Before being diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, Bruce Willis had starred in a lot of direct-to-video movies. Critics trashed many of these films, and the Razzies even gave Willis his own category (which they later rescinded after his diagnosis). However, Quentin Tarantino has defended Bruce Willis’ direct-to-video movies on the Video Archives Podcast after watching a bunch of them.
“These movies that he’s been making for these companies have really gone under fire in a really big way,” Tarantino said, “and there’s been these kinds of expose articles written about them and talking shit about these movies.” Much like the rest of us at the time, Tarantino remembers thinking, “What the f*** is this, what the f*** is Bruce Willis doing this stuff for?” Ultimately, Tarantino “decided to watch a few of them to see how Bruce equipped himself” and was quite surprised by how much he enjoyed them.
“I was really impressed by Bruce Willis in these movies,” he said. “I thought he was really charming in them. He’s really fun.” The director admitted that it was obvious that Willis was operating with an earpiece. “You can never have a scene where he says a line, somebody else says a line, and he says a line back,” he explained. “You’re getting one line out of him at a time, so there’s always a cut. But he’s making it work. He’s not phoning in his performances.“
Tarantino continued, “I ended up watching about six of them, they’re very easy to watch. They’re very entertaining. There’s not like there’s a classic among them, there’s no One-Armed Executioner, but the people who are putting these movies down obviously have never seen any real exploitation movies before.” He singled out Vice, Trauma Center, and Deadlock as the best of the ones he watched. “In Vice, Bruce looks like a million dollars,” he said. “He’s terrific, it’s a good role for him, he’s a lot of fun in it. I wish he had more to do because he’s really good.“
Willis was typically given top billing in these projects and was front and center in the marketing despite only shooting for a day or two. In 2022 alone, he was featured in a dozen direct-to-video projects.
How many of Willis’ direct-to-video movies have you seen? What are some of your favourites?