The Last Detail
Short description
Two Navy petty officers, Billy "Badass" Buddusky and Richard "Mule" Mulhall, are assigned to escort a young sailor, Larry Meadows, to a military prison. Along the way they learn that the eighteen-year-old has been sentenced to eight years for a petty theft, and they decide to give him a few good days before he is locked up. The journey takes the three men through bars, cheap hotels and brothels, and the bond that forms between them leads all of them to question their own lives.
Hal Ashby directed the film, which followed Harold and Maude in his filmography, from a screenplay by Robert Towne. Jack Nicholson plays Buddusky and Otis Young plays Mulhall, with Randy Quaid as Meadows; Carol Kane and Michael Moriarty appear in supporting roles. Made for about two million dollars, it took around ten million at the worldwide box office.
Reception was warm. On IMDb it holds a rating of 7.5 from more than twenty-seven thousand votes, and on TMDB a rating of 7 from several hundred votes. A film critics' rating of 8.1 from thirty-eight reviews places it above those audience scores, indicating strong approval from reviewers. The film is a comedy drama set largely on the road, running just over an hour and a half.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film is based on Darryl Ponicsan's debut novel, "The Last Detail" (1970).
- The film was shot in a gentle manner, with scenes filmed in chronological order, so that the inexperienced actors could "get into" the situation. The filmmakers had difficulty finding a cinematographer and editor for a long time. The cinematographer was tasked with using natural lighting to achieve maximum documentary realism in the "image."
- Since Hal Ashby was slow with the editing and insisted on peculiar transitions between scenes, the studio attempted to seize the footage from him. The film's release was also delayed due to the abundance of profanity. To avoid a harsh rating, it was necessary to cut 26 lines containing swear words.
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