The Last Boy Scout

Matt Hooper is the last of the three protagonists to be introduced on screen and, although his first appearance is not as dramatic as Quint's or as enigmatic as Brody's, it establishes him as someone whose chipper exterior masks a hard-nosed expertise. As Brody and Hendricks intervene in one of the many disputes between the growing band of fishermen, there is a cut to Hooper climbing out of an outboard motorboat and onto the opposite side of the dock, where he is greeted by local fisherman Ben Gardner. It's an unobserved moment of irony that the first face he sees on arriving on the island is the one that will later stare sightlessly out at him from the shattered hull of a sunken boat.

In Benchley's novel Hooper's first appearance also takes place on the dock, but the description the author gives of the character ('young ... mid twenties ... handsome: tanned, hair bleached by the sun ... tall ...170 pounds') could not be further from the physical look Dreyfuss brings to the role. Unlike many short actors, he doesn't appear to have a complex about his height, and indeed his brief encounter with the towering bulk of Ben Gardner seems almost intended to draw attention to it. In a shot that seems to echo the one of Frank Silva that opened the scene, Hooper steps towards the camera and surveys the mayhem around him with a boyish grin as he removes his glasses and wipes away the spots of sea water. In an outtake of the same moment, the character can be seen wearing movie star type dark glasses, a choice that was perhaps originally that of Dreyfuss himself, who came to the location trailing something of the glory of film stardom behind him.

There is a cut to another angle that shows Brody unsuccessfully trying to direct some nautical traffic with Hooper looking on. It's not clear how this shot relates to the previous one in terms of the geography of the dock, but, like the sky that changes from grey to blue within the scene, it's not something you notice unless you're looking for it. Hooper steps in to intervene and establishes his own seafaring credentials with a couple of lines of dialogue that seem to contain a bit too much nautical ballast ('Don't raise sail, you're just going to luff with it. Do you have a paddle? So scull out of here.').

Hooper runs after Brody, calling deferentially for his attention, and is immediately seconded to help with the crowd control, which he willingly does in an eager boy scout manner. Unlike Quint, who speaks bluntly and uses terms of politeness only with a heavy sense of sarcasm, Hooper's language reflects an acknowledgement of social and civic order ('Gentlemen, the officer asked me to tell you that you're overloading that boat.'), and he takes disparagement with good humour.