1.02.2004
the last detail
(...happy new year...)
a few nights ago, I saw hal ashby’s 1973 film the last detail, and I’ve been meaning to write something about it ever since. it’s a pretty amazing movie. typical ashby in a certain sense, but that’s a good thing. a top-of-his-game jack nicholson plays a navy officer sent on a cushy job with a fellow officer (a poker-faced otis young). they’re to deliver an 18 year old kid (randy quaid, who is hardly recognizable) to an army prison in boston where he is to serve an 8 year sentence for attempting to steal 40 bucks from a charity’s collection basket. along the way (they set out from virginia, I think), nicholson and young recognize the absurdity of the predicament and take a liking to the kid. so they decide to devote a few days to showing him a good time prior to their arrival.
this, of course, makes the majority of the movie a literal digression, and frees up a good bit of time for the sort of playfulness and invention that made ashby’s harold and maude so near and dear to you (if you have a pulse). I’m a sucker for "digression movies" to begin with (side note: spike lee’s sharp, underrated "25th hour" is very similar in premise and good for many of the same reasons), but ashby has here a strange take on the sort of freedom allotted by digression. there is a lingering sense of responsibility built into the structure of the film. you are keenly aware of the awaiting bad ending (quaid goes to jail) from the start, and it changes the tone of the film’s brighter moments.
and it doesn’t always do this in expected ways, either. what appears on the surface to be the ultimate male bonding movie (e.g. sailors, brothels, bar fights—it’s all quasi-tom of finland if you think about it), is also an insightful (and occasionally affectionate) deconstruction of nicholson’s hot-headed posturing. it’s a film like this that reminds you that ol' jack was once pretty cool, as well as a hell of an actor. his role here is a variation on his part in five easy pieces, but more vicious and less seductive in its rebellion. his constant boasts and tantrums fail to convince just about anyone in the film, including himself, and it takes a performance like this to properly execute such a specific mix of machismo and powerlessness.
the strength of the film’s peculiar humor is in its distance from the "rebellion" it generates. note, for example, the oppressive hippie who won’t let up on otis young for what he believes to be complicity with the nixon administration. you find in that scene the kind of bullying moral posturing that makes someone like michael moore such a bitter pill for me to swallow nowadays (even if I do usually agree with him). ashby shows a keen eye for the power dynamics that inevitably cloud a person’s belief system, even while the content remains commendable.
all in all, the last detail is a film about being stuck. and it’s a brilliant celebration of the fun you get to have when you are woefully stuck. it’s also a wise enough film to know that all of that fun occurs on planet earth. you get the party as well as the pathos.
a few nights ago, I saw hal ashby’s 1973 film the last detail, and I’ve been meaning to write something about it ever since. it’s a pretty amazing movie. typical ashby in a certain sense, but that’s a good thing. a top-of-his-game jack nicholson plays a navy officer sent on a cushy job with a fellow officer (a poker-faced otis young). they’re to deliver an 18 year old kid (randy quaid, who is hardly recognizable) to an army prison in boston where he is to serve an 8 year sentence for attempting to steal 40 bucks from a charity’s collection basket. along the way (they set out from virginia, I think), nicholson and young recognize the absurdity of the predicament and take a liking to the kid. so they decide to devote a few days to showing him a good time prior to their arrival.
this, of course, makes the majority of the movie a literal digression, and frees up a good bit of time for the sort of playfulness and invention that made ashby’s harold and maude so near and dear to you (if you have a pulse). I’m a sucker for "digression movies" to begin with (side note: spike lee’s sharp, underrated "25th hour" is very similar in premise and good for many of the same reasons), but ashby has here a strange take on the sort of freedom allotted by digression. there is a lingering sense of responsibility built into the structure of the film. you are keenly aware of the awaiting bad ending (quaid goes to jail) from the start, and it changes the tone of the film’s brighter moments.
and it doesn’t always do this in expected ways, either. what appears on the surface to be the ultimate male bonding movie (e.g. sailors, brothels, bar fights—it’s all quasi-tom of finland if you think about it), is also an insightful (and occasionally affectionate) deconstruction of nicholson’s hot-headed posturing. it’s a film like this that reminds you that ol' jack was once pretty cool, as well as a hell of an actor. his role here is a variation on his part in five easy pieces, but more vicious and less seductive in its rebellion. his constant boasts and tantrums fail to convince just about anyone in the film, including himself, and it takes a performance like this to properly execute such a specific mix of machismo and powerlessness.
the strength of the film’s peculiar humor is in its distance from the "rebellion" it generates. note, for example, the oppressive hippie who won’t let up on otis young for what he believes to be complicity with the nixon administration. you find in that scene the kind of bullying moral posturing that makes someone like michael moore such a bitter pill for me to swallow nowadays (even if I do usually agree with him). ashby shows a keen eye for the power dynamics that inevitably cloud a person’s belief system, even while the content remains commendable.
all in all, the last detail is a film about being stuck. and it’s a brilliant celebration of the fun you get to have when you are woefully stuck. it’s also a wise enough film to know that all of that fun occurs on planet earth. you get the party as well as the pathos.
