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List Price: $14.94 | | Label: Sony Pictures
Salesrank: 8836
Released: December 14, 1999 |
| Our Price: $6.97 |
| Used Price: $6.12 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
No Description Available.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 14-DEC-1999
Media Type: DVD
Description of The Last Detail:
Overshadowed by his high-profile leads in such '70s landmarks as Five Easy Pieces, Chinatown, and One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, Jack Nicholson's remarkably complex turn in this raucous yet ultimately somber road movie also remains his most underrated. As the snarling, hedonistic, but emotionally lost Navy lifer Billy Budduskey, Nicholson teams with fellow sailor "Mule" (Otis Young) on a seemingly simple duty of escorting a naive thief (Randy Quaid) from the Norfolk naval base to the brig in Massachusetts. Though polar opposites--Mule is hard-nosed Navy, while the first image of Budduskey shows him asleep in a chair, tattered and tattooed, gripping a near-empty bottle of cheap wine--both sailors learn that the 18-year-old will lose eight years of his life for a petty theft, and agree to cram his lost years into one booze-, sex-, and drug-infested (lost) weekend. From bizarre religious ceremonies to drunken nights in New York brothels, the two sailors provide all the sins they can think of, while their charge, Meadows, appears to go along just to please his escorts. The older sailors are definitely having more fun, essentially projecting all of their own lost freedom onto Meadows. The young sailor's ultimate doom mirrors the daily prison lived by both Budduskey and Mule, and director Hal Ashby hangs a decisive air of bleakness and claustrophobia over screenwriter Robert Towne's profane humor. When the question of whether to let the poor teenager escape ultimately arrives for the two sailors, the final decision is relatively pointless: in or out of prison, all three men are trapped by the Establishment and their own lost free will. --Dave McCoy
The Last Detail Reviews:
Classic 
2009-10-28 - Last Detail is a great little Nicholson flick from 1974. I said little, first, because it is a small on location film made when you could get a big studio to pay for a small, individuallized project. These were really "independant" films, before it was cool to be called an indie filmaker. Second, too few people know about Last Detail.
Jack Nicholson and Otis Young play two sailors assigned to take a third, younger seaman to Portsmith Millatary Prison. The crime: steeling forty dollars from a charity drive sponsered by a well connected officer. He got eight years.
Randy Quiad plays the prisoner, and he is a nice, quiet, troubled kid with no confidence and deep psychological problems that manifest as kelptomania. Nicholson befriends the kid, teaches him how to assert himself, gets him loaded and takes him to have sex with a hooker; his first time.
Painfully evident is this young man does not belong in jail for eight days, forget eight years. Yet Nicholson and Young are lifers, who will be ruined if the kid escapes by "accident."
The realism and naturalism are striking. The hooker here--Carol Kaye who later played Simka on Taxi-is cold as any New York hooker, not a comforting angel. She is damaged too and just wants to get payed. Nicholson and Young anguish over the inevitable--they know the kid is going to get eaten alive in jail--but they are not willing to throw their lives away. Warm guys who are parts of a cold machine; they too are stuck.
Set in winter, the locations are small, cold and claustrphobic. You feel the sad end coming throughout.
People act in Last Detail as they probably would in real life. No heros or villians. Made by the late Hal Ashby, this film has the greatness of Hollywood story and the immediacy of televison. Ashby had been an editor before he directed, worked on Norman Jewison's In The Heat Of The Night.
He is able to create quick, small scenes that make their point fast while retaining rich mileu and subtext. Young's charactor encounters offhand comments of idoits--he is black--but these exist in the real world Ashby creates, and are shown without grandiosidy. Watch the way he films a 1970s party, where liberals press the sailers about Vietnam and Nixon. These guys are not William Calley--just guys who had limited opportunity and are trying to survive, the Navy being one of the few viable options
I am only forty, but I remember seeing things like this as a kid and they felt just the way Ashby conveys them.
Brilliant film
The Last Detail
2009-09-20 - One of Jack Nicholson's best performances, with incredibly good support from Otis Young and Randy Quaid. I was just a boy when I first saw this movie on a black and white television in my father's apartment, and it struck me then as something quite "real" in a way that other movies did not. As I grew up, my initial memory of "Bad [...]" and "Mule" transporting Seaman Meadows cross country to the brig did not fade, and in fact, after my own military service I came to feel that it was a very accurate portrayal of how "peacetime" military personnel are faced with atypical situations, and how they react to and overcome these incidents. Filming in winter along the East coast of the US gives the film a very bleak look, which reinforces the feelings of despair associated with watching a young man face an exteme punishment for a minor crime. Young's matter-of-fact "Mule" provides a perfect counterpoint to the explosive qualities of Nicholson's "Bad [...]," as the two men deal with trying to make the best of a "[...] detail." It's a good story, excellently written with believable dialogue and realistic portrayals by all involved. Nicholson was near his peak of excellence in this film; if you haven't seen it and you like Nicholson at all, it's a must see.
Beautiful dialogue, Oscar worthy performances
2009-09-11 - In "The Last Detail" (1973) I keep thinking back to this wonderful scene, deep into the movie, when Mule (played by the wonderful Otis Young)takes Jack "[..]" Buddusky Nicholson to task for trying to show their young prisoner (Randy Quaid) a good time as they make their way up from Norfolk to Boston.
Both Mule and Buddusky are on the train and Mule is speaking sternly to Buddusky, at times yelling. As the lecture continues, there are shots of a forlorn Nicholson, then fade-outs and then more shots of Nicholson and more fadeouts. This was beautifully done. And while this was going on, there is mournful "Naval" brass music.
It hit me that throughout the movie there is this beautiful soundtrack of "navy" music (mainly brass and percussion) that sets the tone. Happy when the three get into a rollicking fight with marines, sad when they are taking Quaid to lockup. Exhilerating music when the three are walking to a new adventure.
(Can someone tell me how to get that soundtrack? It is golden. It is a stroke of genius to use that music in this movie.)
But back to the movie. "The Last Detail" begins in a grainy, gritty landscape. A faceless and sterile navy base. Sometime later, the movie changes into one in which production values are impressive. Softer focus, closer tighter shots. (Much like the beautiful movie "Local Hero" suddenly changes in tone and in visuals)
Essentially, Mule and Buddusky are taking Meadows (Quaid) to serve an eight-year prison sentence where, Buddusky makes note, Marine guards will beat up Meadows and break his spirit. "Maggot this, maggot that," Buddusky broods.
Meadows, it turns out, is from a dysfunctional family; has no friends. He has a compulsion to shoplift things he does not need, unlike the food he hungrily gobbles on the bus. He is clueless and naive and dog meat among strangers.
As they go north, Buddusky (with Mule's grudging acceptance) decides to show Meadows what he has missed so far: drinking, fighting, women, gambling and, especially, being part of a family.
When Meadows' handcuffs come off, it is symbolic of how the trio's dynamics have changed. The movie moves into a brighter landscape from then on.
Meadows and his two endearing guards accidentally walk into a cult meeting where they are chanting. (See cameos of the lovely Nancy Allen and Gilda Radner.) They are invited to a party because a woman in a bar notices Meadows chanting. He is later taken to a cat house where he pays a girl for her services. Twice. He drinks with his guards and has a good time. He is fed a cheesesteak and later floors a Marine with one punch.
Then realization sets in: Mule muses that instead of showing Meadows a good time, he and Buddusky will only make Meadows miserable for eight years for missing what he just was treated to.
Two lifers, Buddusky and Mule, show their hearts. They become temporary friends, then brothers, then fathers to Meadows.
If you have any kind of heart, the ending might bring you to your knees. Imagine surrendering your naive and frightened son to strangers who may or may not mistreat him for eight years.
"The Last Detail" is a gem. It's a salute to Nicholson's genius as a jerk who shows his heart like never before. Quaid was robbed of a best supporting actor Oscar. Nicholson of a best-actor Oscar. The movie was robbed of an Oscar.
And I was robbed of my tears and my breath at the ending.
A surprisingly insightful look at the burdens of self imprisonment...
2009-03-25 - One of those iconic 70's films we all need to see at least once in a lifetime; `The Last Detail' is a buddy film that really transcends its genre and becomes so much more than generic. Sporting a slew of finely tuned performances, `The Last Detail' is exciting, entertaining and rather insightful; a poignant look at the mental prison's we live in and the innate desire to break free, if only for a little while.
When Seaman Larry Meadows attempted to steal forty dollars from a charity he never expected that he'd wind up with an eight year prison sentence. That's exactly what happened though, and soon this eighteen-year-old virgin finds himself in the hands of Billy Buddusky and Mule Mulhall, whose last detail is to transport this youngster from his base in the south to the Maine prison where he'll serve out his time. When Billy and Mule find out the details behind this young man's sentence, and hear of the fact that he is so inexperienced in life itself, they take it upon themselves to give him a taste of the good life (or the sinful side of life) before he's locked away.
Behind the façade of what appears to be nothing more than a nicely crafted road trip movie lays a very intelligent look at the burdens carried by those living in their own private prison. While Meadows finds himself facing actual incarceration, it becomes apparent that his current state reflects all too well the mental state of Billy and Mule, both of whom long to be free. They are prisoners to their own lifestyle, desperate to break out and they see this sudden rendezvous as a way for them to let loose and embrace the freedom they so long to achieve.
The performances given by the three leads are all tender, controlled and complete; each one adding a different layer to the films emotional core. Otis Young give a very quiet and almost weary performance, capturing the responsible side of the party very nicely. He's cautious and concerned, yet when he lets loose he starts to realize what it is he really wants out of his life. Randy Quaid (who received a deserved Oscar nomination in the WRONG category) captures the naivety of his character perfectly. I'm so happy John Travolta didn't get this part. Quaid's able to weave in this young mans every emotion, from his fears to his joys as he embraces life for the very first, and seemingly very last time. Standout here though is without a doubt Jack Nicholson, who turns in one of his finest performances of all time. He gives Billy such a complete set of emotions, capturing his unruly side without ever losing his genuine humanity. There is always a glimmer of his internal turmoil, even when the sarcasm is rolling off his tongue at breakneck speeds.
Those who claim this to be Nicholson's best performance are not that far off (I still consider his `About Schmidt' turn to be his ultimate best).
Proving itself entertaining from beginning to end and sporting the right amount of poignancy, `The Last Detail' is a very engrossing and utterly unforgettable movie experience.
The Last Detail-Some of Jack Nicholson's great early work! 
2009-03-17 - This is a great old film! I watched it growing up and have always wanted to add it to my collection! The story of a few old tough sea dogs escorting a young Marine to the Brig for a long sentence for a minor infraction show a slew of complex issues that arise for each of the charters...It's worth the journy as the story and cast do not dissapoint! Buy it and watch it! It's an all time favorite in my military and war genre collection!
