*
His wife's murder pushes a special forces dude to go off and live in the woods, but when a wounded woman needs his help he ditches the hermit life to right some wrongs and crack some skulls.
Starring Daniel Stisen, Olga Kent, Daniel Nehme, Stanislav Yanevski
Written by Andreas Vasshaug
Produced by Fansu Njie, Daniel Stisen
Duration 87 minutes
The first question the viewer asks themselves about LAST MAN DOWN is, "Who is this Daniel Stisen, whose name is above the title?"
According to DanielStisen.com, his is a life dedicated to "Acting & Fitness’". He's from Mandal, Norway, where his dad owned a gym. He possesses the "Best Buildt [sic] In The Film Industry". I don't know about ‘best’, but clearly the man knows what a dumbbell is for. Indeed, as the biography on his site tells us, "Daniel practically grew up in the gym and started working out at age 5." Is that even legal? Maybe in Scandinavia …
So, OK. He’s a big guy. But why is Daniel Stisen starring in a movie?
Well, the website tells us that after winning a load of bodybuilding trophies he trained as a stuntman, took some acting lessons, founded Daniel Stisen Productions, and then decided he wanted to be the world’s first Norwegian action hero (with Austria, Belgium and Sweden already represented – one point for each!).
Right, I can get behind that. But perhaps the more pertinent question is, should Daniel Stisen be starring in a movie?
The nice way of putting the answer is, "the jury’s out." The more accurate way would be, "the jury’s out, but oh look, here they come immediately back in, having reached a unanimous verdict with no reasonable doubts whatsoever."
Stisen definitely looks the part, but his screen presence is purely limited to the physical. He speaks in a gruff monotone; I’m reminded of MIDNIGHT RUN when Charles Grodin tells Robert De Niro, "You have two forms of expression: silence and rage." There are one-liners, but the delivery is garbled. Overall, he sorta reminds me of Ben Stiller playing an actor trying too hard to play an action hero in TROPIC THUNDER.
But, look, he's new. I'd rather give him a few more films before passing judgement. No one gave up on Arnie after HERCULES IN NEW YORK or Stallone following THE PARTY AT KITTY AND STUD’S. And he’s no worse than the rest of the cast – especially his co-star, Olga Kent, who is so bad that every time she walked in front of a tree, I thought she’d gone offscreen.
LAST MAN DOWN'S terrible acting mixed with the dire-logue makes you feel like you're listening to a read-through where none of the actors turned up, so instead uninterested crewmembers are wading through the script line-by-line for an apathetic director.
"Fear is an
illusion."
"But this is very
real."
"Pain is real.
Death is real."
"So is love, John.
And life!"
"Love ends. Life
ends."
... You get the idea.
Let’s talk about this ‘John’. In the opening credits, the movie doesn't just put our Dan’s name first. It announces "Daniel Stisen as John Wood". Yes, LAST MAN DOWN rather hilariously tries to give the impression that this is an iconic actor playing a legendary character, like it’s ‘Christopher Reeve as Superman’ or, I dunno, ‘Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln’.
But wait, could there be more going on here? I mean, John Wood lives in the woods, where he drinks a lot of vodka and reads Sun Tzu’s The Art of War (which must be challenging half-cut). So maybe there’s supposed to be something archetypal and existential at play, like the way Walter Hill's THE DRIVER has characters called only The Detective, The Player, The Driver, etc. And maybe the flashbacks that consume most of the first act aren’t wonkily structured and emotionally anaemic, maybe they're actually meant to be indicative of our hero’s perma-sozzled and battle-numbed state?
Hmm. Let’s not give LAST MAN DOWN more credit than it deserves ... which is none.
What is beyond doubt is that le cinéma de Schwarzenegger is the clear model. Within the first five minutes we’re reminded of COMMANDO (strained muscles carrying logs) and THE RUNNING MAN (Wood protesting the shooting of innocents); later, outdoorsy traps are set a la PREDATOR. And ‘John’ as a first name? What, like the big man in KINDERGARTEN COP (Kimble), ERASER (Kruger) and, of course, COMMANDO’S Matrix? Not to mention other icons of the genre, like John McClane in DIE HARD and John Rambo in, well, you know.
But the action! Is the action up to par? No, it is not. It’s poorly staged and edited, choppy and hard to keep track of. Tension is conspicuous by its absence. It feels at once excessive and tame. Slo-mo is used haphazardly; I’m confident that director Fansu Njie will never be spoken of in the same breath as Sam Peckinpah.
LAST MAN DOWN turns into a siege movie, but without any kind of escalation or momentum, just wave after wave of bad guys attacking and being dispatched. Soon, what should be exciting and satisfying starts to become repetitive and routine, the filmic equivalent of putting out the laundry or changing the cat’s litter tray.
The movie is a step up from running round the garden with your mates shooting each other with sticks. But not by much. Come to think of it, I definitely had more fun doing that back in the day than I did watching LAST MAN DOWN.
One star out of five.
Valid use of the
word ‘last’? A sequel is in the works! Or at least Danny Boy has posed for the poster. 'In development' on IMDb can mean anything, so I hope the Daniel Stisen Fanclub isn’t getting its hopes up
prematurely (Hi, Mrs Stisen! Hasn’t your son done well?).
What would a movie called FIRST
MAN DOWN be about? Probably something like the extended tangent in AUSTIN POWERS that shows the consequence when one of Dr Evil’s unnamed
henchman is killed.
Previously: THE LAST MERCENARY
Next time: RAMBO: LAST BLOOD
Check out my books: Jonathanlastauthor.com
No comments:
Post a Comment