* *
A man's wife
disappears after they stop off at a petrol station. As he tries to track her down, he starts to believe she's been kidnapped.
Starring Gerard
Butler, Jaimie Alexander, Russell Hornsby, Ethan Embry
Written by Marc
Frydman
Produced by Gerard
Butler, Taylor Conrod, Marc Frydman, Brian Pitt
Duration 95
minutes
Not everyone makes it as an actor. I don't know the statistics, but the ones who can't carve out a successful living vastly outnumber the ones who can.
What this means is
that many people work elsewhere before they get their SAF-AFTRA or Equity card
punched. Usually, you think of waitressing, bar work, driving a cab, retail,
that kind of thing. Flexible shifts, able to accommodate auditions, held onto
until the time comes to make that leap and give up the day job.
But for some
wannabe thespians, it goes further. Some of those who are now marquee names had
whole careers mapped out before they fully pivoted to the artistic life.
Take Gerard
Butler. He studied to be a lawyer. That means that somewhere out there,
in an alternate universe, there are people having their legal issues sorted out
by the star of 300, OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN and DEN OF THIEVES 2: PANTERA.
Other actors with
regular – and perhaps surprising – jobs before they made it include Steve
Buscemi (firefighter), Terry Crews (courtroom sketch artist), Whoopi Goldberg
(mortuary beautician) and Sean Connery (milkman). And I'd be remiss if I didn’t
mention perhaps the most famous example: Harrison Ford, carpenter.
Now, there are
certain things you expect from all those professions. If you hired Gerard
Butler as your lawyer, you would expect him to know his stuff: to be
competently trained in helping you with your housing dispute, or your probate
claim, or whatever.
And, it follows,
we viewers similarly have certain expectations from a genre movie. Such as an
action thriller, an example of which we have here with LAST SEEN ALIVE.
So, for my viewing of this film, I decided to keep a tally of three things:
– tropes (part of the genre, accepted and expected)
– clichés (lazy, obvious, trite) and
– anything original
(unexpected, memorable – possibly a fresh spin on the previous two).
I wasn't too confident, since a) I'd never heard of LAST SEEN ALIVE, despite taking a casual interest in Butler's career (my wife fancies him a bit), and b) its plot sounds exactly like BREAKDOWN, that 1997 Kurt Russell thriller from the director of TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES.
Nevertheless, here we go.
Tropes:
– A cold opening, in medias res. A cop holding a beat-up bad guy by the throat in
the back of a car. The guy declares: "She's already dead!"
– The movie's central couple are going through a rough patch: she cheated on him, they've
had marriage counselling. They're driving to her parents' house for him to drop
her off so they can go on a break. He doesn't like his in-laws.
– Butler, like many action heroes of yesteryear (Arnie, Dolph, Van Damme), is not
American. And he doesn't quite sound American here, either. But at the same
time, he's certainly not using his native accent. In this way he most closely
resembles Jason Statham (it's Scottish for Butler, English for Jason – albeit
not Cockney as many think, since he's actually from Derbyshire).
– No one admits to any wrongdoing when Butler confronts them.
– The cops eye Butler with suspicion, including in a tense scene where he gets
pulled over with a bad guy bound and gagging in the boot of his car.
– Butler sneaks around, hiding from both the baddies and the cops.
– A meth lab explodes. Well, what are meth labs good for if they don't explode?
(In this case, an explosion done with terrible
post-production CGI.)
Total: 7
Cliches:
– Workaholic Butler is introduced on his mobile phone saying, "No, you can't pull out
of the deal!"
– The camera lingers a little too long on supporting characters, making them seem
more significant than just a petrol station attendant or a clerk; making them
seem suspicious.
– The cops don't take him seriously, at first.
– His wife's parents think that he is somehow to blame for her disappearance.
– The film for some reason thinks we need 'fill in the blanks' flashbacks about Butler and his missus. They
are meant to add depth to the central relationship, but instead puncture the
tension.
– There is no CCTV footage from the petrol station where she was last seen
(alive), owing to the camera being conveniently broken. Except ... is it really?!
– The current time flashes up in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen. It
doesn't really add anything, either to the story or the tension.
– The bad guys turn out to be hillbilly redneck dealer-types.
– Upon finding a pistol, non-gun user Butler turns out to be an expert marksman.
Total: 8
Originals:
– Butler and wife are driving with cheesy easy-listening playing from the radio. I expected him to complain, but it's she who asks for it to be turned off!
– Her not being a saintly damsel in distress, having committed adultery.
– The focus on the strains in their relationship, particularly her mental health struggles.
– The cop turns out to be in on the plot. Maybe this isn't so original, but I was surprised. Although that might have been because I wasn't really paying attention.
Total: 4
So, not a great ratio, unfortunately.
One last thing.
Just when I had begun to believe that LAST SEEN ALIVE was totally bland
and forgettable, with nothing distinctive about it, I saw this post from Butler:
I'll let you in on a little secret. I took this movie on as a fun
challenge/experiment. I improvised the whole movie.
I was only ever shown the
first ten pages and even they were thrown away once we were on set. We shot the
movie in 8 days. I was drawn to the idea of how it would feel stepping into
scene after scene having no idea what was gonna be thrown at me. I've never
taken on anything like that and it was both challenging and exhilarating. You
can't help but be in the moment.
Obviously there were certain parts where I would have to be guided in a general
direction but mostly it was flying by the seat of my pants. Amazing work by the
rest of the cast having to play off me given I had no idea what was about to
come out of my mouth.
So, Counsellor Butler, as part of my cross-examination, allow me to ask you
this. How come this challenging and exhilarating way of working produced
something so dull and generic?
Two stars out of five.
Valid use of the
word ‘last’? Yeah, it works.
What would a movie called FIRST SEEN ALIVE be about? A documentary of interviews with people who
have only just seen plane-crash cannibalism movie ALIVE (1993).
Previously: THE LAST SHARKNADO: IT’S ABOUT TIME
Next time: THE LAST RIGHT
Check out my
books: Jonathanlastauthor.com
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