The Last Outlaw (1993 film)

• 1. Introduction

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  The Last Outlaw, a 1993 television film broadcast on HBO on the 30th of October 1993, opens on a question that haunts the American West: what happens to soldiers when the war they fought for no longer exists? Director Geoff Murphy and screenwriter Eric Red built their film around a band of former Confederate cavalrymen who refused to go home after the Civil War ended, choosing instead a life of outlawry. The cast reads like a roll call of character actors at their peak: Mickey Rourke, Dermot Mulroney, Ted Levine, Steve Buscemi, Keith David, John C. McGinley, and Gavan O'Herlihy. The film would go on to earn a devoted following among Western genre fans, and its reputation as a cult classic rests on something more than its star power. What drives The Last Outlaw is a specific, almost philosophical tension between a commander and the man he trained, a relationship forged in 1861 and undone by a single order on the run.

• 2. The Commander and His Second

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  Graff, played by Mickey Rourke, was once the kind of officer soldiers wrote home about. A staunch supporter of the Confederate cause, he commanded his cavalry unit with the discipline of a man who memorized exactly how many rounds of ammunition each soldier carried. Dermot Mulroney plays Eustis, Graff's second in command, who had been trained by Graff in the strategies of leadership and combat command from 1861 onward. The loss of his family stripped Graff of whatever warmth he once had, leaving behind a cold and ruthless operator. Eustis learned everything from this man, which is precisely what makes the film's central irony so sharp: the student turns on the teacher because Graff makes a decision that Eustis finds unconscionable, and Eustis is later forced to make the exact same decision himself.

• 3. Tactics, Robbery, and Pursuit

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  Local citizens and lawmen proved no match for a cavalry unit that had survived the Civil War. The band's bank robberies succeeded because the men brought genuine military experience and tactics to their crimes. Then a robbery went badly wrong. The unit took heavy casualties, and a soldier named Loomis was badly wounded. Graff made the coldest command decision available: kill Loomis so the wounded man would not slow their escape. When Graff moved to carry out the order, Eustis shot him instead. Graff fell from his saddle and rolled down a hillside, and Eustis, believing him dead, took command and turned the band toward Mexico. Marshal Sharp, played by Gavan O'Herlihy as capable and respected, rode out with a posse to bring them in.

• 4. The Ghost in the Hills

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  Graff survived. The posse found him only slightly wounded, chained him, and kept riding. Eustis set an ambush that killed several posse members, but during the chaos Graff killed Marshal Sharp, freeing himself in the process. With the posse now leaderless, Banker McClintock, played by Richard Fancy, reminded the surviving men that reward money required they stay in the chase. Graff rejoined as a kind of unelected authority, and the violence grew more personal. He shot and killed Steve Buscemi's character, Boris Philo, and when a posse member tried to cut off Philo's trigger finger as a trophy, Graff pressed his gun to the man's lips: Philo was one of his men, and everyone would show proper respect. After John C. McGinley's Frank Wills attempted to end the chase by returning the stolen money, Graff threw both the money and Banker McClintock off a cliff, then fired his guns to make it look like a shootout with the outlaws.

• 5. The Trap Closes

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  Eustis met Graff face to face in an isolated saloon, and no peace was reached. Graff told Eustis he owed him everything. The journey to Mexico became a slow attrition. Graff shot Loomis from a hilltop and tortured him, hitting him in different parts of the body every few seconds until Eustis, to end the man's suffering, was finally forced to shoot Loomis himself. The decision Eustis had condemned Graff for making was now his own. Keith David's Lovecraft nearly completed the circle: Graff found him alone in the hills, gave him extra ammunition, and promised to spare his life if he killed Eustis. When Lovecraft loaded his pistol in front of Eustis with a full chamber, Eustis knew Lovecraft had not started with six rounds, and he pressed the man on it. Lovecraft, overwhelmed by guilt, took his own life.

• 6. The Final Crossing

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  By the time Eustis and Ted Levine's Potts reached the Rio Grande, only the two of them remained. Graff shot Potts through the gut at the riverbank. Eustis made a final stand alone against the posse, was hit, but killed every man except Graff. The two drew their weapons, and Eustis was faster, but his gun was empty. As Graff closed in, Eustis pulled a pocket derringer that Graff had not anticipated, and fired it. Eustis crossed into Mexico, the last outlaw standing. The film leaves that pocket derringer as its final image of the relationship between the two men: Graff had taught Eustis everything, but not everything.