“It’s Not About Anything Anymore”

Walter Hill’s first screenplay — same dark, somber themes. Not as visually dark as, say, The Driver, but still. This flick is BLEAK. A somber, furrowed Cosby broods throughout, often staring afield through long, silent takes. Los Angeles is crumbling (literally … he stands on a cliff over Pacific Coast Highway where part of a house had been). The PI business has no future other than being harassed, threatened, and chased by overworked cops. Even the clients don’t seem to really want to get their man. “It’s not about anything anymore,” he says often, even after a climactic shootout where everyone but our two heroes are dead.

Walking the corpse-strewn beach between flaming wreckage, Hickey looks up at civilization on the cliffs above, going on as usual. “Nobody came.”

Boggs agrees. “Nobody cares.”

Hickey provides the epilogue: “It’s still not about anything.”

What do you think he meant by that?