This review is a part of my Bill Paxton Project, an attempt to watch and review every piece of film the man did during his lifetime.
I remember loving this movie when I was younger. Watching it with fresh eyes for the first time in over 30 years, I can tell you it hasn’t aged well. The Last of the Finest is about 4 cops who go rogue and commit more crimes than the criminals they’re chasing do, including theft, vandalism, arson and murder. But they’re the heroes, because they used to be cops.
The film stars Brian Dennehy (Silverado, Cocoon), Joe Pantoliano (The Matrix, The Goonies), Jeff Fahey (Lawnmower Man, Silverado) and Bill Paxton (Aliens, Twister) as four cops serving in some sort of special unit of the LAPD which is, for some reason, investigating a drugs-for-guns crime ring that is arming South American rebels. Gosh, sounds like something that might fall under federal jurisdiction, but I guess not. Now, I love all four of these actors, and it’s great seeing Dennehy and Fahey together again (they both starred in one of my favorite westerns, Silverado, in 1985). Paxton plays “HoJo”, a happy cop with a baby on the way. That’s exactly how you know he’s the one who is going to die. He is dispatched by the bad guys about 15 minutes into the film. This loss causes the team, under the leadership of Dennehy, to quit the force and go rogue.
The story follows the beats like a metronome: not thinking or exploring, just checking off the plot points one at a time. Despite the star power of these great actors, they’re given little substance to chew on. The script is predictable and boring, the characters stiff and lifeless. And wow, how it glorifies dirty cops. By the end, the three surviving men have broken more laws than you can believe, yet they end the film being revered as heroes. While the soundtrack, with heavy reliance on synth and blues guitar, is very evocative of the earlier Lethal Weapon, this particular film lacks much of the psychological and moral introspection given to Mel Gibson’s rogue cop. Instead, these cops don’t seem too interested in questioning whether they are doing wrong. They just unleash hell on Earth, blow shit up and kill lots of people, and it’s all perfectly okay, because they were cops at one point. Not exactly a bedtime story for the kiddos.
Instead, it makes their characters and the actions they choose seem reprehensible. Hell, even Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid die at the end. At the end of this film, Dennehy’s character regains his job and gets decorated by the mayor, with no price paid for his illegal and violent activities. Movies like this let a whole generation of men grow up to become crooked cops. It’s a portrayal of police who feel mandated to do wrong in the name of right that is dated and obsolete, and one that needs to stay in the past.
