Posted
by Eric Melin
November 6, 2007 at 7:08 a.m.
Top 10 Worst Bruce Willis Movies
[WANT FREE TIX TO "BEOWULF" IN 3D BEFORE IT COMES OUT? CLICK HERE NOW.][1]Some A-List movie stars are allowed to get away with murder, and no one seems to do just that more often than Bruce Willis. For every "Pulp Fiction," "Die Hard," or ["Sin City"][2] on his resume, the actor has ten movies as bad as ["Perfect Stranger."][3]And since that scummy little stinker came out earlier this year, I thought it was time to round up ten of Bruce's greatest misappropriations of film. The man seems to be flop-proof, as he showed this year by following up the paltry $23 million "Perfect Stranger" with $134 mil for "Live Free or Die Hard." So here's a quick reminder that John McClane is human, just like the rest of us. ![][4]1. Color of Night (1994)Bruce's steamiest movie seems to exist only to test the patience of those waiting for his naughty bits or those of his 20 year-old co-star Jane March. This poor girl appears in a dual role (as a gender-confused young man named Richie) so badly disguised that it makes you wonder how Willis' psychiatrist never figured it out until the very end. The audience isn't supposed to either, but its so obvious that the conceit of us not knowing is so completely blown that the entire film becomes this unconvincing camp film, and then begins to entertain on a whole different level. This is one of the funniest of Bruce's bad movies, and a big winner for Worst Picture at the Razzies.Dr. Bill Capa: Six weeks ago I spoke harshly to a patient and she commited suicide right in front of me. Sondra Dorio: Oh I'm so sorry. Dr. Bill Capa: I guess she would've done this anyway, my colleagues say, but I don't know. And my patient, her name was Michelle, jumped out of a window in my office. So much blood! So red! And right before my eyes the red just disappeared just turned to grey so I don't see red now! But you see I was her doctor! And I failed, so I can't help you. I don't think you want someone like me around right now. Buck: I think I do. Rose: Me too.![][5]2. Breakfast of Champions (1999)Adapting Kurt Vonnegut to the screen is no easy task-just look at "Slaughterhouse Five" and "Mother Night," two interesting, if flawed, pictures. But if one film put the final nail in the coffin of the rest of the late satirist's movie properties, it is this awful, awful, awful version of one of Vonnegut's funniest books. Alan Rudolph wrote the script soon after the book was first published in 1973, and apparently waited this long to adapt it so he could concentrate on getting everything wrong in just the right way. Willis plays deranged Pontiac salesman Dwayne Hoover with aplomb (as do his frenzied co-stars Albert Finney and Nick Nolte), but Vonnegut's non-linear novel filled with absurd little illustrations makes for one hell of a frustrating and unfunny movie.Dwayne Hoover: Modern science has given us a vast array of colors with exciting names like Red! Blue! Orange! Brown! and pink! Harry Le Sabre: Why don't you come right out and say it, Dwayne? Dwayne Hoover: Say what, Harry? Harry Le Sabre: That I like to wear women's clothing. Dwayne Hoover: Is that what you like, Harry? Harry Le Sabre: Yes... I mean, No! No! Of course not!![][6]3. [Perfect Stranger]3As I wrote earlier this year, ""Perfect Stranger" is an offensively slick and soulless piece of Hollywood crap." Halle Berry is vacant, but poor Willis gets the worst of it. After playing head honcho in a Victoria's Secret ad for half the film, his creepy character (in a movie full of creeps) is unceremoniously written out of the film without any acknowledgement whatsoever, a cheap pawn in a silly twist ending. Bruce uses his smirk for evil, trying to lure Berry; but wait-she's luring him! What a brilliant female-empowering switcheroo! No, wait. It's not. It's just the opposite. This may still be the worst movie I've seen all year.Harrison Hill: Do you have any idea what loyalty is? Ro: I bet your wife is wondering the same thing! Harrison Hill: AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGHHHH!![][7]4. The Return of Bruno (1988)Okay, it's cheating a bit to include this 56-minute vanity project, filmed under Hudson Hawk, Ltd., originally aired on HBO, and now only available on VHS, but it's worth it to further point out that movie stars shouldn't try to be rock stars. Bolstered by tons of cameos from famous friends such as Ringo Starr, Brian Wilson, the Bee Gees, Elton John, and Michael J. Fox, this "mockumentary" is as heartbreaking and impossible to listen to as "Blues Brothers 2000" (which came out in 1998). According to the film, Bruno is some mysterious and influential 1960s singer, but you wouldn't know it from the R&B classics that Willis murders all over the soundtrack. To further show how huge Bruce was back then, let it be mentioned that the Bruno album (released by Motown!) actually reached #14 on the Billboard charts."Respect Yourself," peaked at #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart (and would make the 1987 year-end Top 100 at #89), and "Under The Boardwalk" rose to #59.![][8]5. The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990)This one is a legendary Hollywood flop that all involved seem to have recovered nicely from. In a role that was initially offered to both Jack Nicholson and John Cleese, Willis is woefully miscast in this notoriously sanitized satire of Tom Wolfe's book from director Brian De Palma. Originally British, his alcoholic reporter Peter Fallow tries to crucify a racist Wall Street investor (likable Tom Hanks, of all people) in the court of public opinion, but then eventually feels bad for it. A book about the tumultuous production called "The Devil's Candy" fares better, illuminating every painful decision with unprecedented, unlimited access to the making of the movie.Peter Fallow: If you're going to live in a whorehouse, there's only one thing you can do: be the best damn whore around.![][9]6. Hudson Hawk (1991)Maybe this movie is where Dan Brown got the idea for ["The Da Vinci Code,"][10]which was adapted into a movie that's just as bad as this one. This is certainly the most easily recognizable of Bruce's bad films- a movie where cat burglars Willis and Danny Aiello suddenly and inexplicably break out into song in the middle of an elaborate heist of lost Da Vinci treasures. You can't stop the man when he wants to sing. Once you give it points for being audaciously terrible, it's almost fun. Almost. Richard E. Grant, Sandra Bernhard and David Caruso (!) are having fun ham it up as the eccentric and over-the-top villains, but Aiello and Willis' smugness is absolutely relentless and ultimately kills what fun it is just laughing at the mixed-genre nonsense onscreen.Hudson Hawk: Anna, we're supposed to be saving you. Anna: I know. I got bored so I saved myself.7. [The Jackal][11] (1997)This one was so bad, even Sean Connery, Liam Neeson and Matthew McConaughey all turned it down. Richard Gere and Sidney Poitier get mixed up in this awful remake of the 1973 film "The Day of the Jackal." The mysterious Jackal, played by Willis in full bad-ass mode, is a legendary hitman prone to wearing silly disguises a la Val Kilmer in "The Saint." (It doesn't help that no matter what crazy long-haired wig he dons, he is always immediately recognizable as Bruce Willis.) Now, of course, the film is semi-famous for Jack Black's "serious" supporting role, where the Jackal hilariously blows off his arm and a whole lot more! (Check it out below at 8:30!) (After adjusting a machine gun's sights, the Jackal shoots and blows Lamont's arm off.) The Jackal: I told you it was off!![][12]8. Look Who's Talking Too (1990)Amy Heckerling directed the superb ["Fast Times at Ridgemont High"][13] in 1982, but by the end of the nineties, she was reduced writing and directing "talking baby" movies that were full of scatological humor. This quick follow-up to 1989's surprise hit "Look Who's Talking" again featured Willis as the voice of Mikey and John Travolta as his Daddy. Added frivolity (if poop jokes count as frivolity) also included Rosanne Barr as Mikey's baby sister and a talking toilet, voiced by Mel Brooks. As chance would have it, Travolta would be reunited with Willis in a famous toilet scene four years later when Butch guns down Vincent after using the boxer's bathroom in "Pulp Fiction."Mikey: Poor Daddy, hanging out with buttholes all day long.9. [Lucky Number Slevin][14] (2006)![][15]A "Pulp Fiction" wannabe film twelve years after the fact, this tedious and exhausting movie has the indecency to lure Willis, one of the original Tarantino film's stars, into the mess. There's nothing worse than Bruce (as another hitman!) when he knows the lines he's saying are supposed to be clever, and this Josh Hartnett vehicle is full of them. In an egregious overuse of his trademark know-it-all grin, Willis smirks it up all over the place with tons of mannered and phony dialogue that wouldn't ring true if Lord Tarantino spoke it himself. Whatever natural flair for comedy Bruce had in "Moonlighting" is not present here, as he struggles to be funny through a hackneyed screenplay.Mr. Goodkat: There was a time. Nick: [looks at his watch] 4:35. Mr. Goodkat: You misunderstood. I wasn't asking for the time, I was just saying... there was a time. Nick: There was a time? Mr. Goodkat: Mmm-hmm. Take Brown Sugar back there, for example. She's pretty fuckin' foxy, right? Nick: She's 70. Mr. Goodkat: If she's a day. But there was a time.![][16]10. Bandits (2001)Take three appealing leads (Willis, Cate Blanchett, Billy Bob Thornton), one Oscar-winning director "Rain Man" Barry Levinson), and one former "Twin Peaks" writer (Harley Peyton), and you get this lame-brained comedy caper in which Bruce and Billy Bob are a pair of mismatched bank robbers who fall for the same woman. Levinson tries every trick in the book to keep the movie fresh, including a reality-show parody and a time-shifting narrative, but its basically Thornton and Willis goofing off for two hours while Blanchett almost makes you care what's happening.Joe: What'd you bring her here for? Terry: One, I had no choice, two, I may have suffered a slight concussion and three, she is mentally imbalanced to a spectacular degree. Kate: I can hear you! [1]: http://www.scene-stealers.com/general/beowulf-kansas-city-giveway/ [2]: http://www.scene-stealers.com/print-reviews/sin-city-is-black-and-white-and-red-all-over/ [3]: http://www.scene-stealers.com/print-reviews/slick-and-twisted-perfect-stranger-perfectly-awful/ [4]: http://www.scene-stealers.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/3868_5.jpg [5]: http://www.scene-stealers.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/35949-large.jpg [6]: http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/m... [7]: http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/m... [8]: http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/melin/MPW-19336 [9]: http://www.scene-stealers.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/hudson_hawk_varese_vsd_5323.jpg [10]: http://www.scene-stealers.com/print-reviews/the-da-vinci-code-a-dreary-hunt-with-no-treasure/ [11]: http://www.youtube.com/swf/l.swf?video_id=MdWhF7CHIJ0&eurl=&iurl=http%3A//img.youtube.com/vi/MdWhF7CHIJ0/default.jpg&t=OEgsToPDskJ5_lmG0xNdOEIWJ6tysXEi [12]: http://www.scene-stealers.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/7148.jpg [13]: http://www.scene-stealers.com/top-10/erics-top-10-non-john-hughes-school-life-movies/ [14]: http://www.scene-stealers.com/print-reviews/lucky-number-slevin-as-painful-and-unfunny-as-its-title/ [15]: http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/m... [16]: http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/m...
Comments
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OtherJoel (anonymous) says…
Breakfast of Champions is quite possibly the worst movie I have ever seen. I probably found it particularly offensive because of my love of Vonnegut's work, but I have a feeling I would hate it even if I had never read the book.
Boo, Bruce. Boooo!
Joel (Joel Mathis) says…
You hit the nail on the head. Willis is kind of the Michael Caine or Gene Hackman of his generation - without, maybe, quite the same acting chops - in that he'll apparently work for whatever paycheck gets thrown his way. (You'll recall Caine missed out on the Academy Awards one year when he'd been nominated, because he was making some "Jaws" sequel halfway around the world.) It's different from Travolta, say, who just seems to have bad taste but gets lucky once in awhile.
matt (Matt Armstrong) says…
C'mon! Hudson Hawk? C'mon!! That movie rules. One of the best movies about trying to get a cappuccino of all time. And they give a perfectly plausible reason for singing, to keep track of time during their totally outrageous capers. Why not watches and shit? Because that ain't how Bruno rolls.
mitzibel (Misty Nuckolls) says…
Hey, I enjoyed Hudson Hawk! But I watched it after coming home from surgery still loopy from the fentanyl and hydrocodone, so maybe that explains it. Note to self--do not re-watch that movie sober.
Joel (Joel Mathis) says…
Yeah, Hudson Hawk is entertaining ... kind of in a "so bad it's good" way, but more in a "so bad it's perverse" way. I had friends in college who would watch it three or four times a semester, but really not with any sense of irony that I could tell.
Would you like to swing on a star? Carry moonbeams home in a jar? Wow. It's been at least 13 years since I saw that movie...
Joel (Joel Mathis) says…
Also: Anybody else remember that "Hudson Hawk" became really expensive, in part, because they had to go back and retouch every frame to make it look like Bruce Willis wasn't losing his hair? Kind of a losing battle, that one.
monkeywrench (Tim vonHolten) says…
i can only guess that bruce's worst performance caused him to be replaced by ashon kutcher.
Joel (Joel Mathis) says…
BTW: Did anybody else think that Cate Blanchette in "Bandits" was channeling Tori Amos?
Yeah. I saw that movie in the theatre. Proud, I am.
monkeywrench (Tim vonHolten) says…
i think there are several movies that were far worse than "hudson hawk" and "lucky number slevin."
"sunset" tom mix and wyatt earp go hollywood!
"death becomes her" willis and barr, together again!
"the last boyscout" okay, so once again you can blame a wayans
"armageddon" are you geddon' it. no, i'm not.
"the fifth element" bruce willis, caught in a whirlpool of cinematic diarrhea let loose by chris tucker
"unbreakable" m. night shamalamadon'tmake sense
"16 blocks" mos def and mos formulaic!
"tears of the sun" not even monica bellucci can save this, and she's god's girlfriend!
and the worst bruce willis movie ever (drum roll). . .
"last man standing" even the title lacks continuity.
OtherJoel (anonymous) says…
I kind of liked the Fifth Element for some reason.
mitzibel (Misty Nuckolls) says…
I do not get what is supposed to be all-fired freaking amazing about Fifth Element, but I'm a straight female, so some asexual-looking chick running around in a diaper babbling nonsense (yes, yes, the actress made up the language! Whoopty freakin doo! Catch me drunk and on morphine some time, I'll show you some damned language-inventing skills, I tell you what) just doesn't do it for me. It had a few good gags, but for the most part was just . . . bleeeech.
Carmenilla (anonymous) says…
Amen, Tim! ":Last Man Standing" is one of the only movies I have ever walked out of. At one point in the film, during a particularly bloody gun fight I turned to my sweetie and said,
"I wish somebody would shoot me!"
He and I broke out laughing and headed for the door.We agreed that all that turd of a movie needed was a peanut on top
Joel (Joel Mathis) says…
Misty doesn't like "Fifth Element"?
I'm really, really shocked.
Here's the thing: It's a bad, cheesey movie. I know it. You know it. But I love it with all my heart.
manofleisure (anonymous) says…
At risk of total and complete ridicule, I rather enjoyed Hudson Hawk. I realize its shortcomings, but after everyone savaged it so brutally, I found it not so bad. The whole timing a heist to a song, well, it has never been done.
I do, of course, realize, that I will lose my cineaste cool guy card because of saying this.
frankt (Frank Tankard) says…
I was on a Megabus ride to St. Louis a couple months ago and was trapped into watching "16 Blocks." (I tried to read, but the sound was too damn loud.) Very, very bad. Very bad.
monkeywrench (Tim vonHolten) says…
milla jovovich is asexual like
monkeywrench (Tim vonHolten) says…
mario van peebles is scottish.
weegee (anonymous) says…
I've never understood the supposed sexiness of Bruce Willis...thus, most of his movies just don't do it for me.
mtoplikar (Matt Toplikar) says…
First, I gotta say, The Fifth Element was neither cheesey, nor a bad movie. In fact, I'd put it up there as one of the best action-sci fi movies of the last ten years. If you don't understand this, I really don't know what you look for in movies. It was funny, beautiful, had a great soundtrack, some very well done action sequences, and never broke tone. Seriously, give it another look.
Secondly, Tim, how can you not like Death Becomes Her? Roseanne Barr isn't in this one, are you thinking of She Devil? If so, I'm right there with you. But Death Becomes Her, has (probably) my favorite Bruce Willis performance-- definitely his best comedic performance in a film.
proclubitras (anonymous) says…
Bruce Willis hasn't been in ten GOOD movies
Dazie (Aileen Dingus) says…
Hah! I haven't looked at l.com in a while, so after I got finished watching Hudson Hawk this evening I figured I'd see what was new.
No- I'm not kidding- I watched it! Love it. It's even funnier after you watch it with the director's commentary. Poor guy- he kept saying "It was really big in Europe!"
monkeywrench (Tim vonHolten) says…
oh shit. you're right, matt. i was thinking of she devil, which has no bruce willis, but does have the streep. i've never seen "death becomes her." i stand corrected.
jayKUfan (anonymous) says…
What are you talking about Lucky Number Sleven being a "Pulp Fiction Wanabe"? It wasn't anything like Pulp Fiction. I'm not saying it was a great movie (I enjoyed it, though), but I just don't know where comparing it to Pulp Fiction comes in. Maybe that photo that you put up looks like the popular poster from Pulp Fiction... maybe that's what you are thinking.
I agree that the 5th Element was tiiiiiight.
feeble (anonymous) says…
The really awesome part about "Last Man Standing" is how we can compare it to "A Fistful of Dollars" and "Yojimbo" and really see how Willis (and "Last Man Standing") fails.