Paradise City: Bruce Willis’ Last Movie Let Down A Legend

After over 40 years of making movies, Bruce Willis has announced his retirement ending his career with what should’ve been a perfect final film, but Bruce Willis’ last movie was anything but. Landing his first part in 1980, Willis has appeared on screens big and small nearly 150 times, becoming one of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood. With Willis retiring due to aphasia, 2022’s Paradise City was supposed to be the perfect bon voyage, but ultimately let the legend down.

Released November 11th, 2022, Paradise City was helmed by Chuck Russell, who also directed The Mask and The Scorpion King. In addition, the film was scripted by experienced screenwriters Corey Large and Edward John Drake. The heartbreaking revelation about Willis’ health concerns and his forced retirement led to a lot of anticipation for the movie that would offer one final chance to see the legend on screen. However, the end result was a disappointing end to an amazing career.

Paradise City Was A Classic Bruce Willis Setup

In Theory, It Should’ve Worked

Bruce Willis is known for his quippy, tough-guy roles in crime films, and Paradise City was supposed to be a testament to the type of role he built his career on. The actor’s trademark character began on the TV show Moonlighting in the late 80s when he played a wise-cracking private investigator. It was his role as smart-aleck, action hero John McClane in the Die Hard franchise, however, that truly created his legacy.

From there, Willis’ hitlist includes a collection of roles that mostly serve as iterations of McClane, like Butch Coolidge in Pulp Fiction, the voice of Mickey the wise-cracking baby in Look Who’s Talking and its sequel, Harry Stamper in Armageddon, Korben Dallas in The Fifth Element, and a stoic turn as Malcolm Crowe, in The Sixth Sense.

Set in Hawaii, the Paradise City film looked like a great opportunity for Willis to do what he does best. The film was described (via Deadline) as “similar to Miami Vice but with bounty hunters instead of cops” and saw Willis as Ryan Swan, a man bent on revenge. Swan’s objective was to fight his way through the Hawaiian crime world to find and kill the crime lord who murdered his father.

While the description of Paradise City alone seemed to have the potential to be the perfect final role before Willis’ retirement, the movie did not do him, nor the character, justice. Willis’ last film also starred his old co-star John Travolta, bringing Willis’ career full circle before its conclusion.

Bringing Willis And Travolta Back Together Was Highly Anticipated

It Worked As A Tribute To Willis’ Film Past

While Bruce Willis and John Travolta’s first film credit together is Look Who’s Talking in 1989, the film left little opportunity for shared screen time as Willis’ role was a voiceover. It was Quentin Tarantino’s cult classic Pulp Fiction in 1994 that truly gave Willis and Travolta the opportunity to work together. Paradise City saw the reunion of the two legendary actors in a pairing that stands as a testament to what could arguably be considered the highest point of Willis’ career.

In addition to the epic reunion of Willis and Travolta, Willis’ last film was written by Corey Large, who had been angling toward getting Willis and Travolta back on screen together for over 15 years. While it’s telling that he was involved in several of Willis’ recent unsuccessful films, Large’s quest boded well for Paradise City, suggesting that he is a fan of Willis and Travolta’s previous collaboration in Pulp Fiction, and he worked to create the same chemistry seen nearly 30 years ago. Unfortunately, it was all for naught.

Bruce Willis’s Last Movie Should Have Been Better

The Actor Deserved A Stronger Sendoff

The reviews for the Paradise City film reveal that it was an unfortunate last outing before Bruce Willis’ retirement. Paradise City opened to staggeringly negative reviews, with the film sitting at 3.7 stars out of 10 on IMDb and a “rotten” 8% critics score on the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.

Many of the reviews point the finger at the story and the stakes, rather than the cast themselves. Bruce Willis’ last film was overrun with genre tropes and clichés. As well, the tension in the movie fell flat at numerous points, with expository-heavy scenes taking the front seat, and action sitting passively in the back.

Outside the cast, the only thing that was praised in Paradise City was the setting of Hawaii. At the end of the day, Die Hard actor Bruce Willis didn’t deserve to go out on Paradise City being his final note. The movie’s failures weren’t the result of its cast, and ultimately the film did Willis a huge disservice. After a decades-long successful acting career, Bruce Willis deserved better than what Paradise City gave him.

Paradise City Flopped – But It Didn’t Impact The Legacy Of A Legend

Bruce Willis Remains A Legendary Icon

While Bruce Willis’ last project left a lot to be desired, Paradise City‘s quality didn’t negatively affect Willis’ career whatsoever. Willis has been starring in these direct-to-VOD movies for years now without impacting the way his fans or the public see him. The actor has a high number of successes that far outweigh his failures and was a bankable movie star for four decades.

The 1980s saw him lead the phenomenal action movie Die Hard, and the ’90s saw him in classics such as The Sixth Sense and Pulp Fiction. The 2000s saw Willis star in Unbreakable and Sin City, while the 2010s saw him in the sci-fi hit Looper and the more understated Moonrise Kingdom. All of those movies were either box office hits, instant classics, huge awards contenders, or all of the above. The actor has plenty of beloved movies in between them too.

Though Willis doesn’t have an Oscar on his mantle, others certainly stood on the actor’s shoulders to win one. The Paradise City film might be ending his career on a low note, but it’s the 12 Monkeys and Fifth Elements of his career that people will think of when they hear the name Bruce Willis.

What Was Bruce Willis’ Last Great Movie?

2012 Was A Great Year For Willis

Bruce Willis’ Best-Reviewed Movies (Via Rotten Tomatoes)

The revelation of Bruce Willis’ health concerns led to a lot of evaluation of his work, including his more recent VOD movies. With Willis likely aware of his health problems for some time, it makes sense that he began gravitating toward these types of movies in the past decade. With these low-budget projects, they tend to make a lot of their international sales from having a big name attached even in a smaller role. Willis likely would have been able to secure a solid payday while not having to take on a substantial role.

The decision is an understandable one, but it has left a lot of Willis’ fans without a solid movie to do the actor justice in quite a while. The quality was lacking in a lot of these movies, with some occasionally offering a bit of fun. However, when looking for Willis’ last truly great movie, fans have to look back a number of years. Motherless Brooklyn was the last of Willis’ movies to have a theatrical release, but while it earned solid reviews, Willis had a small role.

A decade before his retirement, 2012 seemed to indicate an interesting shift in Willis’ career with two excellent and very different film roles. Looper was Willis’ collaboration with Rian Johnson, a time travel movie with Willis playing a conflicted hitman going back in time on a mission to save his wife in the future. Meanwhile, Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom had Willis playing a very different cop role as a reserved and soft-spoken sheriff on a quiet island.

Both movies hold a strong 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, standing among the best-reviewed movies of Willis’ career. Along with being great movies, Looper and Moonrise Kingdom feature terrific performances from the actor, showing different sides of his talents beyond just the wise-cracking action hero he became so iconic for. While it can be bittersweet to look back on these movies knowing Willis will not make another one, these and so many other movies showcase the amazing career he has left behind.