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A hitch develops when on the way up, they begin to get to know the prisoner. Meadows is an awkward, unassuming kid with droopy eyes and a disarming drawl. He loves his mother, dreams of being a veterinarian and is also a kleptomaniac. Mule and Bad Ass catch the kid stealing, and drag him off the train a sobbing, snotty mess. The prospect of spending eight years getting punched in the head by the Marines at Portsmouth is more than an 18-year-old can handle. To make matters worse, it comes to light that young Meadows has never had sex, enjoyed a beer, eaten an Italian sausage sandwich from Sabrett's, or beaten up a bunch of Marines in a bus terminal bathroom. When all is said and done, the poor kid will have spend a third of his life behind bars without having truly lived a day in his life. Struck with sympathy, Mule and Bad Ass resolve to spend five days showing Meadows the time of his life before they send him up the river. This they do, and in splendid fashion.

They take Meadows ice skating, they stop by his mother's house. They get drunk and trash a hotel room. They take him to The Best Little Whorehouse in New Jersey. They play darts, they spot Gilda Radner at a Zen Bhuddist temple (no seriously, look for her) and they walk the streets at night singing sea shanties. It's a man's Navy, and over the course of the week Seaman Meadows begins to grow into one. It's not all fun and games, of course. There's a Japanese proverb that says when you travel with someone, they become your family – and anyone who's been on a road trip knows there's some truth to this. When three men spend five days in closed quarters trying to stave off the drumbeat of certain doom, they're going to learn a thing or two about each other.

And this is the best part about The Last Detail. It's a fairly typical road movie in many respects, but there is atypical depth to the characters, making it an unexpectedly rich experience. Buddusky takes particular relish in his nickname, and spends as much time as possible living up to it. In some ways he's a borderline psychopath, prone to unpredictable fits of anger and random spurts of violence. He lives every day like it's his last and seems to harbor some pretty substantial regrets. Yet, as he takes Meadows under his wing we see an empathic side of him that just wouldn't be present in a garden variety nut bag. The character comes across like a brooding only child who has jumped at the chance to be a big brother to someone. The experience proves as rewarding for him as it is for Meadows.

The same goes for Mule, a poor man from New Orleans who still supports his mother and considers the Navy his salvation. If Bad Ass is looking for a little brother, Mule was born to be a father figure, calmly reigning in his hot tempered partner and acting as Unusually Permissive chaperone for their young companion. Meadows is just an impressionable kid who loves Jesus and has a heart stuffed full of forgiveness and innocence. He's terrified of jail, but is nonetheless resolved from the start to do his duty and pay his penance, like the good soldier he always wanted to be. As he bonds with his captors, he bears them no grudge and even comes to pity them when he realized they're not any more eager to complete their assignment than he is. Eager not to disappoint them, Meadows embraces his fate all the more, almost making him the most mature of the bunch.

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