8 Million Ways to Die * (1986, Jeff Bridges, Rosanna Arquette, Alexandra Paul, Randy Brooks, Andy Garcia, Lisa Sloan) – Classic Movie Review 13,931

Jeff Bridges stars in the 1986 American neo-noir crime thriller film 8 Million Ways to Die, based on a detective novel by Lawrence Block, who called it ‘a terrible movie’.

Director Hal Ashby’s 1986 American neo-noir crime thriller film 8 Million Ways to Die is based on the fifth of the Matthew Scudder series of detective novels by Lawrence Block, and stars Jeff Bridges, Rosanna Arquette, Alexandra Paul, Randy Brooks, Andy Garcia, and Lisa Sloan.

But 8 Million Ways to Die was another nail in the coffin of the career of director Hal Ashby (Coming Home, Being There) who, after a glitzy 70s, completely lost his touch in the 80s. Lawrence Block called it ‘a terrible movie’. (To be fair, Quentin Tarantino names it one of his favourite films of 80s.)

Despite an alluring cast, this urban thriller is an unattractive, desperate film with Jeff Bridges as Detective Matt Scudder, an alcoholic Los Angeles Sheriff’s Deputy cop who rescues a pricey prostitute call girl named Sarah (Rosanna Arquette) and gets mixed up with LA’s drugs and sex underworld. Maybe the film’s tense last section and exciting shootout climax slightly redeem it, maybe.

Money isn’t everything, but 8 Million Ways to Die earned an ignominious $1.3 million in the United States, against a budget of $18 million, even though Bridges was hot after Starman and Jagged Edge.

Oliver Stone wrote the screenplay soon after the novel was published in 1982, hoping to direct it too, but then it was intended to be directed by Walter Hill and to star Nick Nolte. This fell through but the project was revived by PSO [Producers Sales Organization] in 1985 with Jeff Bridges, though rewrites were needed and by this time, Stone was working on Salvador (1986) so Robert Towne was hired to revise his script.

Though Towne had not finished his script revisions, production began in July 1985 in El Segundo, California, so Bridges, Arquette, and Hal Ashby were forced to improvise many scenes until Towne finished his writing in August 1985. 

After the shoot, the PSO fired Ashby and his editor Robert Lawrence, and hired Stuart H Pappe to oversee post-production. Pappe drastically changed the film, deleting important scenes with Arquette and dubbing new dialogue with Bridges. Pappe also got James Newton Howard to revise his synthesised  score to resemble the theme for TV’s Miami Vice. Ashby’s appeal to the Directors Guild of America for arbitration was rejected.

It was Hal Ashby’s last movie. He died of cancer on December 27, 1988, at his home in Malibu, California, aged 59.

The screenplay is written by Oliver Stone, an uncredited Robert Towne and a Canadian screenwriter and novelist R Lance Hill using the pseudonym of David Lee Henry. R Lance Hill wrote the 1989 cult film Road House, and the novel and screenplay for The Evil That Men Do.

In 2014, novelist Lawrence Block recalled: ‘It was a terrible movie. From everything I’ve heard, it was not a happy set. It’s also been evident one did not have to have written the book to dislike the movie.’

On the plus side, Quentin Tarantino has listed it as one of his favourite films of the decade.

Cast: Jeff Bridges, Rosanna Arquette, Alexandra Paul, Randy Brooks, Andy Garcia, Lisa Sloan, Christa Denton, Vance Valencia, Wilfredo Hernandez, Luisa Leschin, Chip Arnold, Vyto Ruginis, James Avery, Jack Younger, Phil Peters, Elva Garcia.

8 Million Ways to Die is directed by Hal Ashby, runs 115 minutes, is made by PSO [Producers Sales Organization], is released by Tri-Star Pictures, is written by Oliver Stone, David Lee Henry and Robert Towne, is shot by Stephen H Burum, is written by Mark Damon, Steven J Roth and Charles Mulvehill, based on novel by Lawrence Block, is scored by James Newton Howard, and is designed by Michael D Haller and Mark W Mansbridge.

American crime writer Lawrence Block (born June 24, 1938) is well known for two long-running New York-set series about the recovering alcoholic P.I. Matthew Scudder and the gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr. He has written more than 100 books over half a century plus.

© Derek Winnert 2026 – Classic Movie Review 13,931

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