The Last Detail
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“I got to do what the man says. We're living in this man's world, ain't we?”
Overview
Ordinary Seaman Meadows (Randy Quaid) is in serious trouble: dishonourably discharged and sentenced to eight years in the pokey for petty theft, he's escorted by Navy lifers “Bad Ass” Buddusky (Jack Nicholson) and “Mule” Mulhall (Otis Young) on an Eastern-seaboard trip to jail in the middle of winter. Originally planning to offload the teen and spend their per diems as quickly as possibly, the veterans discover Meadows has never had a drink, gotten stoned or been with a woman, and so decide to speedrun adulthood on a chaotic journey from Virginia to Maine that includes bar fights, brothels and desperate attempts to teach the young man to stand up for himself. Acerbic and thoroughly steeped in the New Hollywood tone of the early 1970s, The Last Detail is a sly subversion of shore leave romps from cynical auteur Hal Ashby.
Why You Should See This Film
Robert Towne’s prickly screenplay and Ashby's particular talents with dingy Americana settings-bars and flophouses and train interiors-give this bleak mid-Atlantic tale a sombre beauty, but the real genius of The Last Detail is in the chemistry of it's three leads. A very young Randy Quaid's awkwardly bulky physicality makes his guilelessness even more poignant, stage actor (and former Marine) Otis Young plays the film's straight man with natural gravitas and Nicholson is inspired casting: the counter-cultural icon baggage he brings to the role makes “Bad Ass” Buddusky's macho posturing and desperate attempts to rebel against a system he can't live without a study in tragic futility.
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