Bruce Willis' Last Movie Was An Overlooked 2023 Sci-Fi Action Thriller

Bruce Willis is one of the all-time great movie stars, a guy who could fill theater seats with a sarcastic one-liner and a charming but grumpy grin. Over the years he starred in all kinds of films, from zany dark comedies like "The Whole Nine Yards" to the Christmas action classic "Die Hard," but towards the end of his career, it seemed as if he was just putting out as much as he could without paying much attention to quality. It was a move that initially came under fire from fans before Willis's family announced his retirement in March of 2022 due to a diagnosis of aphasia, a condition that causes progressive cognitive decline. Though there were some questions as to whether Willis wanted to do these films to save up for retirement and help his family or whether he was being taken advantage of, otherwise the movies from this final phase of his career went unnoticed.

Willis's first credited film role was as the titular Bruno in the 1987 TV movie "The Return of Bruno," but what was the final film in his filmography? Though he released a slew of direct-to-DVD and streaming movies in 2021 and 2022 (seriously, he was in 19 movies in just those two years alone), Willis starred in two films that released in 2023: Edward Drake's trilogy ender "Detective Knight: Independence" and Jesse Atlas's sci-fi thriller "Assassin."

Originally intended for release in September 2022 under the title "Die Like Lovers," the film "Assassin" had a limited theatrical release in March of 2023, making it the final film in Bruce Willis's long and storied career. Directed by Jesse Atlas in his feature debut and written by Aaron Wolfe, based on the duo's short film "Let Them Die Like Lovers," "Assassin" follows Willis as Valmora, who leads a group of future soldiers that invent microchip technology that allows them to hop into someone else's body for missions. It sounds an awful lot like Brandon Cronenberg's "Possessor" minus the psychedelic imagery and wildly graphic violence, but it takes the concept in a very different direction. When an agent is killed, his wife ("Coming 2 America" actor Nomzamo Mbatha) must take his place in order to get justice. The film also stars Dominic Purcell ("Prison Break"), Andy Allo ("Chicago Fire"), and Mustafa Shakir ("Cowboy Bebop"), though it didn't get a particularly great critical reception.

"Assassin" only has a 9% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but it's worth noting that the audience score is much, much higher, sitting at 68% at the time of publishing. Whether that's people trying to send Willis out on an inflated high note or a matter of real dissonance between critics and audiences is entirely up for debate, however. 

Critics really had a hard time with "Assassin," which sounds like it had an interesting enough premise but just didn't have the budget or a clean-cut vision. This led to less-than-stellar reviews, like Dennis Harvey at Variety, who wrote, "This movie pretty much consists of figures sans backstory or much personality killing others with even less of either, in episodes minus any particular flair for action or suspense." That's pretty harsh but seems to be consistent with other critical assessments. Take, for example, Richard Roeper at the Chicago Sun-Times, who wrote that Willis seemed "disengaged" from the film and was missing his "trademark twinkle." Roeper elaborated that while there are some talented actors involved, the whole movie is a bit of a mess. "Clocking in at a brisk 88 minutes, 'Assassin' reaches a heartfelt but ludicrous conclusion, and you'll start to forget it moments after the final credits," he added.

Audience reviews on Rotten Tomatoes similarly call out the film's convoluted plot and hollow acting, while others were frustrated with the fact that Willis has fairly little screen time despite featuring heavily in the marketing. That was the case for many of Willis's roles in the final few years of his career, as he took hefty paydays for just a few days of work so that the movies could use his name and face to get audiences interested.

It's hard to overstate the star power of Willis, whose career really blew up in the 1980s with the "Moonlighting" television series and "Die Hard," leading him to become one of the biggest action stars of the 1990s and 2000s. Even as recently as 2019, he starred in M. Night Shyamalan's "Unbreakable" trilogy ender, "Glass," and Edward Norton's New York City "Chinatown" riff, "Motherless Brooklyn." Unfortunately, it was also around that time that he started appearing in extremely low-budget, direct-to-video schlock, putting out 22 movies in the course of about three years. Fans began to wonder if there was something going on, as audiences noticed Willis seemed totally checked-out from his performances, with some noting that it looked like he was wearing an earpiece and being fed his lines. A report in the Los Angeles Times seemed to confirm this, with sources who had worked with Willis on-set noting that body doubles were frequently used, especially for action scenes. According to the report, Willis would work for just a day or two on each film, getting his limited scenes done as quickly as possible, then the marketing would try and sell audiences on his involvement.

It's not unusual for formerly massive stars to take on direct-to-video films to try and stay relevant and make a buck, and Willis was even joined in the 2022 film "Paradise City" by "Grease" and "Saturday Night Fever" star John Travolta. However, it seemed like Willis might not be fully aware of his involvement or was potentially being exploited, which makes the disappointing shift to shlock feel much more tragic.

In the LA Times report, director Mike Burns, who worked with Willis on the 2021 film "Out of Death," detailed some of his concerns about the actor's condition on set, noting that he had been asked to shorten lines to the point that he needed to condense 25 pages of dialogue down to something that could be filmed in one day. Despite having some reservations, Burns ended up signing on for another film with Willis, "Wrong Place," after an associate reassured him that the actor was doing better. Apparently things were much worse, and Burns swore off doing it ever again, saying "After we finished, I said: 'I'm done. I'm not going to do any other Bruce Willis movies.' I am relieved that he is taking time off."

Others weren't quite so kind, like the Golden Raspberry Awards, better known as the Razzies, which created an entire category for the worst Bruce Willis Film in 2022. The YouTube channel Red Letter Media also took notice of the "Bruce Willis movie factory," as they dubbed it, putting together an extensive look into the films while at the same time questioning the level of Willis's awareness in what was going on. It's a bit unclear whether or not Willis was taken advantage of and now that he's retired it feels like a bit of a moot point. Still, fans have to contend with what those final few years mean to the actor's overall filmography. 

It's really up to each fan whether or not they feel like these final films tarnish the overall career legacy of Bruce Willis, though perhaps they really should just be seen as a small stumble in the otherwise phenomenal filmography of one of Hollywood's greatest movie stars. There are dozens of fantastic Bruce Willis movies and he's worked with many of cinema's biggest directors, including Quentin Tarantino, M. Night Shyamalan, Wes Anderson, Robert Altman, Terry Gilliam, and more. For every one of Willis's late career stinkers, he has an equally great film to balance it out. So, while it's a shame that he ended up taking on some less-than-stellar roles in the name of making some money to take care of him in his final years and support his family, no one should really hold it against him. Bruce Willis will always be a true cinematic legend, and no low-budget direct-to-video cash grab could ever change that.