Synopsis
Two Navy men are ordered to bring a young offender to prison, but decide to show him one last good time along the way.
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Cast
- Jack NicholsonSM1 Billy 'Bad Ass' Buddusky
- Otis YoungGM1 'Mule' Mulhall
- Randy QuaidSeaman Larry Meadows
- Clifton JamesM. A. A.
- Carol KaneYoung Whore
- Michael MoriartyMarine O. D.
- Kathleen MillerAnnette
- Nancy AllenNancy
- Gerry SalsbergHenry
- Luana AndersDonna
Recommendations
- 100
Time Out
There’s a once-in-a-lifetime feeling to the trio’s every interaction—not only as characters but as performers—that makes the film’s casually tragic climax that much more devastating. - 100
IndieWire
There’s a deep sense of melancholy and finality that runs through The Last Detail even when it’s at its funniest, not just because of Meadows’ fate, but because of Buddusky and Mulhall’s collective guilt for being part of a system that would dole out such a punishment. - 100
Variety
The Last Detail is a salty, bawdy, hilarious and very touching story about two career sailors escorting to a naval prison a dumb boot sentenced for petty thievery. Jack Nicholson is outstanding at the head of a superb cast. - 90
The New York Times
The Last Detail is one superbly funny, uproariously intelligent performance, plus two others that are very, very good, which are so effectively surrounded by profound bleakness that it seems to be a new kind of anti-comedy. You'll laugh at it, not through your tears but with a sense of creeping misery. - 90
The New Yorker
The film is distinguished by the fine performances of Nicholson and Quaid, and by remarkably well-orchestrated profane dialogue. It's often very funny. It's programmed to wrench your heart, though-it's about the blasted lives of people who discover their humanity too late. - 90
New York Magazine (Vulture)
It's a "road" story in the best disciplined sense. Quaid is nothing short of remarkable as the boy who blunders into relationships and finally comes to intimations of himself as individual and as person. - 88
Slant Magazine
The Last Detail is so perfectly tailored to the star that it could’ve been mapped out from a Pythagorean theorem. - 80
TV Guide Magazine
The Last Detail is a gritty look at the military life and the people who are attracted to it. It is dark in its message and gray to the eye. Locations are all washed out as though there were a thin membrane of filth spread across everything except the leads, who pop out colorfully like three strawberries in a bowl of Cream of Wheat.
