Toward the end of Bruce Willis’s acting career, he took several roles in B-grade action and drama movies, but with what has been revealed about his health problems, these films shine in a different light. While many critics slammed the later era Willis movies, especially considering his lack of participation, it is time to reᴀssess these films.

Over the last three years of Bruce Willis’s career, he appeared in 21 direct-to-video movies. Although most people have never seen these projects, they offered a substantial paycheck to Willis at the end of his career, aiming to secure his family’s future. While many fans wondered why he was making these movies, the truth finally arrived.

Bruce Willis was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, or FTD. This affects his ability to communicate, read, write, and speak. In 2023, he retired from acting for his health. That makes these last movies look very different when considering his health struggles during production. Gasoline Alley has since become a streaming hit.

Let’s Enjoy Gasoline Alley & Bruce Willis’ Role For What It Is

Gasoline Alley is a good example of the movies that Bruce Willis made over the last three years of his career. The film production heavily promoted his name as one of the stars, but he barely appeared in the film. Devon Sawa stars as tattoo artist Jimmy Jayne, and he owns a tattoo parlor called Gasoline Alley.

Bruce Willis and Luke Wilson star as two police detectives investigating a case of murdered prosтιтutes, and one clue is a lighter from Jayne’s tattoo parlor. Since Jayne is an ex-convict, he becomes the main suspect. There is a twist ending, and it all has to do with Willis’s Detective Bill Freeman.

Willis doesn’t appear much in the movie, but he’s hugely important to the plot. Director Edward John Drake ensures he puts Willis in the best position to show his movie star talent and charisma while covering up the deficiencies in his acting skills in his later years. It might be the reason Willis entrusted him with his career.

Gasoline Alley is a film noir at heart, with Devon Sawa’s Jimmy, an ex-convict who gets sucked back into the seedy underworld he tried to escape from. With Willis perfectly playing the ambiguous and mostly dirty cop, it is a great role that shows Willis is a movie star, even when not at the top of his game.

How Gasoline Alley Compares With Willis’ Other Later Action Movies

Edward John Drake worked with Bruce Willis before directing this movie. He also wrote and directed Willis’ movies with тιтles like Cosmic Sin, Apex, and American Siege. Most of Willis’s later movies were made to sell using his name, even if he only had limited scenes. Many only required one or two days of shooting at the most.

Bruce Willis has had several iconic movies in his career, from Die Hard to Unbreakable, but it is a mistake to discount his later roles. Recently, Gasoline Alley hit number one on the Prime Video streaming list, proving that there are hidden gems in these later films that fans should check out.

Gasoline Alley is a film noir that puts Willis in a comfortable position as a dirty cop. It works slightly better than his more fantastical later era movies, like Cosmic Sin (time travel) and Breach (sci-fi). If anything, it shares more in common with his more violent later action movies, like Acts of Violence and First Kill, both solid films.

Sadly, most fans dismissed Willis’s later action movies. Many of these releases have positive qualities, not the least of which is Bruce Willis and his continued work as an action star who always gave his all. While these films sit low in the rankings of Willis’s action career, they deserve a second chance when watched in a fresh light.