As recently as 2019, Bruce Willis was appearing in substantial roles in major Hollywood movies, including M. Night Shyamalan’s “Unbreakable” sequel, “Glass,” and Edward Norton’s period-piece noir mystery “Motherless Brooklyn.” From 2020 through 2023, we’ve seen the name of Bruce Willis on some two dozen posters — for direct-to-video and unfortunately disposable fare with titles such as “Hard Kill,” “Out of Death,” “Deadlock,” “American Siege,” “Vendetta” and “A Day to Die.”
We don’t know exactly when Mr. Willis started experiencing symptoms from frontotemporal dementia, but reports indicate that in recent years, he was having difficulties with his lines, sometimes seemed disoriented and was receiving lines through an earpiece. On many a shoot, Willis was on set for just a couple of days and wound up with limited screen time. He’s in “Hard Kill” for all of seven minutes.
