Blogorium Review: The Last Detail

Every now and then a film comes along and catches you off guard, reminding a sometimes beleaguered reviewer like the Cap'n that even simplicity can be enthralling in the right hands. Hal Ashby's The Last Detail is a character study unburdened by superfluous plot machinations, twists, or a desire to "out think" the audience. I had heard about The Last Detail, always as a second thought, of a film you hear is good but don't seem to know many people who have seen it. Over the years I've very nearly turned it on, but then decided on something else. How foolish those decisions were.

Ashby and screenwriter Robert Towne (adapting Darryl Ponicsan's novel) introduce us to Navy Signalman Buddusky (Jack Nicholson) and Gunner's Mate Mulhall (Otis Young), two officers assigned to escort Seaman Larry Meadows (Randy Quaid) from Norfolk Virginia to Portsmouth New Hampshire. Meadows, a kleptomaniac, tried to lift $40 from the wrong collection box and is sentenced to 8 years in the brig with Dishonorable Discharge. "Badass" Buddusky and "Mule" Mulhall have more time than they need to get Meadows to the Naval Penitentiary, so they decide to drop him off quickly and enjoy some R&R with the remaining time off.

That is, until they start talking to Meadows - a kid too young to drink, stand up to anyone, or to have experienced life in any capacity - and Buddusky takes pity on him. "Badass," like "Mule," is a career Navy man, but unlike his partner on this "chickenshit detail" Buddusky has a wild streak, a desire to lash out whenever and wherever possible. The men decide to show Meadows the time of his life before they leave, but the kid just can't seem to loosen up.

If you've seen any "road" movie or "buddy" picture, like Rain Man or Last Holdiay, what happens next should be easy to guess - a series of episodic adventures involving bartenders, prostitutes, a visit home, attempted escapes, a brush with religion, and why not a good old fashioned fight with some Marines at a train station in Boston? Even in 1973, this would appear to be well worn territory rife for deconstructing, but Towne and Ashby instead carry us through these familiar beats by focusing on the clash of personalities: Mulhall's rebel with a sense of his place in the world, Buddusky's anti-authoritarian streak, and Meadows' blank slate.

The more Buddusky and Mulhall learn about Larry, the more clearly their differences become apparent. Meadows only joined the Navy to avoid a life of constantly being harangued for shoplifting, but he never found a purpose in the service to keep him from resorting to old tricks, and now he's about to lose his twenties to the brig. (Ironically, he discovers that he's very good at signaling during a drunken practice with Buddusky.)

Ashby wisely chooses never to leave the perspective of his three protagonists, so that every encounter with the possibility to be "wacky" in lesser hands is filtered through the jaded, foul-mouthed perspective of Meadows' escorts. Meadows picks up on a Nichiren Shoshu prayer circle, and takes to it, winning over a local girl Donna (Luana Anders) while Buddusky and Mulhall stick out like sore thumbs at a hippie / activist house party. Buddusky's antics, an attempt to prove to Larry that being a loose cannon is important even to "lifers" pushes Mulhall past the point of sympathizing with Meadows - he is, after all, their prisoner, not their pupil.

If nothing else, I heard great things about Jack Nicholson, whose Buddusky could very easily go over the top but doesn't (it provides a template of sorts for his McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), but I was unprepared for Otis Young's understated Mulhall, a slow burning character with more arc than Buddusky or Meadows. Randy Quaid (who looks like a young John Cusack in the film) is bright eyed and bushy tailed as Larry when he needs to be, but underneath is a sense of failure, of inevitability that taints his misadventures on the way up north, and there's a scene at his mother's house where Quaid is devastating without saying a word.

The Last Detail is also littered with cameos from the likes of Nancy Allen (Dressed to Kill, Robocop), Michael Moriarty (Pale Rider, Q), Carol Kane (Scrooged, Trees Lounge), Clifton James (Cool Hand Luke, Live and Let Die), and a pre-Saturday Night Live appearance by Gilda Radner as one of the Nichiren Shoshu Buddhists.

The temptation to stray narrative-ly rears its head once or twice, and I nearly thought the film was going down a very different (if comparably predictable path), but The Last Detail is less about tricking you with twists and turns and more about staying true to the characters, right up to the end - with a coda I can almost guarantee you won't see coming, but is the perfect note to end this film on. No spare detail is wasted; no minor plot development insignificant - everything builds to a frozen picnic outside, and seemingly "cute" character moments pay off in unexpected ways.

A word of warning: The Last Detail, while a fantastic character study, is the cinematic epitome of the phrase "curse like a sailor." If you have issues with profanity, know that the script for the film sat on a shelf for three years because Robert Towne refused to remove any of the language The Last Detail is littered with. It might not go as far as a Clerks or a Pulp Fiction, but The Last Detail's verisimilitude - a hallmark of early 70s cinema - comes from its frank dialogue, and the easily offended may not want to watch it, especially with kids around. One might consider it very much to be a "guy's" movie, so bear that in mind.

To all others, seek this out immediately.