The Last Detail (1973)
Dir. Hal Ashby
Bored and frustrated from awaiting their long-delayed orders, US Navy men Buddusky and Mulhall (“Mule”), are tasked with escorting a young seaman (Meadows) to Portsmouth military prison where he’ll serve eight years for petty theft. It was a lousy forty bucks he swiped and the worst thing is he never even got to keep it. Eight years. Boy, they really stuck it to him.
Buddusky (Jack Nicholson) tries to ameliorate the boy’s misery as they embark on their journey, telling him they’ll knock two years off his sentence right away for good behaviour. But later he confides in Mulhall (Otis Young) his true assessment of Meadows’ (Randy Quaid) fate. It’ll kill him — those god damn grunts beating on him day and night. “It takes a certain kind of sadist to become a marine,” he declares bitterly. Mulhall doesn’t disagree. He too really hates this kind of “chicken shit detail”.
Buddusky is determined to show the boy a slice of the good life before they hand him over to his brutal new custodians. And it’s these events the film focuses on. Mulhall thinks Buddusky goes too far, puts too much at risk. They’re not even supposed to uncuff the lad, let alone get him drunk, take him to visit his (alcoholic) Ma, and later a brothel.
(Wandering the frozen streets:)
Meadows: I’m not old enough for a beer.
Buddusky:
Everyone is old enough for a beer, am I right? (looks to Mulhall for assent, who says nothing).
They nearly lose their charge more than once as he, quite understandably, tries to escape. Later, Mulhall explodes calling Buddusky a menace. “The navy was the best thing that ever happened to me, and I’m not gonna let you fuck things up!”. Treating the kid like it’s his birthday will only make life inside for him worse, not better. They won’t melt the cheese on his burger while he’s doing time — they’ll more likely spit on it, or worse.
This is golden era Jack, and he slides effortlessly into the role of the drunken sailor; a man for whom Navy life is all he knows, even if outwardly he treats it with disdain. Through all his bravado he’s truly a fish out of water around civilians, women especially, with whom he has little to discuss but life on the vast expanse of ocean, or how his uniform makes his dick look. But one thing Buddusky does have is a sense of justice we can relate to and admire, and this is the redeeming crux of his character; maybe the only likeable thing about him (this and his willingness to play big brother to Meadows and teach him a thing or two about life). It's touching even if Buddhusky himself doesn't know what his efforts will achieve.
All three of the main cast put in great performances. I didn’t recognise Otis Young from anything else, but he plays the angry voice of reason here very well, when his character isn’t falling victim to his comrade’s rebellious charms. Likewise, Randy Quaid is convincing as the doomed impressionable youth, who naively latches on to anything that might give him hope, including Buddhist chanting.
The Blu-ray contained a short interview with, among others, director and producer Alexander Payne. I have to agree with his mild criticism that the choice of light-hearted militaristic music (e.g. Anchors Aweigh), does pull you out of the film at times, which is a shame. Maybe Ashby thought it would be too downbeat otherwise, although I suspect he was making a subtle statement about how ridiculous the whole situation truly was. Amid the film’s generally bleak happenings, a few comical moments really stand out, but I won't spoil those here.
Otherwise I'm sure some reviewer has picked it up as well.
in The World According To Garp)
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