Detective Knight: Rogue (2022)

Content by Tony Macklin. Originally published on November 28, 2022 @ tonymacklin.net.

It appears Bruce Willis has chosen perhaps to end his film life with an indie trilogy. The first of three films, Detective Knight: Rogue, ' with Willis starring as the title character ' has been released. The second, Detective Knight: Redemption, has been completed. And the third, Detective Knight: Independence, has been announced

The last few years have not been kind to Willis on the screen. Of the last 13 films he's made, 12 have been rated 'rotten' on Rotten Tomatoes. They have been amateurish efforts.

For several recent years Bruce Willis has 'won' a Razzie award for Worst Actor. But the Razzies were recently rescinded when it was announced that Willis is struggling with aphasia ' a condition of brain damage. [Aphasia is the condition that Congresswoman Gabby Giffords suffers from since she was shot in the head.]

Detective Knight: Rogue could be subtitled Where's Willis, like Where's Waldo. He often disappears for an extended time, leaving a subpar production behind.

The career of Bruce Willis is going out not with a bang or a whimper. It's going out with a bleep.

If the director Edward Drake and his co-writer Corey Lange didn't have the word 'fucking' in Detective Knight: Rogue, they'd have no dialogue. Bruce Willis deserves better than meaningless, crude redundancy.

Detective Knight: Rogue is about a gang of thieves on Halloween causing violence as they curse and careen in circles. On occasion Detective Knight is in the periphery, along with a glut of other characters.

It's ironic that the only effective dialogue occurs when one thief is caught in the trunk of a car. The dialogue has no cursing. What a concept. But don't worry, it doesn't fucking last.

What is most remarkable about Bruce Willis is not that he has a career that is ending with lackluster work Many have.

What is incredible is that this brilliant actor never received an Oscar nomination. Not the award, not even a nomination. Bruce Willis never received an Oscar nomination.

In my personal ranking Bruce Willis has several terrific performances that could ' maybe should ' have received a nomination.

Among my personal favorite Best Performances of Willis are as Malcolm Crowe in The Sixth Sense (1999) and, of course, John McClane in Die Hard (1988), and Jack Moseley in 16 Blocks (2006). And his Supporting Performances as Butch Coolidge in Pulp Fiction (1994) and as Carl Roebuck in Nobody's Fool (1994).

Willis enhanced many of the performances of others, such as Paul Newman, Mos Def, Alan Rickman, and Cybill Shepherd.

Many actors are helped to achieve by the directors of their films. Kate Hepburn received 10 Oscar nominations and got 4 Oscars, and she had several directing masters. Robert Redford made 7 films with director Sydney Pollack, and that surely helped.

Most of the directors with whom Willis worked did not have much influence on the industry. The director he worked most with was M. Night Shyamalan, with whom he made 4 films. But Shyamalan had little industry clout.

Even though Bruce Willis is concluding his career with negligible films, his best work is classic.

And forever memorable.