The Last Boy Scout - Plot

Plot

During haltime of a live-televised professional football game, L.A. Stallions star wide receiver Billy Cole (Billy Blanks) receives a phone call from someone named Milo (Taylor Negron), warning him to win the game or die. Cole ingests PCP and, in a drug-induced rage, brings a gun onto the field, shooting three opposing players to make it to the end zone. Cole shoots himself in the head.

Joe Hallenbeck (Bruce Willis), a disgraced former U.S. Secret Service agent-turned private investigator, discovers that his wife (Chelsea Field) is having an affair with his best friend and sometime business partner, Mike Matthews (Bruce McGill). Hallenbeck's indifference frustrates his wife, who only did it to get his attention. Outside Joe's house, Mike is killed by a car bomb, after giving Joe an assignment to act as bodyguard for a stripper named Cory (Halle Berry).

At the bar where Cory works, Joe crosses paths with her boyfriend, former L.A. Stallions star quarterback James "Jimmy" Alexander Dix (Damon Wayans), who was banned from the league for sports gambling. After an argument where Joe and Jimmy scuffle, an annoyed Jimmy takes Cory away. Joe decides to wait outside, when he is attacked by hitmen. As Joe turns the tables on his would-be assassin, Jimmy and Cory leave the bar in separate cars. When Cory is hit from behind and stops to confront the other driver, she is shot dead by hitmen in the car. Jimmy is fired upon and pinned down, but is saved by Joe.

The next day at Cory's house, Jimmy and Joe find evidence of a phone conversation between the chairman of the Senate committee to investigate gambling in sports, Sen. Calvin Baynard (Chelcie Ross), and L.A. Stallions team owner Sheldon "Shelly" Marcone (Noble Willingham). Joe reveals his hostile relationship with the Senator, having been assigned to him in the Secret Service and is the reason he is no longer an agent. When the recorded evidence is ruined in Joe's faulty car stereo, Jimmy sullenly realizes that Cory tried using the evidence as leverage against Marcone to get his job back on the team, prompting Marcone to send the hitmen. Jimmy leaves to drive home in Cory's other car, but Joe correctly assumes Marcone had her other car wired to explode. Two hitmen arrive wanting the evidence Cory had, and Joe tricks them into blowing up the car, killing themselves along with the rest of the evidence. Joe and Jimmy then form an unlikely alliance to bring down Marcone.

Joe takes Jimmy home and meets his abrasive daughter Darian (Danielle Harris). When Jimmy attempts to use cocaine in the bathroom, Joe furiously kicks him out. As Jimmy leaves, Darian asks him to sign a football trading card featuring Jimmy Dix. As he signs, she reveals that Joe had been a fan of his before he got busted. He leaves her with the signed card, "To the daughter of the last Boy Scout."

The next morning, the police, having learned of Mike's affair with Joe's wife, decide Joe must have killed Mike for revenge and move to arrest him. But Milo, Marcone's top henchman, captures Joe first. Marcone explains to Joe that Baynard holds the deciding vote to legalize sports gambling, and when Marcone tried to buy his vote, Baynard blackmailed Marcone, demanding $5 million or he'd go to the police. Explaining it would be cheaper to kill the Senator, aware of Joe's history with him, Marcone informs Joe of his intention to frame him for Baynard's murder.

Joe is taken to a wooded area where he is photographed handing a briefcase containing money to Baynard's bodyguards. The money is then switched in the trunk with a wired briefcase. Joe is rescued by Jimmy and Darian and they manage to acquire both briefcases after running the bodyguards and Milo off the road; however, Milo survives and kidnaps Darian after Joe leaves her to wait for the police.

Heading to Marcone's stadium office to save Darian, they are caught, but Jimmy creates a diversion, allowing them to fight their way free. Knowing Milo will attempt to shoot Baynard, Joe goes after Milo while sending Jimmy to warn Baynard. Grabbing the game ball, Jimmy throws it at Baynard, knocking him down just as Milo starts shooting. Joe knocks Milo to the edge of the stadium light platform, where police shoot him several times, causing him to fall into the blades of a circling helicopter. Joe and his wife decide to reconcile. The suitcase of money is recovered and the fleeing Marcone, having escaped with the rigged briefcase, is killed when he opens it. At the end of the film Joe and Jimmy decide to become partners.