Review #11 THE LAST MERCENARY (2021, David Charhon)

 

* * *

A veteran secret service agent returns to France to bail out the 25-year-old son he’s never met, who is in a whole heap of comically perilous espionage-tinged trouble.

Starring  Jean-Claude Van Damme, Alban Ivanov, Assa Sylla, Samir Decazza

Written by  David Charhon, Ismael Sy Savane

Produced by  Jean-Charles Levy, Nicolas Manuel, Olivier Albou   

Duration  110 minutes

Out of all the ’80s/’90s tough guys, there was something unique about Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Sure, on the surface, he seemed to be another Schwarzenegger, with a long, ‘European’-sounding name and an accent the movie often had to explain. He could be vulnerable, but then so could Stallone. And he kicked genuine ass, owing to a real-life proficiency in martial arts (shōtōkan karate and kickboxing), but how was that any different to Seagal (aikido)?

Yet nevertheless, he stood out. He wasn’t quite as hulking, but being more understated made him seem deadlier; like he could actually exist in the real world and would pummel the shit out of you, given the provocation – possibly by doing the splits and punching you in the groin.

And, crucially, he seemed to not take himself too seriously. Witness his bemused innocent Luc Deveraux in UNIVERSAL SOLDIER, fighting off a truck stop full of attackers while never interrupting his lunch; or the gloriously mulleted Chance Boudreaux in Cajun-flavoured masterpiece HARD TARGET, who thinks nothing of standing upright on a speeding motorbike and firing a Beretta 92FS while on a collision course with a truck.

As the ’90s progressed, JCVD suffered the dip in relevance that affected all of his ass-kicking contemporaries. I’d pinpoint his turn towards direct-to-VHS status as the same thing that befell Seagal: humility turned into hubris and he decided to helm his own project. With the ponytailed one, it was 1993’s eco-lecture ON DEADLY GROUND; for Jean-Claude, it came in the shape of THE QUEST (1996), another tournament movie that failed to recapture the magic of BLOODSPORT or KICKBOXER, or even LIONHEART. (Van-Damme has been in a lot of tournament movies.)

But after a string of forgettable efforts co-starring such luminaries as Dennis Rodman (DOUBLE TEAM) Rob Schneider (KNOCK OFF), and himself (MAXIMUM RISK – see also DOUBLE IMPACT and REPLICANT), the Bulging Belgium re-found that humility by playing himself in 2008’s JVCD. Half-way through the low-key heist movie, he delivers a sincere appraisal of his regrets and shortcomings both personal and professional by way of a six-minute, one-take monologue. Since then, there’s been THE EXPENDABLES 2, KUNG-FU PANDA 2, and I urge you to check out the bonkers UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: DAY OF RECKONING.

So, with the feeling that Van-Damme’s career might be on an upward curve again, I was fairly optimistic about THE LAST MERCENARY.

Encouraging sign number one: the self-deprecating humour is present and correct. Jean-Claude's introduced doing his signature splits between ceiling beams, bearded and in a beanie hat. As the still-active mercenary of the title, he’s on a rescue mission that has the tenor of a Gallic farce. Once the bad guys are defeated and the hostage released, our hero swan-dives out the window to the safety of a getaway truck. Shortly after, he relaxes by strutting his stuff in an up-market disco, doubtlessly in tribute to his infamous drunken dancing in KICKBOXER.

So, THE LAST MERCENARY turns out to be an action comedy. Each car chase is scored to an ’80s pop classic, from Blondie’s ‘One Way Or Another’ (actually from 1978, but indulge me), to a police chase through Paris in pursuit of a villain dressed as Tony Montana who blasts out ‘Scarface (Push It To The Limit)’. Now, as much as I love SCARFACE, this is the kind of lazy choice that is indicative of the level at which this movie is pitched. Why not try a little harder and have, say, the antagonist be obsessed with Wesley Snipes’ Nino Brown from NEW JACK CITY, who himself lionised the Brian De Palma classic in that movie?

Yes, THE LAST MERCENARY is as broad as an albatross’s wingspan; very French, but also very reminiscent of ’80s Hong Kong action movies: bug-eyed wacky tone, iffy dubbing and violence that’s more Jackie Chan than John Woo. Samir Decazza's performance as the imperilled son is especially cartoonish, with much hysterical screaming.

There’s a line of secret service intrigue where the film wants to be BURN AFTER READING, with government agents playing catch-up to the escalating hi-jinks – when they’re not standing around telling each other stories about JCVD being a living legend. Meanwhile, the man himself wears a succession of outfits and disguises, because funny, and, in one of those implausible look-how-old-this-guy-is touches that only ever happen in the movies, he reveals that he doesn't know how to fist-bump.

But, look. Van Damme kicks a sufficient number of asses and even gets to do some serious emoting, which should feel tonally out of place but in fact works because he’s just so damn sincere. THE LAST MERCENARY is amusing more often than it is annoying; it's fun and likable and wants to do nothing more than entertain you. And at that, it pretty much succeeds. Plus, I could never hate a film that ends on a freeze-framed tribute to 1994’s STREET FIGHTER.

Three stars out of five.

 

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Last of an ageing generation? More or less.

What would a movie called THE FIRST MERCENARY be about?  The film makes a number of cheeky references to JCVD’s back catalogue, so his first assignment would have to be reminiscent of his heel role in NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER.

 

Previously:  THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT

Next time:  LAST MAN DOWN

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

Review #10 THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (1972, Wes Craven)

* * * * *

When a middle-class couple realise that the drifters they have let into their home are responsible for the rape and murder of their daughter, cheerful hospitality curdles into bloody revenge.

Starring  Sandra Peabody, Lucy Grantham, David Hess, Martin Kove

Written by  Wes Craven

Produced by  Sean S Cunningham

Duration  84 minutes

Imagine for a moment that your name is Bonnie Broecker. It’s the mid ’60s and you’re married to Wesley Earl Craven, a respected humanities professor at Clarkson College of Technology, New York.

Life is ticking along nicely; your husband has begun messing around making short films with a 16mm camera, but it’s just a hobby – he had a strict Catholic upbringing where movies were forbidden, so it’s probably just something he needs to get out of his system.

Then the man you call Wes starts to get more serious about this filmmaking business. He suddenly jacks in the academia and starts editing and making writing contributions to X-rated flicks – under a pseudonym, mercifully.

Things don’t quite work out between the two of you and sadly you’re divorced by the decade’s end. Then, one night in 1972, you’re walking past a movie theatre showing something called THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, directed by one Wes Craven. Curious to see what your ex’s cinematic ambitions have led to, you purchase a ticket.

Eighty-four minutes later the credits are rolling up and the rest of the audience has shuffled away, but you're still rooted to your seat with your mouth agape.

"Oh, Wes," you whisper. "What the fuck was that?"

There must also have been several of Craven’s ex-students who went to see LAST HOUSE, not to mention his sophomore effort, THE HILLS HAVE EYES, and all the other horror hits and less-than-hits that followed. Did any of these youngsters equate these intense films with the bland teacher who used to hold court in the lecture hall droning on about philosophy and art history? Did any of them – let alone his ex-missus – think, "Oh yeah, this doesn’t surprise me, I always knew he had it in him"?

Just like David Lynch being a gawky former Eagle Scout and John Woo being a softly spoken pacifist, egghead Craven creating the kind of films he did is pretty baffling. But even if his move into exploitation is as unfathomable as the evil that lurks in society's underbelly, he certainly made an impact on horror cinema.

Craven actually changed the genre three times in three separate decades. The raw and uncompromising LAST HOUSE raised the bar for what true terror could be on screen; ten years later he breathed new life into tired slasher flicks by unleashing Freddy Kruger in A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, and then in the ’90s he delivered the meta mega-hit SCREAM.

Viewed today, LAST HOUSE remains a truly gut-wrenching ordeal. The abuse meted out by the odious Krug and his gleeful band on the poor girls, whose only crime was venturing from their leafy suburb into the big city, is difficult to watch, with the "piss your pants" humiliation being especially not for the faint-hearted.

Yes, the film is inarguably amateurish and occasionally cheesy, with its bumbling cops (including a pre-KARATE KID Martin Kove), prolonged cake-decorating sequence and cheerful music. But the lurching tonal shifts make the scenes of stark violence and torture even more shocking, coming so abruptly and so relentlessly as to make the viewer feel that they themselves have been physically assaulted.

It's an important horror picture, of that there can be no doubt, but even if we had never ended up hearing of Professor Craven or Sean S Cunningham (producer here, later director of FRIDAY THE 13TH) again, LAST HOUSE would still stand on its own as a work of genuine power.

Five stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  You don’t actually see the street clearly, so it's impossible to verify whether there were in fact no more houses on that side. But why would such a trusted educator lie to us?

What would a movie called THE FIRST HOUSE ON THE LEFT be about?  You could say it had already been done by way of Craven’s inspiration for LAST HOUSE, Ingmar Bergman’s THE VIRGIN SPRING (1960), although since that film is set in 14th Century Sweden it was probably more of a wooden hut or something. Otherwise … well, maybe the couple who live in the first house turn out to be more of the forgive-and-forget type, resulting in a somewhat anticlimactic finale. 

Previously:  THE LAST LULLABY

Next time:  THE LAST MERCENARY

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

Review #9 THE LAST LULLABY (2008, Jeffrey Goodman)

 

* *

A jaded hitman takes on One Last Job and ends up falling in love with his target.

Starring  Tom Sizemore, Sasha Alexander, Sprague Grayden, Randall Batinkoff, Bill Smitrovich  

Written by  Peter Biegen, Max Allan Collins   

Produced by  David Koplan

Duration  93 minutes

   

Tom Sizemore, RIP.

It’s only been two months since his passing, but I'm already getting the (dubious) privilege of honouring the late actor with a review of THE LAST LULLABY, one of the many low-budget flicks to which he was reduced after struggling during his peak years with crystal meth, heroin and Heidi Fleiss.

(Recommended reading: Sizemore’s perfectly titled autobiography, By Some Miracle, I Made It Out Of There.)

Sizemore will be missed; specifically by me for having the sleaziest screen presence in ’90s cinema. From his cameo as a rough-living undercover DEA agent in POINT BREAK, through NATURAL BORN KILLERS’ psychotic wannabe-rapist Jack Scagnetti, to double-crossing Ralph Fiennes while sporting a dirty blonde wig in STRANGE DAYS (possibly the sleaziest movie ever?), he owned that decade.

His career was genuinely legit there for a while. In TRUE ROMANCE, he stood out among all the standout actors in a great cop double act with Chris Penn (another gone too soon). He was fourth-billed in HEAT, behind only Pacino, De Niro and Kilmer. And for some reason, it deeply pleases me that between 1998 and 2001 he was in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, BLACK HAWK DOWN and PEARL HARBOUR.

But there was always that compelling sleaziness. The only actor comparable is James Woods: see THE GETAWAY, THE SPECIALIST, CASINO, etc., in fact all the way back to VIDEODROME. Sadly, the two of them never shared the screen. Think of the unrealised collaborations! Sizemore taking the Daniel Baldwin role in VAMPIRES; Woods playing Sizemore’s father in STRIKING DISTANCE, replacing Dennis Farina.

Or how about an original team-up? Let’s say they both play alcoholic cops investigating a serial killer who preys on strippers. 80% of the movie takes place in strip clubs, and each of our heroes gets romantically involved with a potential victim – maybe the same one, the lucky lady. Title: STRIP MAUL.

Anyway, THE LAST LULLABY. It may actually be the first time I've seen Sizemore as the lead (I don't count 1997's THE RELIC, that was Penelope Ann Miller's movie.) Why didn’t he get more of those opportunities in his heyday? Oh yeah, right, those recreational habits were probably an obstacle...

When we meet Sizemore, he's fidgety and drawn out; twitchy, like he’s coming off something. Hmm. He's mostly shot in static-camera close-ups to convey his inner turmoil, and also to avoid having to dress the set too much.

At first, we think he's a ‘nice’ assassin, rescuing a kidnapped girl from a bunch of vest-wearing rednecks in an abandoned barn. But he's only gate-crashing the hostage situation, subsequently asking her father for his own ransom. Then he decides he’s had enough of being a gun-for-hire and vows to hang up his Colt 1911 – until he gets another contract offer for more money than he can refuse.

Sizemore conducts himself through all this with the blunt, straightforward dignity of a triple-digit-IMDb-credits veteran. At one point, he goes swimming nude in a lake and you wonder if we’re going to find out whether he’s genuinely ‘sized-more’. But, alas. What we do learn is that with his world-weary minimalism, clipped delivery and prominent facial mole, he’s starting to resemble Bob De Niro, at around the age his HEAT co-star was during the making of Michael Mann's cop masterpiece.

Just as measured as Tom's performance is the film’s pace. I wouldn't quite call it boring, and there is enough story for 93 minutes, but it's definitely slow. The plot takes an early ‘six months later’ leap, which can be a danger sign, and the so-called ‘love’ Sizemore develops for his mark, Sasha Alexander, is more accurately his conscience catching up with him. But we don’t see much of this transition, therefore it feels a little unearned. It's in Sizemore’s eyes, but it’s not in the script, and so it’s only ever half-realised.

Overall, THE LAST LULLABY could have done with some offbeat Coens wit, or Cormac McCarthy philosophising, or Elmore Leonard banter. The movie starts off with some Soderbergh-esque titles, all-lower-case Courier New white on black, but that’s as close as it gets to indie quirkiness.

The real problem could be that I never stopped hoping for a taste of that good ol’ ’90s sleaze, sorely missing from this more mature Sizemore. And yes, I did start to wish that James Woods would turn up – he could easily have played the grizzled old dude who hires Tom to kill once again, although he would have needed some kind of nefarious ulterior motive. Necrophilia, perhaps.

It might be that I end up remembering late-period Sizemore more for his quickie TV roles on the likes of Cobra Kai and Twin Peaks. In lieu of trawling through his direct-to-streaming career in the vague hope of finding something stronger than THE LAST LULLABY, I’m OK with that.

Two stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  The movie ends pretty abruptly, but I’m confident that the retirement is going to be permanent this time.

What would a movie called THE FIRST LULLABY be about?  ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ surely tops the list for most of us.

Previously:  THE LAST SUMMER

Next time:  THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

Review #8 THE LAST SUMMER (2019, William Bindley)

 

*

A bunch of high school grads go through the highs and lows of their last summer before starting college.

Starring  KJ Apa, Maia Mitchell, Jacob Latimore, Halston Sage, Sosie Bacon

Written by  Scott Bindley, William Bindley

Produced by  Mike Karz, William Bindley, Wayne Rice   

Duration  110 minutes

Wow. This must be what they mean about Netflix relentlessly churning out bland ‘content’.

In a first for me, or at least not for a long time, I had literally never heard of anyone in the cast or crew. It didn’t have to be a bad sign. But it was.

Now, according to Netflix, this film is "charming", "heart-felt", and "feel-good". But do I trust the streamer's three little algorithm-spewed adjectives? Do I bollocks.

I can remember when I lost faith in movie advertising (and, let’s face it, advertising in general). It was when I compared the ads for late-’90s British effort EAST IS EAST to the actual experience of watching the film. It was a decent enough post-FULL MONTY period culture-clash drama, with the odd bit of humour thrown in to alleviate the otherwise gritty goings on. But it certainly wasn't "side-splittingly funny" or "a rip-roaring comedy", as the poster had led me to believe.

(And as an aside, have you ever noticed the way every musical advertised on the side of a bus screams at you about how ‘feel-good’ it is? Let me tell you, they don’t make me feel good. So, there’s a flaw right there.)

Nowadays, with multiple streaming platforms, we get the privilege of being lied to from the comfort of our own homes!

I did go into THE LAST SUMMER with an open mind. I like the idea of the ‘summer it all changed’ movie. Finishing school and moving on to higher education or, if not, the world of work, is an inarguably big step. The best ‘significant summer’ movies are STAND BY ME and DAZED AND CONFUSED, but I didn’t elevate my expectations to an unreasonable level.

They were, nevertheless, not met.

The film goes for an ensemble approach, kind of like a shit Robert Altman. The ostensible lead (he gets some opening voiceover) is preppy KJ Apa, who has a crush on Maia Mitchell, a girl who is spending her summer making a documentary with WHEN HARRY MET SALLY-style couple interviews. I feel that the documentarian teenager has been done an awful lot, like maybe it’s even a trope now? There was definitely HAVOC, which had the advantage of Anne Hathaway breaking bad post-PRINCESS DIARIES, plus added Bijou Phillips.

Elsewhere in the overstuffed cast, there’s a couple wresting with whether to stay together long distance. There’s the professed stud who turns out to be a virgin. There are people getting summer jobs, like interning in the city with soulless office drones, tarmaccing driveways or babysitting the prototypical precocious child who speaks like a member of Mensa.

And there is also a pair of multicultural SUPERBAD-style nerds – but without the wit, personality or cutting delivery – who play VR games in the basement, worry about getting ‘carded’ and overanalyse every little thing. They even get a ‘walking toward the camera in slo-mo wearing suits’ shot – because that’s a fresh reference, RESERVOIR DOGS was only 30 years ago, after all.

One’s mind wanders during these under-nourishing movies. Is there a specific shop that sells those ubiquitous red plastic cups they always use at parties, or are they just generic? Is it really easier to wheel in a bunch of kegs than to simply buy your lager in bottles or cans? Does all this stem from a product-placement issue? And what’s with all the texting with the copy coming up on screen? Was this stylistic decision inspired by a Vodafone advert, or maybe an episode of Hollyoaks?

THE LAST SUMMER is a first draft script of brainstormed story strands still searching for actual characters, emotions and a cohesive whole. For a low-stakes movie to work, the personalities have to be strong. But we never feel invested in any of these kids’ plights or their connections with each other – everyone is too dull and samey to register.

It’s apparently set in Chicago, and a Cubs baseball game is attended at one point, but there’s no feel for place. In fact, every scene is so over-lit, in classic TV-movie style, it looks like it takes place on the surface of the sun.

If there’s any kind of thematic depth at all, it’s something vague about following your creative dreams instead of settling for the stability of studying ‘business’ (yawn), or that maybe the prestigious university you were always told you should go to isn’t right for you after all (yawn again). Know who you are, be true to yourself, yadda-yadda-yadda.

So, a dud, then, but at least it’ll give these young actors a few more clips to add to their showreels. I’m pleased they didn’t waste their time along with mine.

One star out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  As far as I remember, my summers back home between years at uni didn’t feel all that much different to the last one before I went. So I think the finality here has been somewhat overstated.

What would a movie called THE FIRST SUMMER be about?  There's be far fewer games of beer pong, that’s for sure.

Previously:  INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE

Next time:  THE LAST LULLABY

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

Review #7 INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1989, Steven Spielberg)

* * * * *

Whipcracking daredevil archaeologist Indiana Jones teams up with his father (also an archaeologist, but a stuffy old-fashioned one) to track down the actual holy grail.

Starring  Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Denholm Elliott, Alison Doody, John Rhys-Davies, Julian Glover

Written by  Jeffrey Boam

Produced by  Robert Watts

Duration  128 minutes

Despite the five stars, I am going to come down on LAST CRUSADE, just a tiny bit.

The film plays it a little too safe. Spielberg reproduces all the beats from RAIDERS, but this time with the comedy cranked all the way up. He wants to exorcise our memories of TEMPLE OF DOOM, copying best pal and Indy collaborator George Lucas’s tactic with STAR WARS: deliver popular first instalment, go dark for the sequel, reign it in and return to the tried and tested for part three. 

(See also Robert Zemeckis’s Spielberg-produced BACK TO THE FUTURE saga, although Zemeckis did at least introduce a new setting for his trilogy-capper).

Now, OK, I get it. TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE fucked everybody up; John Landis the most, of course, but the other directors involved in that ill-fated project were not in the mood for any more darkness after such a shocking onset tragedy, the fallout from which was still rumbling through the courts. Steve got all his angst out of his system with TEMPLE and then insisted on nothing but lightness in his next franchise picture. 

Added to this, by the late ’80s his marriage to Amy Irving was on the rocks, so the biggest director in the world just wanted to have some fun and forget about troublesome things. Hence finally doing his Bond film with the main man himself, and making the endeavour much more of a comedy with some adventuring than an adventure sprinkled with jokes.

But TEMPLE is still my personal favourite – yeah yeah, it’s not ‘better’ than RAIDERS, but it's the one I come back to the most. What if Steve (and George, can’t forget him) had decided to travel further down this challenging path for Indy? I'm not sure how much darker they could have gone than kidnapped children working as slave miners, hearts getting ripped out and a possessed Indy intimidating his pre-teen sidekick, but it’s just a shame that we got RAIDERS: HERE WE GO AGAIN instead of another stab at something more daring.

I can't find it anymore, but I once watched a YouTube video where someone played TERMINATOR 2 and TERMINATOR 3 side by side to demonstrate how the later film completely replicates the structure of its predecessor. I’ve never seen this done with RAIDERS and CRUSADE, but I’m betting that it would work. If you’re flicking through the channels and come in during the truck chase towards the end of CRUSADE’S second act, then it might take you a few minutes to realise that you’re not watching the truck chase towards the end of RAIDERS’ second act.

And then there’s that overabundance of humour. Take how the film treats the character of Marcus Brody. In RAIDERS, he’s Indy’s friend and colleague at the university, a sturdy influence who provides our hero with the knowledge and confidence he needs to embark on his quest. In CRUSADE, he’s reimagined as a goofy counterpoint to Henry Snr, someone notorious for getting lost in his own museum and who stumbles around foreign countries mumbling, "Uhhh ... excuse me ... does anyone here speak English?"

But come on, before this becomes the most negative five-star review of all time – of course CRUSADE is a brilliant film. 

One thing I especially appreciate is that the obligatory relationship subplot is actually between Indy and his Dad, rather than a forced love-interest. Screenwriter Jeffrey Boam (THE DEAD ZONE, THE LOST BOYS, LETHAL WEAPON 2) has the good sense to realise that no one gives a shit about Alison Doody’s Dr Elsa Schneider, and so rather than dragging her tryst with Indy out all through the movie before having her betray the Joneses towards the end in a stunning 'twist', Boam tosses the reversal in as soon as possible so we can get her out the way and spend more time with the father/son dynamic.

This decision to sideline her character does make one feel pretty sorry for the soon-to-be-forgotten Doody. When she signed up to be the top-billed woman in the latest Steven Spielberg blockbuster co-starring Harrison Ford and Sean Connery, I doubt she considered the possibility that it wouldn't boost her career.

Which leads me to mention in closing that although CRUSADE was clearly made as a family-friendly tonic to the nastiness of TEMPLE, which Spielberg had already disowned, one nicely adult touch still crept in: the revelation that both generations of Jones men have slept with the same double-crossing villainous woman. Good on ya, Sean!

Five stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Well, that cave place they were all fleeing at the end was pretty much collapsing all around the old knight dude, so no one's getting back in there again.

What would a movie called INDIANA JONES AND THE FIRST CRUSADE be about?  Either some kind of prequel with a Jones ancestor set in the 11th Century, or flashing back to an even-younger-than-River Indy, when he's a four-year-old on a quest to exert his authority over Henry Sr and his hitherto unseen mother – possibly by refusing to eat his broccoli. 

Previously:  THE LAST EMPEROR

Next time:  THE LAST SUMMER

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com