THE LAST SEVEN (2010, Imran Naqvi)

 

* 

A man wakes up alone in a deserted London where he and six others appear to be the only ones 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, 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 doesn't appear to have been any attempt to break America. Surely the idea crossed his mind. Was he just irredeemably bad at the accent? Did he flat-out refuse to soften up and do a romcom, or be a comedy sidekick, or 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 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: Looks unspeakably 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 brutally 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, Dyer plays ‘The Angel of Death’: a mysterious, bloodied and blindfolded figure who keeps popping up on the periphery to try to inject tension and urgency.

And, criminally, apart from some opening and closing voiceover, where his 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, Danny and Tamer 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, somewhere between Bank tube station 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, just 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 Sunday morning, with the coming-down ravers kept at bay by a production assistant just out of shot.

But why drag the opening out 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 in 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, speculating about the desertedness and why no one can remember anything, the young woman says, ‘We have to go somewhere, we have to do something!’

I wasn’t sure whether she was pleading with another character or the 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 would have helped, 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, let's be honest: 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.

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 would definitely be 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