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A man wakes up alone in a deserted London and discovers that he and six others appear to be the only people left alive.
Starring Tamer Hassan, Simon Phillips, Ronan Vibert, Daisy Head, Danny Dyer
Written by John Stanley
Produced by Simon Phillips, Toby Meredith
Duration 84 minutes
Well, that was a disappointment. Multiple, in fact.
Here are my top
seven disappointing things about THE LAST SEVEN.
Disappointment #1: Not enough Danny Dyer.
For a while back there, Danny Dyer was kind of a star. He was certainly well known – in the UK, at least. He’s now firmly entrenched in the acting retirement of misery soap Eastenders, but at one point he must have had grander ambitions.
Curiously, there was never any attempt to break America. It seems impossible that the idea never crossed his mind. Was he irredeemably bad at the accent? Did he flat-out refuse to soften up and do a romcom, or be a comedy sidekick, or try out a gay best friend? Or was the concept of ‘geezer’ not meaning someone over 65 simply unfathomable to Hollywood casting directors?
Something I’ve always disputed is Dyer’s reputation for ‘hard man’ roles. Does it come from the straight-to-home-media portion of his career, all those buried on streaming or end of the supermarket aisle DVD efforts – films that have had zero impact on the cultural landscape? It must do, because here is the evidence from his best-known titles:
– HUMAN TRAFFIC: Caught by his mum wanking in his bedroom during a phone sex call = not a hard man.
– MEAN MACHINE: Mild mannered and timid on the football pitch, despite being in
prison = not a hard man.
– THE FOOTBALL FACTORY: Spends the whole film worried about getting his head
kicked in; eventually does get his head kicked in = not a hard man.
– THE BUSINESS: Lets frequent collaborator Tamer Hassan (see below) and weaselly
Geoff Bell push him around for an hour and a half = not a hard man.
– OUTLAW: Spends the whole film worried about getting his head kicked in; it
doesn’t happen this time, but he does look awkward when required to wield a
pump-action shotgun = not a hard man.
– STRAIGHTHEADS: Has sex with Gillian Anderson (plus) but then fails to protect
her from getting attacked and raped (minus) = not a hard man.
– SEVERANCE: Survives a work retreat in the Hungarian countryside that turns
into a life or death struggle against sadistic poachers, but only by numbing
himself to the ordeal by quaffing magic mushrooms = not a hard man.
In THE LAST SEVEN, he plays ‘The Angel of Death’, a mysterious, bloodied and blindfolded figure who keeps popping up on the periphery to try to give the film some tension and urgency.
And, criminally, apart from some opening and closing voiceover, where his ear-to-the-Bow-Bells lilt is distinctly toned down, he never speaks. Boo.
Disappointment #2:
Not enough Danny Dyer and Tamer Hassan together.
If Dyer could have been the geezer De Niro, then Tamer Hassan was his Joe Pesci – with, of course, Nick Love as their Scorsese.
After the abovementioned Love pair of FACTORY and BUSINESS, they also cameoed together in spoof THE HOOLIGAN FACTORY, as well as both essaying DEAD MAN RUNNING, FREERUNNER and CITY RATS.
That means THE LAST SEVEN ties them with the number of projects Bob D and Joe P did together on (funnily enough) seven. Except, much like Pesci’s quickie appearances in A BRONX TALE, THE GOOD SHEPHERD and ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, they aren’t screen partners this time.
Disappointment #3: Missed opportunity with London locations.
The movie opens 28 DAYS LATER-style with a man waking up in an empty London. And of course, he’s right in the centre of the city, somewhere between Bank tube and Fenchurch Street, by the looks of it. Now, okay, fine, that’s fair enough for starters, you have to give the people what they expect.
But why not show some lesser-photographed parts of London in your movie, for a change? Would it kill you to travel south a little and dolly up Brixton high street? Pan away from the Catford cat statue at a Dutch angle? Give us a crane shot of the Ladywell water tower?
Disappointment #4:
Nothing happens for ages.
I mean, okay, you’ve managed to get the entire Square Mile deserted to film in, presumably on a summer’s Sunday morning, with the coming-down ravers on their way home kept at bay by a production assistant just out of shot.
But why drag the solo opening on for nearly 20 minutes, especially when the entire film is only 84? That's nearly a quarter of the running time! And especially when it's not even an original opening, having already been done by a much better film 10 years earlier (as well as being transposed to Atlanta for the pilot of The Walking Dead).
Disappointment #5:
When more characters are finally introduced, still nothing much happens.
Tamer plays a military man (with a machine gun and everything) and there’s also a posh politician type and a young woman.
After lots of wandering about between skyscrapers and speculating as to why no one else seems to be around and why none of them can remember what happened, the latter of those says, ‘We have to go somewhere, we have to do something!’
I wasn’t sure if she was addressing another character or pleading with the offscreen director.
Disappointment #6: It’s all backstory.
As the number of survivors reaches the anticipated amount, intermittent flashbacks gradually (and I do mean gradually) reveal what went down before the world turned to shit.
But it would have been better to structure the story so that what the characters are doing now was more compelling than what went on before.
Better acting, characters we care about and tolerable dialogue also would have helped matters, too.
Disappointment #7:
There’s a guy in it who looks a bit like Alan Rickman (Ronan Vibert), but he’s
not Alan Rickman.
And although the much-missed thespian was still with us in 2011, he wouldn’t have touched a tepid project like THE LAST SEVEN with a ten-foot pole.
And neither should you.
One star out of five.
Valid use of the
word ‘last’? The whole convoluted plot curdles into
something completely baffling by the end, so your guess is as good as mine. And
you’ve probably never even seen this thing.
What would a movie called THE FIRST SEVEN be about? How
about profiling the top seven number sevens in Premier League history? Ooh,
let’s see. I’d say... Cantona, Beckham, Pires, Le Tissier, Ronaldo, Luis Suarez and Son
Heung-min. And as a plus, that’s definitely something Danny and Tamer could
settle down on the sofa with a case of lager and happily watch together.
Previously: LAST HOLIDAY
Next time: THE LAST STARFIGHTER
Check out my books: Jonathanlastauthor.com
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