The Last Detail

The poster for The Last Detail depicts a bare-torsoed, tatooed, moustached, cigar-smoking Jack Nicholson in sailor's cap with that just-you-watch-what-happens gleam in his eyes. The caption proclaims: 'No.... Navy's going to give some poor...kid eight years in the......brig without me taking him out for the time of his....life.' Wow.

It is this publicity which does far more damage to the credibility of the film than anything in it. For contrary to one's natural expectations after reading the above, this it not an action-packed adventure story. Most of it takes place in trains, buses, and hotel rooms, most of the time is spent in waiting. It is vastly to his credit that director Hal Ashby has made a serious attempt to integrate everything into this introspective framework, with very little compromise accorded to the spectator who would rather ignore the purpose of the film.

The 'poor......kid' (Randy Queid) is a 17 year old petty theif who has been convicted for trying to steal $40 from the camp commander's wife's favourite charity box. He comes from a broken home and is intensely withdrawn into his own sense of guilt and acceptance. At the beginning of the film he is bordering on a nervous collapse.

During his last five days of freedom he learns for the first time friendship, confidence, pleasure, and even the potential for happiness. More importantly perhaps, he learns to distinguish between the true justice of morality and the false justice of authority. It is this knowledge, only confusedly understood, which marks his maturation. His actual experiences in these five days are only formulative in that they feed his growing awareness.

He is taught by his warders (Nicholson and Otis Young), whose job it is to deliver [unclear: him] from the naval camp down east to the naval prison up in Portsmouth. Both structurally and thematically, this 'education' is a complex process. Nicholson is a volatile character: his near fanatical belief in righteousness is rooted in the unbalancing notion that social injustice is constantly being done to him, and leads him to extreme violence whenever he feels slighted or betrayed. This happens at three significant times. Each incident is purposefully isolated from the flow of the film, and taken together they are worth examining in order to discover just what the introspective framework I mentioned earlier contains.

The first centres around Quaid being unwittingly provoked by the warders into running away. As this happens on a train there is no possibility of escape; what is needed is swift but calm action, yet Nicholson rushes screaming after him, catches him straightaway, and would probably beat the kid to death were he not stopped by Young. Nicholson is so dominated by his desire that justice be done to him that the considerable benefit received by Quaid from his company is only circumstantial to this motivating force.

The second flare-up occurs when Nicholson is slandered by three marines. He retaliates viciously, is aided by the other two, and the sailors quickly escape. The immediate importance of this scene is that it is very possibly the first time Quaid has hit anyone, and its relevance to Nicholson only becomes explicit in the third outbreak of violence.

This is the most crucial scene in the film. It is the last day, the three men are sitting in a park waiting for the time to arrive to deliver Quaid to the prison authorities, who are marines. The two warders are talking about what bastards marines are. Although they both profess a proper naval dislike of the leite corps, it is apparent that Young sees in them the manifestation of the American Dream which we have [unclear: already] learnt he has a blind faith in, and spires to be a marine. Nicholson's position for the moment is less transparent. "All marines are sadists', he declares.

Meanwhile, Quaid has been sitting a little way off, morosely lost in his own thoughts. All that he has learnt has led him to an unsolvable contradiction in his own position vis-a-vis the warders. They have taught him friendship, but they have also taught him a proper moral rejection of authority which stands only on itself. His friends represent that authority. Should he honour his friends and bow to injustice, or should he betray his friends and seek justice for himself by trying to flee? In all probability Quaid does not see the problem so distinctly, for when he starts walking away it is not clear whether he is trying to escape or merely moving subconsciously in the direction of freedom. The important thing is that we, the audience, recognise the conflict and try to solve it.

Nicholson suddenly notices Quaid and calls after him. Quaid begins to run, perhaps on an impulse, perhaps because he really is making a getaway. Nicholson explodes, pulls out his gun, and frantically chases the escapee. When he catches him he begins his most violent attack yet, repeatedly pounding the face of his helpless victim. Certainly it would be murder but for the itervention of Young.

This is filmed in long shot, which prohibits us from becoming involved and puts us in a position to analyse. The importance of our own roles is further highlighted by comparison with the camerawork of the previous scenes described. In both cases the camera was too close for a clear evaluation of the action, yet it did not studiously exploit the violence. What we saw was mainly a lot of backs.

In the light of his hatred of the 'sadist' marines, Nicholson's uncontrollable anger becomes at once the result of his inability to find any outlet for his frustrations and a symptom of his own desperate attempt to prove his viability in society. (We have already seen him as a social failure: he gets stoned and is so incredibly boring one has to laugh). It is significant that he does not shoot the fleeing Quaid, and his expression during the chase (which the camera is careful to record) is one of pain. Pain not so much because Quaid is betraying him, after all he has done for the boy, but rather after all he has done for himself, to prove to himself his own goodness.

This is a highly moral tale with universal ramifications, which leads me to my major criticism: although the theme means to concern the nature of man, the modes of thinking of all three men are at times particular to a mind conditioned by the armed forces. Thus it is unavoidable that the thematic development partly loses its relevance to general life. The Last Detail is more precisely about the nature of the armed forces man.

This is by no means of a comprehensive analysis. My aim has been to indicate how and why the film is fare more than a simple entertainment piece.

There are many other aspects which deserve mention. Editor Edmund Jones makes excellent use of super impositions and dissolves to establish the passage of time. Robert Towne's script is very tight, but suffers from occasional lapses into banality. Carol Kane (the wife in Hester Street) turns in a fine performance as the young prostitute who sexually initiates Quaid: the scene is outstanding in its humour, pathos and gently charm (and utterly needlessly, has been cut). [unclear: Duaid] himself is very good, and Nicholson is tremendously successful in combining the density of his performance in The King of Marvin Gardens with the commercial appeal of Cuckoo's Nest. Poor Otis Young looks as if he wants to be in a good old action movie, and is somewhat eclipsed by the other two.

The Last Detail is by no means a great film. But the treatment it has been given by its promoters, who assume the public can only be drawn to it by the lure of foul-mouthed fast-living sailors, must hasten the day when commercial films will all be forced to maintain that myth. It is an insult to the film artists and the public. Contrary to more-or-less popular belief, careful viewing never hurt anyone, This film is worth the effort.

-Simon Wilson

Stone

Australian films have only recently been distributed as international products. Some are good, some are not. Stone is one of the latter. Picture the set, Australia of the 70s, hot and vivid, camera zooms in on a bike gang.......'The Grave-Diggers". Riding big Japanese bikes (like Kawi 900s) they enter the scene of the original crime (political assassination). One of the boy's sees the gunman and that's how the story starts. To cover his tracks, the gunman and his mates begin to pick the bikes off, one by one. The local constabulary get a bit concerned after the third bikie gets done in. The solution, send in Stone, the super long hair cop from the D squad. Then they all ride around for a while (as they're apt to do in bike films), destroy a pub and have a scrap with another gang. Stone rides with the gang to check things out. The underlying story line is they're trying to get the gunman before he gets them ( The Grave Diggers that is). Just as the gang is about to take revenge Stone grabs the assassin at gun point and takes him downtown. The Grave Diggers get booked at the same time for all kinds of things. Stone develops an affinity with the gang during the film, and to show their gratitude for his efforts the gang kick his head in.

Curtain closes, fights on.

The acting throughout is very pretentious and forced. This is attributable to two things. Firstly the actors are not of a high ability. Stone in particular, as the major character is more of an 'anti-hero' than anything else. He's small and thin, and very unimposing. He doesn't smoke dope with the gang (which everyone expected him to), falls of his bike in a race, and gets beaten up. He lacks style and his ability is less than stunning.

The second reason is that none of the caste seemed to understand what they were trying to portray. This was because the plot was disjointed from the beginning on. It comprises the usual scenes from most bike films with a few changes, placed in a vague sequence. The first few scenes were quite spectacular, four deaths, one trip, a few brawls and a grandiose funeral procession all in a few minutes. Then nothing followed to build up on this, and it sagged to the drowsey state that it never recovered from. The film was an attempt to portray Australia in the 70s, rough, tough, and modern, a down-to-earth 2001. An attempt only.

Technically it was excellent. The cameraman caught each piece of action in the best way (he must have seen "Solaris"). It was his ability that kept a few people from walking out. Properties and setting succintly reflected the image which was trying to be presented. This is where the credits lie.

To put things concisely, Stone is a 3rd rate movie with 2nd rate pretentions the possibilities for something stunning were developed in the introductory scenes, but not worked on. The story line was sloppy. It did not create an empathy between the audience and the characters. This made the actors' task nigh impossible, before they even attempted anything. The film was classified R20, presumably because of all the dope smoked in it. On top of this, the scene where one of the bikies gets done in is censored completely. To censor an R20 film seems strange indeed. Stone is one Of many films about cliche'ed topics, Dope, Sex and Rock 'n roll. Don't worry if you miss it.

Jon Grainer