Customer Reviews

The Last Detail

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When I first saw this great film I was living in Australia and this was my first taste of east coast 70"s USA in winter and it was spot on.Since then I have spent many a long cold winter in Pa ,thats why I now live happily in Fla. Other reviewers have told the story of the film really well but I feel that this was easily Nicholsons best as he nails every scene without smothering his two "shipmates: .I will turn on this masterpiece of real life just to see a certain scene when I have the time.The beginning; " when you"re in the navy , and you"re in transit no one knows where the f--k you are, so go tell the M A A to go f--k himself." or to relive the bar scene where Nicholson loses it when the bartender refuses to serve the kid as they try to show him a good time before he goes to the brig for 8 years.Yes it is certainly a film that ranks with the greats , I watch it regularly and I strongly recommend it to anyone 17 years and older.

This is one of my favorites, but it's also one of the most difficult movies to describe to people. Yes, it's about two experienced guys in the Navy who are assigned to escort a young charge (whom they don't know) to Naval prison. And yes, they have some fun along the way, knowing how sad the situation really is. But there's an indescribable something about "The Last Detail" that just gets to me on a pretty deep level. First of all, it's the acting. I mean if you ever question Jack Nicholson's talent and depth as an actor, then watch this movie. I beg to argue about who on earth could have ever embodied this role this deeply. I don't think any of the other big and great actors of his time could have pulled it off this perfectly (Gene Hackman, Al Pacino, George C. Scott, Robert DeNiro). Also, Otis Young and Randy Quaid are pitch-perfect in their roles as well, though the movie clearly belongs to Nicholson. This is a GREAT PERFORMANCE!! It's the definition of one!

But in addition to the acting, the photography of the film is brilliant. It captures the times and places in a rather bleak yet very haunting way. The guys drinking beer in the parking garage in D.C. The three of them pressed into the small hotel room in D.C., along with all those empty beer bottles. Walking a quiet and snowy residential block in Camden, NJ. Walking the streets of nighttime NYC. Playing darts in a bar in NYC. Going to a late night party in an NYC apartment. Going to a Boston brothel. Trying to grill and have a picnic in the middle of a snowy park in Boston! I don't know if it's just my fascination with the time that causes me to find it so darn striking, but it just is. I find these scenes so haunting, and so REAL.

To me, those two things are what make this film so exceptional. The dialogue is also brilliant, as is the complexity of the emotions that are raised by the story. I guess it works on a lot of levels. Just don't miss it, whether you're a Nicholson fan or not. But if you are a Nicholson fan, don't miss out on what is probably his greatest performance!!

Two older, grizzled sailors, transport a baby faced, vulnerable young
sailor to 8 years in prison for stealing $40.

The acting is very good, especially Jack Nicholson and Randy Quaid,
and the film has lots of wonderful moments and details.

That said, I've never loved it quite as much as many others do. It
feels a bit sappy at times, 'cute' at others, and the story feels a
bit too predicable.

We know from the start the two old salts will soften and come to care for
their charge, and they will all bond before the journey ends.

Without the high level of talents involved, that predictability could have
sunk the film, but the brio of Nicholson, the sure hand of director Hal
Ashby, and Robert Towne's salty, idiosyncratic script keep it afloat and
always worth watching, if not quite rising to 'great film' level for me.

This movie is a classic from beginning to end and a must have who like Nicholson at his manic, mad best. Fine supporting roles from Dennis Quaid as the hapless navy convict.
Best bit for me is when they're in a drinking den and partying and some spaced out woman is trying to explain the origins of life or some such garbage and Jack just rolls his eyes in mock disbelief - priceless stuff - enjoy.

Ohhh, Jack! How hard you make it for your fans to decide which one of your films is the best. This one ai'nt restricted to the navy, but to any enlisted U.S. serviceman, past, present or future. If only the chaser duties I did from Ft Bragg to Camp Lejeune were this classic....

If you've ever been (or are) a U.S. Navy Petty Officer, you have to see this movie. It is the most true-to-life depiction of life as a sailor ever put on the screen. The daily grind, the trudging through the system as lifers, then the highs of getting out and going crazy; it's all here in perfect detail, acted with perfect intonation by all three leads.

Other Amazon reviewers have commmented on the language of the characters, making the constant profanity out to be a kind of social or emotional statement. Believe me (as a six-year veteran and first class petty officer, in the Navy just about when this movie was made), there is nothing in this script that has not been said by every sailor every day in every routine situation; it's just the common argot of every enlisted man who ever served in the U.S. Navy -- not a social statement. In fact, I wonder how Towne got it so perfect. Even the detail of Nicholson's character (who is a Signalman) talking across the room by waving his fingers as signal flags is right on; I remember seeing every signalman I ever knew doing the same thing.

If you were ever in the enlisted Navy, you must see this movie. It'll bring it all rushing back.

When this film was completed 30 years ago, executives at Columbia Pictures really did not know what to do with it and probably would have allowed it to disappear had Nicholson not received an award as best actor at the Cannes Film Festival. Based on Darryl Ponicscan's novel, it traces the one-week journey of two "lifers" in the U.S. Navy (Nicholson and Young) who are ordered to transport and deliver another seaman (Quaid) who has been convicted of theft and sentenced to eight years in military prison. Brilliantly directed by Hal Ashby in a breakthrough role as "Badass" Buddusky, Nicholson takes pity on Meadows and convinces his associate Mulhall to allow Meadows one last fling before imprisonment. En route north from the naval base in Virginia, they treat him to several rounds of drinks and even arrange for him to spend some time with a prostitute (Carol Kane). Finally, they complete their assignment and the film ends. The energy of the plot (developed within a screenplay by Robert Towne) has much less to do with physical action than with the profane language which correctly indicates Buddusky's subversive attitude toward authority. (Why a maverick such as Buddusky was selected for service as a military policeman is never explained.) When seeing this film for the first time many years ago, my initial reaction was that Buddusky and Mulhall improvise their own version of a "right of passage" for their young charge. I still think so. Of course, Meadows is a willing, indeed eager participant. For me, it is almost impossible to ignore Nicholson whenever he appears on screen and that is especially true of this film (and of several others, notably One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest and As Good as It Gets) in which his presence dominates each scene. The relentlessly profane language seems appropriate as Buddusky's confrontational personality energizes their own conversations as well as their encounters with civilians. When the film ends, Meadows begins to serve his eight-year term and presumably Buddusky and Mulhall return to the naval base in Virginia. They will never forget their week together and neither will I.

I've never been a big Nicholson fan but this film did give me some hope. Above all else this is a Hal Ashby film and if you enjoy Harold and Maude or Shampoo you should check this out. The plot centers on two Naval officers who draw duty to escort a third to military prison where he will serve eight years for petty theft. The sentence is a harsh punishment for the crime but in the end all characters are trapped and must concede to the rules of their superiors. Ashby does a great job of portaying the imprisonment of all the characters in their roles which may seem particularly difficult in that this is also a road movie.
Wonderful.

Directed by Hal Ashby, who made such powerful commentaries on life in America as SHAMPOO, COMING HOME, BEING THERE and the cult-favorite HAROLD AND MAUDE, THE LAST DETAIL offers the story of three U.S. Navy sailors on a toot--and at the time of its 1973 release it was chiefly noted as the most profane film to achieve a mainstream release. The passage of time has dimmed that profanity's bite, but nothing can dim the power of its performances, it's darkly funny story, or the director's bitter vision of both life in the Navy and the urban decay of 1970s America.

Two Navy-lifers (Jack Nicholson and Otis Young) are ordered to escort a young sailor (Randy Quaid) to a military prison, where he will do eight years followed by dishonorable discharge for attempting to steal a charity jar containing forty dollars. Once the trip gets underway, they realize the young sailor is essentially an innocent--and they set out to show him a good time before he is locked away. And their idea of a good time ranges from a bout of hard drinking in a hotel room to a brawl in a men's restroom to an evening with New York hookers. Along the way, Nicholson and Young gradually realize that they are just as much in prison as Quaid will soon be--victims of their own ennui, serving out their sentences in a military that fosts coarseness, frustration, and mindless machisimo as a matter of course.

The performances are excellent throughout. This was the film that launched Nicholson to stardom--but it is also a film that allows us to see what Nicholson could do before he became immured in the trappings of his own fame and collapsed into self-characture: he is every bit as good here as he would be in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST and CHINATOWN. Otis Young, an actor whose career never quite took off, is Nicholson's equal here, balancing Nicholson's excesses with his no less firey but considerably more commonsense role. And Randy Quaid scores an equally memorable performance as the young sailor, while Carol Kane gives a memorable turn as one of the hookers they encounter in their travels. Watch closely and you'll also discover a very young Gilda Radner as a member of a religious cult.

In spite of the noteriety it received upon release, like many of the best films of the 1970s THE LAST DETAIL has fallen through the cracks to become a largely unsung classic. Fashion changed, and with the advent of Ronald Regan, the stock market boom, and two decades of heavy-handed materialism Americans abandoned their cinematic realism and social statement in favor of big budget, special effects heavy, and largely escapist film. But the pendulum inevitably swings back, and now that we face serious issues both at home and abroad such films as THE LAST DETAIL are at last, perhaps, beginning to come into their own. Strongly recommended.

'The Last Detail' is a downbeat, very 70s 'On The Town'. The stark simplicity of its story - two Shore Police escort a teenage sailor from Norfolk naval base to prison in Boston - is its stroke of genius. Uncluttered by the need to drive the plot forward, undiverted by external conflict, the film can concentrate on the interplay of three very different, very brilliant actors, and the internal struggles of their characters. The two policemen in particular find themselves torn between their professional duty, and their friendly empathy with a gangling youth who, to their disbelief, is being sentenced to eight years imprisonment for being caught stealing money from the polio kitty. It is a film full of unobtrusive ironies - these are three sailors who spend the movie crossing the continent on land; the two policemen, who foul-mouthedly shout their rebelliousness against authority, are intensely conservative, while the god-fearing mamma's boy is the one who eventually tries to break the status quo. He's going to jail, but the other pair will rot in the navy as 'lifers'.

The plot simplcity lends the film the impetus of an Allegory, which, thankfully, is lightly done. 'Detail' reverses the movement of the traditional Western with its promise of freedom from civilisation, by heading West-to-East towards jail (and Portsmouth, Boston, the very source of modern America itself). The visuals and locations are flat and largely anonymous, increasing the sense of a Symbolic Arena, but also evoking a mid-70s disenchantment and diminishment. As the policemen try to give the virginal prisoner one last good time before jail, we find the sour remains of the failed 60s counterculture, the debasement of Eastern mysticism into selfish babble; the impotence of drugs; the despair behind 'free love'. In fact, the whole thing would be far too depressing if it wasn't for these performers, whose characters don't have anything particularly witty or insightful to say, but talk and joke and waffle and improvise and laugh and fight and lose control and trash hotels and cry like real, very flawed people in an even more monstrously flawed America.