What Happened To Bruce Willis?

I fondly remember the Bruce Willis of the 1990s.  As a kid, I enjoyed everything related to Bruce Willis.  The Die Hard series, oh yeah, everyone knows that.  Everyone had multiple Die Hard VHS tapes, usually very close to the VCR.  And if they were recorded from television, you know no-one would dare ‘tape over’ them.  But there was other stuff too.  Last Man Standing, The Last Boy Scout, a cool role in Pulp Fiction.  To me, even Willis’ ‘bad’ stuff was interesting back then, because it had Willis in it.  I even played terrible licensed games on the Commodore 64 of Willis themed movies.  Hudson Hawk, I remember, was a terrible, awful blight on humanity itself.  But I still played it!

It seemed like Willis was ‘the third guy’.  Short of an Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone movie, go straight to Willis.  A distant memory, because now, Willis shows up in terrible movies and appears to be, y’know, kind of a douche.

Too good for action

Despite being one of the biggest action stars around, Willis was ready to leave the ‘action’ scene around 1997.  “It’s very boring to me”, Willis said of action movies in an interview to promote The Fifth Element, largely enough an action film in itself.  “I am tired of it”.  In a way, like his peers, (Sylvester Stallone would also seek new ‘challenges’ in Cop Land) Willis was certainly moving with the times.  Hollywood had shifted, the one man army was old news.  And just two years later, Willis would get his wish and have a pivotal career turn in The Sixth Sense.  And honestly, these were good movies (The Sixth Sense, Cop Land).  Very good in fact.

But Willis was helping to create a void, almost glad to, by shunning the material that brought him to the dance.  It was almost like there was contempt to be found within Bruce Willis.

Willis’ career in the 2000s was less decorated than the previous decade, especially from a manly movie perspective.  For every ‘decent’ thriller like 16 Blocks, it seemed like there were two other lucrative, family friendly ‘safe bets’ to outmatch it.  Rugrats Go Wild, Charlie’s Angels, Over The Hedge.  Throughout most of this, I did not seriously fault him.  Even though it increasingly seemed like he was playing the same man in every movie, I digested his decent movies and like many, hoped for a return of the badass John McClane.  Of course, you should be careful what you wish for.

In 2007, I had my first decidedly ‘what the fuck is this shit’ moment with Bruce Willis.  I wrote an article on this particular moment.  Y’see, Die Hard 4 was in the can.  And rumours were abound that the thing was a piece of shit, PG-13 into the bargain.  The fans at AICN, a way bigger site then that it is now, were having an ‘E-riot’ in one particular comments section.  A user called ‘Walter B’ showed up to appease them, claiming that he was Willis.  Of course, they laughed this off… until Willis appeared on webcam.  Star struck, the commentators suddenly took a lighter view on Len Wiseman’s turd and with that, Willis turned on the few remaining detractors.  After insulting them, before he left, he swore that Die Hard 4 was actually superior to Die Hard 1.

“I hate the Die Hard ones the most”

While the 2000s could not hold up to the 1990s for Bruce Willis, the 2010s have proven to be even worse.  What do you want to talk about here, the drastic demise in the quality of Bruce Willis movies, or the emergent obviousness that Willis is an asshole?  Let’s start with the latter first.  In a movie, as it were, right at the beginning of this decade – Cop Out, if it was a sign of the times for Bruce’s new decade, maybe the name was too.  Willis’ notoriety would apparently fester during production of that movie.  Some disclosure first, I don’t really like Kevin Smith. There’s something off about him, but then again, I don’t know the man.  But he did carry an interesting anecdote from the set of that movie.  While walking along the street in New York with Willis, Willis was hailed by some fans driving a dump truck.  “DIE HARD”, they yelled excitedly at Willis.  Willis, says Smith, stone walled the fans before sourly remarking to Smith whilst carrying the most disgusted face possible, “I hate the Die Hards ones the most”.

It’s not like Die Hard made his career or something.  Willis though would follow up by calling Smith a ‘whiner’.

Come to think of it, since we’re talking about Die Hard once again, when John McTiernan was sent to a Federal Gulag, most would say unjustifiably, several big names who John McTiernan made shine (Alec Baldwin won’t forget what The Hunt for Red October did for his career) came out in his defence.  Several who haven’t even worked with him.  But where were you, Bruno?  You speak, – people listen – but I don’t recall you saying anything.  If that’s true, and I’m open to correction that it was not, then perhaps that is the lowest point of Bruce’s career thus far.  Not going to bat for a man, ill in health and finances, who practically put him on the map in a decade when dianabol was a key ingredient to success.

Greed is good – the Million Dollar Man

Then we have the recent years.  Who can deny that Die Hard 5 sucked?  Half of it was filmed in a Bulgarian quarry, the plot was stupid and it was a film created entirely on the cheap.  Bruce Willis, for his part, showed up simply for the money.  Something his recent career has been about and nothing else.  Don’t believe me?  Willis even admits it; “I work in all sorts of films, but the action movies are the ones that generate the most revenue. I like to earn lots of money”.  That’s an actual quote.  At least you can’t fault the man for being honest.

Sylvester Stallone however, faulted him for being lazy.

“Lazy and greedy, a sure formula for career failure”, ranted Stallone on Twitter after Walter_B upped the going rate to 500,000 dollars for every 12 hours work committed, or a million dollars a day.  For that cancelled cameo in The Expendables 3, somebody, Avi Lerner, Stallone or both, apparently told Willis to hit the road.  The incorrigible Harrison Ford showed up instead, a man who would probably paint your fence if you waved him over.

Cameo conman

I would have to say that Willis is lazy.  It’s one thing to bluntly admit that you’re appearing in a movie for some cash, even if your bank accounts are already bursting with untold scores of millions. But it’s another thing to show up in a cheap shot cameo.  Bruce Willis is a key proponent of the DTV cameo con.

What is the DTV cameo con?  It’s when a bush league production company ponies up money to have a greedy A-lister or former A-lister agree to appear for 140 seconds in their movie.  Often, they read their lines from a sheet in front of them.  The actor’s face will then be stuck on the ‘cover’ for the movie, despite some no-name bum taking up 85% of the screen time.  All involved knowingly apply a terrible script and director, with the entire venture revolving around ‘baiting’ unsuspecting customers.

These DVDs will appear in tactical areas of supermarkets, with famous names appearing on the cover.  Older, dumber males are the target, those not adapted to the likes of Netflix, they don’t know what streaming is, but they recognise Bruce Willis.  Taking the trash home, they don’t realise their mistake until 20 minutes after hitting ‘play’.  By then, Willis has already been paid and the producers have scammed the victim.

And so?

So, the bottom line, what happened to Bruce Willis?  Did he become a douche, or did it simply become more evident with his growing power?  Probably the latter.  Will we ever see cool Bruce Willis movies again?  I don’t know, Death Wish sounds like it might be kinda cool.  But what I would really hope for is a change in attitude, I am perhaps naive and optimistic that maybe we’re being too hard on Bruce and that maybe he’ll even appear on a talk show and denounce his own recent career like Eddie Murphy did.  I’m not holding my breath though…