Bruce Willis Underrated Western Remake Is A Fistful Of Dollars Meets John Wick

Published Sep 29, 2026, 9:30 AM EDT

Padraig is a Senior Features Writer and has been part of Screen Rant since 2017. Padraig is a writer, editor and retired Game of Thrones extra who has been writing about movies and TV online for over a decade. He has also written for The Irish Times, Den Of Geek, Little White Lies and many more. It's pronounced Paw-rick, BTW.

Bruce Willis' forgotten 1990s Western played like a mash-up of A Fistful of Dollars and John Wick. Bruce Willis' action movies were a staple during the 1990s, ranging from his Die Hard sequels to The Last Boy Scout. That said, Willis always used his star power to try out new things, from playing a supporting role in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (a gamble that definitely paid off) to bizarre offerings like 1999's Breakfast of Champions.

In short, Willis tended to employ a "one for them, one for me" approach to his career, where a glossy, mainstream actioner would then allow him to experiment with different roles. He got to star in both a gangster movie and a Western with Last Man Standing, playing a mysterious drifter who finds himself in a desert town run by rival mobsters.

Being a Walter Hill movie, this 1996 outing is full of terse, tough-guy dialogue combined with some of the best action sequences the veteran director ever staged. There is a definite balletic, John Woo-inspired flair to the two-fisted gunplay in Last Man Standing, with the high body count making Willis' Smith feel like a 1930s take on John Wick.

Last Man Standing Remade Clint Eastwood's A Fistful of Dollars

If the plot feels familiar to Clint Eastwood fans, that's because Last Man Standing is both a remake of A Fistful of Dollars and Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo. The basic plot is virtually identical to both, right down to the hero's efforts to play both sides being discovered, leading to him being captured and severely beaten as a result.

No, Last Man Standing has nothing to do with the Tim Allen sitcom of the same title.

Sadly, it isn't as stylish or fun as the prior versions, and can be a little dry and dusty at times. What Last Man Standing does boast is a great cast (including Bruce Dern, Christopher Walken, and an early role for Leslie Mann), and, as mentioned previously, the action is where Hill's Neo-Western shines. This is particularly true of the finale, where Smith dual-wields his way through a bar full of gangsters.

While the least successful of the Yojimbo "trilogy," it is definitely worth watching for movie fans to see how Hill reinvents the story and makes it his own. It's pulpy and hard-boiled in a way the previous films aren't, yet it's unmistakably the same premise. Sadly, Last Man Standing was a financial dud, nabbing only $47 million on an estimated production budget of $67 million (via Box Office Mojo).

Last Man Standing Is The Closest Bruce Willis Came To Fronting A Western

Considering Westerns largely died out in Hollywood during the 1970s, it makes sense that the A-list stars of the 1980s and 1990s didn't do much with the genre. Stallone never fronted one, while Arnold Schwarzenegger's goofy 1979 outing, The Villain, is hardly Unforgiven. Willis has two "Oaters" on his CV, however: the misfiring 1988 buddy comedy Sunset, and Last Man Standing.

Owing to its status as A Fistful of Dollars remake and Hill's stylish direction, it's the closest Bruce Willis came to a traditional Western. It's a shame he didn't try again, as his ability to hold the screen without uttering a word or the way he could make even bad guys feel sympathetic made him a natural for the genre. Last Man Standing feels like one of those films that has largely slipped through the cracks of time, but for fans of Hill, Willis or Neo-Westerns, it's a must-see.

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Oddly enough, Last Man Standing wasn't the only Clint Eastwood character that Bruce Willis tried on for size. Comic legend Frank Miller was a huge fan of the Dirty Harry series, but felt so let down by the final film - 1988's The Dead Pool - that he penned the Sin City tale "That Yellow Bastard" as his version of Harry's last adventure. When it came time to adapt that story for the 2005 movie, Willis was the one to don the .44 Magnum as Dirty Harry stand-in, John Hartigan.

Source: Box Office Mojo