Yippee-ki-yay! Bruce Willis’ best and worst

WORST FILMS

“Hudson Hawk” (1991)
As hard as it was to pick Willis’ best movies, it’s far, far harder to pick his worst. He’s made so many of them! But the absolute worst has to be this action-comedy-quasi-musical spoof about a thief who gets roped into an international plot involving the Vatican, the CIA and a couple of androgynous international types (played oh so campily by Richard E. Grant and Sandra Bernhard) to steal three priceless artifacts by Leonardo Da Vinci. Just how bad is it? Picture this: Willis and Danny Aiello storming an Italian castle to save Andie MacDowell while singing. If that’s not bad enough David Caruso plays a cross-dressing CIA mime. But really, the blame lies with Willis: he co-wrote the damn thing.

“The Last Boy Scout” (1991)
Too bad this wasn’t the last action movie that Willis ever made. Once again, he’s a private detective on the outs with his wife and daughter, who teams up with a disgraced ex-NFL quarterback (Damon Wayans) to save a corrupt senator’s life and prevent a bomb from going off at an L.A. football game. What were you expecting — “Citizen Kane”? One more mindless action film from director Tony Scott (“Top Gun”) and written by Shane Black (the literary genius behind “Lethal Weapon”). Sample scene:  A villain holds a knife to Willis’ face and says, “I want to hear you scream,” to which Willis responds “Play some rap music.” Man, they don’t write ’em like that anymore.

“Bonfire of the Vanities” (1990)
You can’t blame this one entirely on Willis. Even Tom Hanks stinks in this movie. At the time, “The Bonfire of the Vanities” was an immense bestseller by Tom Wolfe. Everyone in Hollywood wanted in on this one and with Brian De Palma directing how could it fail? Oh, but what a failure it was. The film is listless, lifeless and lost. Willis plays the down-on-his-luck big city tabloid reporter, Peter Fallow, who makes the most of a salacious story involving a Wall Street titan (Hanks) and his mistress (Melanie Griffith). One of the biggest bombs in Hollywood history.

“Armageddon” (1998)
Can the real Armageddon be as painful as this? This film put the “easy” in cheesy. But it’s still cinematic popcorn at its best/worst. This time Willis is an oil driller who leads a rag-tag bunch of lovable losers on a suicide mission to destroy an asteroid the size of Texas. How? Why they’re going to fly to the ’roid, drill a hole in it, then drop an atomic bomb in its center and save the world. Still, despite everything … Willis is, strangely likable, once again breathing a little life into a role that has no business being anything other than a cartoon character.

“Die Hard 2: Die Harder” (1990)
It’s bad studio movies like this one that spurred on the 1990s American New Wave. So on one hand, we film-lovers should say “thanks.” However, the first “Die Hard” was far too successful for Hollywood to leave alone, so this film was almost a fait accompli. This time John McClane (Willis) happens to be in Dulles Airport in Washington when another band of terrorists plan on taking the airport hostage on Christmas Eve — exactly one year after the first “Die Hard” — what are the chances!? And once again he has to rescue his wife, and kill lots of bad guys with accents.

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