]."
* AntiHero: John is heavily implied to be a mob hitman fleeing a bad situation elsewhere in the states. He murders, steals, lies, and manipulates his way through the entire movie. But he has a soft spot for women and puts himself through pain and near-death to help them, and everyone he kills is corrupt at best.
* BangBangBANG: Whenever John fires his .45 pistols they sound more like a pair of cannons than what a .45 handgun would actually sound like.
* BlackAndGreyMorality: John is definitely no saint, but at least he has ''some'' morals, unlike the gangsters he faces off against.
* BlownAcrossTheRoom: Fate of many a mook.
** Taken UpToEleven with the very first kill, when John draws and empties his two .45 pistols into a man who was standing inside a saloon. The resulting shots send him flying backwards out the door and into the middle of the street.
* BookEnds: The movie starts an ends with visually similar scenes and a character in the same situation: [[spoiler: John, driving to Mexico without any money to his name.]]
* BottomlessMagazines: Played with. When the scene is serious, John reloads realistically. However his guns have the unrealistic ability to fire 40 plus rounds before needing to reload. At one point John fires eight rounds from a six shooter.
* CoattailRidingRelative: Giorgio is the son of Strozzi's superior in Chicago, which makes him very arrogant and pushy to Strozzi's visible displeasure.
* DeadGuyOnDisplay: The coffin maker "Smiley" displays the first guy Smith kills in the movie in his shop window dressed up like a corpse at a funeral to attract customers.
* DisproportionateRetribution: John gets his car vandalized for looking at Doyle's girl. He responds by gunning down the man responsible. Justified as both men are establishing their badass credentials -- the offense is irrelevant.
* TheDragon: Hickey to Doyle. No one thinks much of Doyle, but they're terrified of Hickey. (Considering he's played by ChristopherWalken, this is just good sense.)
* TheDreaded: Hickey in spades.
* EarAche: Strozzi had Lucy's ear cut off when she revealed her affair with Smith to him. It's implied this is when John decides to KillEmAll.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: John has no qualms about lying, cheating, stealing, and murdering, but he abhors violence against women, and "likes sinners a whole lot better than saints".
* EvilVersusEvil / FalseFlagOperation: The whole point of the movie, when John intersects the two tropes.
* FullFrontalAssault: Smith's retaliation during an ambush against him when he is in bed.
* GiantMook: Among Doyle's gang.
* GoodScarsEvilScars: Hickey has a pretty nasty long, vertical one around his right eye that partly goes over it.
* TheGreatDepression: The film is set in 1932, at the twilight of the Prohibition era, ''and'' during the worst moments of the Depression.
* GunsAkimbo: John Smith's style of gunplay.
* HarbingerOfImpendingDoom: Doyle's girl tries to warn off John Smith when he arrives in Jericho, albeit in Spanish. Not that he's the type to listen.
* HeadsOrTails: John chooses to [[AtTheCrossroads take the road to Jericho]] by spinning a flask of whiskey, then going in the direction it points.
* InTheBack: Hickey prefers to [[ISurrenderSuckers feign surrender]] by turning his back his enemies and asking them if they would shoot an unarmed man in the back. Then he draws a pistol and kills them.
* IsThatWhatTheyreCallingItNow: When Smith first meets Lucy:
-->'''John Smith:''' Strozzi said that he'd brought the girl along to keep up his morale. That's the first time I'd ever heard it called that.
* TheLastTitle: The title.
* TheMafia: Strozzi's gang. As LampShaded by Smith, while in the big cities the Italians are the strongest where as in Jericho they only had a small gang of mediocre gunmen as opposed to Doyle's considerably larger gang who also have [[TheDreaded Hickey]] as their enforcer.
* MobWar: A central driver of the plot, between Doyle's [[TheIrishMob Irish-American Mob]] and Strozzi's [[TheMafia Italian-American Mafia]]. It's LampShaded that while in the big cities the Italians are winning, in Jericho they're the weaker gang.
* MoralityPet: Doyle thinks his Mexican lover is this for him, and that he has rescued her from poverty for the sake of love. But it's obvious he thinks of her as his property, referring to her just as "the girl".
* MrSmith: No one even pretends that John Smith is his real name.
* MultipleGunshotDeath: A group of soldiers of the [[TheIrishMob Doyle gang]] is double-crossed by their hired Mexican [[DirtyCop police goons]] and machine-gunned without mercy within their car for a whole minute. [[AntiHero John Smith]] [[EvenEvilHasStandards finds the massacre gruesome to watch]].
-->'''John Smith:''' It was a massacre. Couldn't say I was real sorry... but it was a rough way to check out.
** Also when Slim's Roadhouse was set on fire in the final attack by the Doyle gang, the Strozzi gang members who didn't burn are brutally shot, Giorgio being the worst example.
* TheNarrator: John Smith
* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: John gets one from the GiantMook.
* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: John's decision to help Doyle's girl escape from her captivity comes back to bite him ''hard''. Doyle's gang quickly discovers[[spoiler: that he was the one who killed all the guards and allowed her to escape. Doyle's men then take him back to their hideout where they proceed to give him a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown.]]
* {{Overkill}}: John never shoots someone just once.
** Doyle has his ''entire gang'' open fire on just one man at one point.
* PlayingBothSides: Smith is unlikely to make the cover of ''Loyalty Monthly'', except as a warning.
* QuickDraw: John Smith makes an impression this way. John's rapid gunplay remains important throughout the film.
* PoliceAreUseless:
** The local law enforcement of Jericho are completely apathetic to the crimes committed by the local mob and know better than to get in their way. The point is really taken home when at the beginning of the film Doyle's gang decides to trash John's car in clear view of the police. One of the gangsters then walks up to John and calmly tells him that the " sheriff's office is right over there in case you want to complain about anything". When John goes to the Sherrif's office to tell what happened, the sheriff's words to John are : "Yeah I saw what happened. You wanna know what I'm gonna do about it? Not a ''goddamn thing''".
** However when a corrupt Texas Ranger is killed, their leader makes it clear that unless this problem is sorted out, he'll come back with an entire posse of Texas Rangers who will kill ''every'' gangster in town.
* RecycledInSpace: Film/{{Yojimbo}}, with Prohibition-era gangsters--whose liquor racket hews surprisingly close to the original.
* RefugeInAudacity: If John Smith walked into a room and shot a dozen largely unaware mooks, and they died in anything vaguely like realistic fashion, he'd look like a monster. Since they fly across the room, crash out windows, and go rolling across the street, he just looks like a badass.
* TheRoaringTwenties: The broader setting.
* RuleOfCool: This movie walks up to physics and shoots it in the chest, causing it to lift off its feet as it goes flying backwards, crashes through a window, and rolls all away across the street to die in the dirt.
* TheSheriff: Corrupt Sheriff Ed Galt.
* ShroudedInMyth: Hickey.
* TwoRoadsBeforeYou: Happens literally in the opening scene, when John chooses the road to Jericho. The symbolism is lampshaded in the voiceover he's just given.
-->"It's a funny thing, [[EvenEvilHasStandards no matter how low you sink there's still a right and a wrong]], and you always end up choosing. You go one way so you can try and live with yourself. You go the other, and still be walking around, but you're dead and don't know it."
* WretchedHive: Jericho, the setting, is without effective law and order -- but well up on violent criminal enterprise. There is, in fact, nothing left in town but the gangs, the sheriff, a bartender, a prostitute, and the undertaker... and by the end of the movie, the undertaker's leaving.
* YouTalkTooMuch: The prostitute Smith hires tell him her life story, even while he's having sex with her.
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* DisproportionateRetribution: John gets his car vandalized for looking at Doyle's girl. He responds by gunning down the man responsible. Justified as both men are establishing their BadAss credentials -- the offense is irrelevant.

'''''Last Man Standing''''' is a 1996 action film by Creator/WalterHill, a cross between a {{Western}} and a hard-bitten FilmNoir tale taking place in a dusty ghost town during Prohibition and effectively straddling the transitional period between the two. [[AFistfulOfRehashes The plot is a remake of]] ''Film/AFistfulOfDollars''[=/=]''Film/{{Yojimbo}}''.

* RefugeInAudacity: If John Smith walked into a room and shot a dozen largely unaware mooks, and they died in anything vaguely like realistic fashion, he'd look like a monster. Since they fly across the room, crash out windows, and go rolling across the street, he just looks like a {{Badass}}.

* BottomlessMagazines: Played with, when the scene is serious John reloads realistically. However his guns have the seemingly unrealistic ability to fire up to 40 plus rounds before needing to reload. At one point John fires 8 rounds from a six shooter.

* TheMafia: Strozzi's gang. As LampShaded by Smith, while in the big cities the Italians are the strongest where as in Jericho they only got a small gang full of mediocre gunmen as opposed to Doyle's considerably larger gang who also have [[TheDreaded Hickey]] as their enforcer.

-->'''John Smith:''' It was a massacre. Couldn't say I was real sorry...but it was a rough way to check out.
** Also how the members of the Strozzi gang that didn't burned to death when Slim's Roadhouse was set on fire on the final attack by the Doyle gang dies-Giorgio getting the worse example.

* HeadsOrTails: John chooses to take the road to Jericho by spinning a flask of whiskey, then going in the direction it points.

* PoliceAreUseless: The local law enforcement of Jericho are completely apathetic to the crimes committed by the local mob and know better than to get in their way. The point is really taken home when at the beginning of the film Doyle's gang decides to trash John's car in clear view of the police. One of the gangsters then walks up to John and calmly tells him that the " sheriff's office is right over there in case you want to complain about anything". When John goes to the Sherrif's office to tell what happened, the sheriff's words to John are : "Yeah I saw what happened. You wanna know what I'm gonna do about it? Not a ''goddamn thing''".

"John Smith" (Creator/BruceWillis) is a wandering gun-for-hire with few morals and a lot of ammo for his pair of .45s. The town, despite being a tiny speck in the middle of nowhere, is home to two fairly large gangs, as the town makes a convenient place to smuggle alcohol in from across the border. John immediately makes an impression on Irish gang leader Doyle by blasting the hell out of his best man Finn, and he is soon deeply caught up in the bitter and heated gang war. His presence does ''nothing'' to prevent tensions from getting out of hand. He befriends the town's barkeep and forms a sort of working relationship with the already corrupt sheriff, determined to milk the situation for all it's worth, but in the process finds himself helping out the girlfriends of the two gang leaders. Eventually he's informed by a Texas Ranger that the law will abide one gang in town, but not two, and when he returns in a few days' time there had better be one gang or no gangs, but definitely no John Smith.

* MobWar: A central driver of the plot, and like most Mob Wars this one is intensely destructive.

'''''Last Man Standing''''' is a 1996 action film by Walter Hill, a cross between a {{Western}} and a hard-bitten FilmNoir tale taking place in a dusty ghost town during Prohibition and effectively straddling the transitional period between the two. [[AFistfulOfRehashes The plot is a remake of]] ''Film/AFistfulOfDollars''[=/=]''Film/{{Yojimbo}}''.

* GreatDepression: The film is set in 1932, at the twilight of the Prohibition era, ''and'' during the worst moments of the Depression.

* PoliceAreUseless: The local law enforcement of Jericho are completely apathetic to the crimes committed by the local mob and know better than to get in their way. The point is really taken home when at the beginning of the film Doyle's gang decides to trash John's car in clear view of the police. One of the gangsters then walks up to John and calmly tells him that the " sheriff's office is right over there in case you want to complain about anything". When John goes to the Sherrif's office to tell what happened, the sheriff's words to John are : " Yeah I saw what happened. You wanna know what I'm gonna do about it? Not a ''goddamn thing''".

* Bang,Bang,BANG: Whenever John fires his .45 pistols they sound more like a pair of cannons than what a .45 handgun would actually sound like.

* PoliceAreUseless: The local law enforcement of Jericho are completely apathetic the crimes committed by the local gangs and know better than to get in their way. The point is really taken home when Doyle's gang decides to trash John's car in clear view of the police. One of the gangsters then walks up to John and calmly tells him that the " sheriff's office is right over there in case you want to complain about anything". When John goes to the Sherrif's office to tell what happened, the sheriff's words to John are : " Yeah I saw what happened. You wanna know what I'm gonna do about it? Not a ''goddamn thing''".

* CopsAreUseless: The local law enforcement of Jericho are completely apathetic to the crimes that are committed by the local gangs. The point is really taken home at the beginning of the film when Doyle's gang decides to trash John's car in clear view of the police. One of the gangsters then walks up to John and calmly tells him that the "sheriff's office is right over there in case you want to complain". When John goes to tell the sheriff what happened the sheriff's words to John are: "Yeah I saw what happened. You wanna know what I'm gonna do about it? Not a ''goddamn thing''".

PoliceAreUseless: The local law enforcement of Jericho are completely apathetic the crimes committed by the local gangs and know better than to get in their way. The point is really taken home when Doyle's gang decides to trash John's car in clear view of the police. One of the gangsters then walks up to John and calmly tells him that the " sheriff's office is right over there in case you want to complain about anything". When John goes to the Sherrif's office to tell what happened, the sheriff's words to John are : " Yeah I saw what happened. You wanna know what I'm gonna do about it? Not a ''goddamn thing''".