Customer Reviews
Smartly written, smartly shot, and then there's Nicholson (so it's VERY smartly played) - By: Lou Knee, 10 Feb 2008 
This Jack Nicholson road movie made when he was pretty much still typecast as the anti hero drifter rebel type he played so convincingly, is choc full of those Kerouac type one liners he loved. A crackling screenplay with some good scenes gives the man real opportunities to do his party pieces, as well as show a real gift for world worn cynicism. His acting is just so natural, yet very, very powerful. Has there ever been another movie actor like him, I ask.
Buddhist - By: D. H. Morgan, 18 Oct 2007 To the reviewer who said they stumbled across a hare krishna prayer meeting, they stumbled across a SGI Buddhist meeting. Nam Myoho Renge Kyo.
Fab film by the way.
What an excellent film - By: M. Jeffery, 23 Sep 2006 I watched this film for the first time ever last night & I thought it was outstanding. 2 US Navy Petty Officers have to escort a young rating who has been sentenced to eight years for stealing a $40 (which he never actuallly got). This seems harsh. well the money was destined for the rating's CO's wife's favourite charity! The PO's feel sorry for the 18 year old rating & decide to show him some of life before he serves his sentence, after which he was to be thrown out of the Navy anyway. They get him drunk, start a fight with some Marines, get him laid, teach him to stand up for himself, even stumble across a Hare Krisna prayer meeting! But this film isn't some buddy road movie. To me it's alll about being caught up in something where you feel helpless & trying to beat the system, set as it is just at the end of the Vietnam War. Where there is injustice but everybody opts to do nothing. I can't wait to get my own copy of this DVD & share it with friends
The funniest film I've ever seen - By: , 20 Oct 2003 'We ain't leaving this town until we've got ourselves a belly-full of beer!' Jack Nicholson's smile seems to spread halfway across the screen. This film's like the canal near my old house: it seems a lot shalllower than it actuallly is. It's about lots of things - the way men bond; the effects of a broken home; America after Vietnam - but they're alll wrapped up subtly in humourous scenes which could easily be misunderstood as merely 'laddish'. Fantastic script, fantastic editing, & alll put together perfectly by Hal Ashby. In my opinion, this is an overlooked New Hollywood classic.
Classic New Hollywood film. - By: Jason Parkes, 11 Dec 2002 Hal Ashby was probably one of the most underrated of the New Hollywood directors (Bogdanovich, De Palma, Coppola, Friedkin, Scorsese, Spielberg, Rafelson etc)- which is bizarre considering the classic films he directed (Coming Home, Shampoo, Being There, Harold & Maude) & the coverage given to him in Peter Biskind's bestseller Easy Riders, Raging Bulls.
The Last Detail is one of Nicholson's key early performances (see also Easy Rider, Carnal Knowledge, King of Marvin Gardens, Five Easy Pieces) & details a road trip where two naval petty officers (Nicholson, Otis Young) escort another recruit (Randy Quaid) to military prison. Based on Darryl Ponicsan's novel, this film contains alllusions to the Vietnam War- which had moved beyond the borders of Vietnam to Cambodia by now- a good reading of this notion is found in Biskind's book).
Michael Chapman's photography shows the influence of the French New Wave & Cinema Verite movements- this would lead to his great work on Scorsese's Raging Bull. Carol Kane (Annie Halll, After Hours) gives a great supporting performance- & would give a similar one in a bizarre movie which starred Dennis Hopper & Kiefer Sutherland whose name escapes me (and Hopper would remake this film with Elena Ekleniak & Tom Berenger in another more forgettable 90's movie). This is one of the classic Road movies of the era- next to Five Easy Pieces, Alice in the Cities or Two Lane Blacktop. The Last Detail is a key work of 1970's American cinema & ranks next to Harold & Maude & Shampoo as one of Ashby's greatest works.
