THE LAST SHARKNADO: IT’S ABOUT TIME (2018, Anthony C Ferrante)

 

* 

Sharks. Time travel. The Asylum. The Syfy Channel. Ostensibly, this is a movie.

Starring  Ian Ziering, Tara Reid, Cassie Scerbo, Judah Friedlander, Vivica A Fox

Written by  Scotty Mullen

Produced by  David Michael Latt

Duration  86 minutes   

 

Hi Mom,

Following my first and second letters, this is going to be my last one.

Because your boy has finally made it. Yes, it might be a SyFy original; yes, it might be from The Asylum, a studio below even Troma in terms of reputation. But it's still a movie and I'm still now a credited screenwriter!

But don't get too excited, ma. I'm not exactly proud of my work. In fact, I'm sorry to say it, but no sooner have I reached my dream that I've decided I'm going to pack it in and come back home. Hollywood broke me, ma. It broke me and the name it used to do it was THE LAST SHARKNADO: IT'S ABOUT TIME.

I know, I know, I can't be blamed for everything about the movie my script produced. I can't be blamed for the choppy editing that tries to create excitement through incoherence. I can't be blamed for the non-existent acting ability of the no-name cast, or for how much the established actors were phoning it in. I can't be blamed for the PlayStation 2-standard special effects. 

And I certainly can't be blamed for having to carry the weight of the five previous entries in the SHARKNADO franchise – although I guess I could have sat down and watched them all before I fired up Final Draft. But if I had done that prep, I doubt I would have had much of a brain left to even open up my Macbook.

I knew I was in trouble right from the start, ma, right from the very first scene. They made me put two references to BACK TO THE FUTURE in the opening five pages. They insisted that we cheaply reference one of the most beloved time-travel comedies of all time – the highest grossing movie of 1985, $400m in mid-80's money. Twice in the first five minutes, ma! I don't think all of The Asylum's 500-plus pictures have grossed $400m combined!

And then, they made me have the main guy take instructions from a hologram, done exactly like Princess Leia at the start of STAR WARS. Gosh-darned STAR WARS! And when this protagonist fellow later turns around to find a T-Rex looming over him, of course he has to glibly tell the man-eating beast, "Oh ... hi there!" Like, simply the worst kind of sub-Joss Whedon banter.

These monsters from the studio even forced me to put the most famous line from JAWS in, too; again, twice, just in case any of the dumbasses they think will be watching were too busy scrolling their phones to notice the first one. It's not enough that they're gonna need a bigger chainsaw, they're also gonna need a bigger explosion. I swear, ma, I know you don't approve of drinking, but I'm beginning to understand why Fitzgerald started reaching for the bottle after he went to Hollywood.

Look, ma. I understand that it's supposed to be bad. It's supposed to be over the top. And that if alcohol is optional for the writer, it definitely isn't for the viewer. But you remember when me and Booby-Joe and Stevie-Dean and all the other guys from the neighborhood used to run around with Dad's camcorder making our little amateur movies? How we used crack each other up and wink at the camera, showing we knew how stupid it all was?

That was funny because we were kids and it was cute, and you guys would lap it up when we screened them because you were our parents. We weren't actual grown-ups doing this for a job, expecting people to pay good money to sit through it!

If I can stomach it, I'll now spend a little bit of this letter telling you about the plot of this trashterpiece I spent months putting my so-called skills into. 

So, our gang of quip-happy adventurers have travelled back in time to kill the first ever sharknado (sharks that can fly, of course) and in doing so eliminate the whole species from ever existing. Like the plot of THE TERMINATOR, I guess. After first trying this in the Jurassic era, they skip ahead to Camelot in the Middle Ages, where they fight alongside the castle-dwellers.

It's here in the finished movie that THE LAST SHARKNADO trades on the kind of stunt casting that you expect from The Asylum. Councillor Troy from Star Trek: The Next Generation; Neil deGrasse Tyson as a scientist guy; one of the contestants from RuPaul's Drag Race as a gender-flipped Merlin. And let me tell you, 'drag' is the right word – and I don’t mean when a guy puts on a dress.

But wait, ma. You remember all those screenwriting lessons I took? One thing they drummed into us was pacing. To give your story room to develop, including plot points and character growth. And I was really looking forward to flexing these skills in my first feature screenplay. But my bosses at The Asylum were having none of that. The notes I kept getting were saying things like "Faster! Keep the characters moving! Never stop and give the audience a chance to think!"

Was this because the movie is going to be shown on TV, so they're worried about people channel-hopping? Is this the same thing people who write for streaming are being told – which, let's face it, is the place most wannabe screenwriters like me end up these days?

Anyway, all of this feedback to hurry things along meant that the ancient olden-times couldn’t be the backdrop for long. After the bare-minimum of exposition, the team jump forward to the Declaration of Independence, where of course they meet George Washington and Alexander Hamilton (and yes, I did have to put a joke in about the musical). Then before long, they're in the Old West, with Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. 

Later, it's a 1950's beach party, then a stop-off in the late-90's San Francisco ... It ends up resembling a witless version of BILL AND TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE – which, as I'm sure you'll remember, was one of my favorite movies growing up and one of the reasons I wanted to write for the screen in the first place.

I think I'm gonna cry now, Mom.

Oh, and here's another studio note I got: "We need even more BACK TO THE FUTURE references. Put another one in after 30 pages – or you're fired!"

I'm gonna go online now and look for flights home. Hope you haven't rented out my room yet.

Love to Dad,

Your son

One star out of five.

 

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  No one ever thought there could be two of these things, let alone six. So, anything's still possible.

What would a movie called THE FIRST SHARKNADO be like?  It is within all our capabilities to watch the first one in the series and find out. And it's in all our best interests to never do that.

 

Previously:  THE LAST MOVIE STAR

Next time:  LAST SEEN ALIVE

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM (2021, Christian Sesma)

 

* 

A father rocks up in a small town looking for his daughter, vengeance on his mind.

Starring  Paul Sloan, Jake Weber, Taryn Manning, Michael Madsen, Richard Dreyfuss

Written by  Chee Keong Cheung, Alistair Cave, Matthew Thomas Edwards, Christian Sesma  

Produced by  Mike Hatton, Michael Walker, Christian Sesma

Duration  82 minutes

 

All right then, so. You've read a lot of movie reviews. I've read a lot of movie reviews. Let's take that as a given.

We can therefore agree that movie reviews have certain conventions. Marks most reviewers seem to want to hit.

And I'm concerned that I'm not doing my reviews properly, because I never tend to hit those marks. Some of them I don't think I've hit even once.

This is the kind of thing that keeps me awake at night. (That and staying up too late watching movies.)

So that's why, for EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM, I'm going to pose what I've identified from my reading of others' reviews as the 10 essential questions a movie review must ask. And damn it, I'm going to bloody well answer all of them.

1. Does it know what kind of movie it wants to be?

It's a stranger-in-a-small-town thing, a man getting embroiled in an isolated place's business. The first thing that tipped me off was when the local head honcho was referred to as "the shogun around these parts" – surely a weak reference to YOJIMBO? And, therefore, LAST MAN STANDING?

It also wants to be a gritty suspense thriller. Emphasis on 'wants'.

2. Is the protagonist likable?

His name is Hunter, Jake Hunter. He's kind of an asshole. 

The movie tries – and fails – to get us on his side by surrounding him with less likable characters, in what is known as the Jeremy Piven tactic. There's a smarmy rich kid lording it up in a strip bar. Assorted thugs and heavies surround him. Corrupt cops come onto the scene. Not forgetting the strippers ... not to judge but, you know – strippers.

I'll tell you who I always thought was likable: Jake Webber, specifically in the brilliant DAWN OF THE DEAD remake. Not in this movie though, sadly. Here he plays the strip-club-loving rich kid's dad, the aforementioned shogun. 

"We don't like strangers in this town," Webber declares early on. Are there really places like that? Wouldn't they welcome the tourist dollars or the fresh blood that would help the town to grow? What happens when people die or move away – will it just be left to the current families to keep the population going? Hmm, probably best not to think about that last one too much.

Anyway, our man Hunter is in these parts hunting for information about his missing teenage daughter. Turns out she was killed by Strip Bar Kid, after he got her into smack. So, that makes Hunter likable, I guess? Concerned parent and everything. 

Wait a sec, concerned parents can be assholes too! He shoots the kid dead in cold blood, despite not having any real proof. I mean, I suppose we can say he's conflicted? A conflicted asshole. Much better ...

3. Is it trying hard to be another movie?

All descriptions of this film say it wishes it was CHINATOWN, owing to its water-control-conspiracy subplot. Kind of in the same way SPIES LIKE US wanted to be TRADING PLACES, or EVOLUTION wanted to be GHOSTBUSTERS, or DAYS OF THUNDER wanted to be TOP GUN. Only with an even wider chasm.

What I'm saying is, EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM is definitely no CHINATOWN. It's not even DAYS OF THUNDER – a movie, as I take any opportunity to point out, once described by Quentin Tarantino as "Sergio Leone with cars". 

4. What is the movie saying politically?

It's a left-wing fantasy about the little guy fighting the system. 

No, wait, it's actually a right-wing fantasy that glorifies an entitled man killing anyone in his path he disagrees with. 

Basically, you can take your pick. Hey, you will anyway, right?

5. Are there any ways this is the movie we need right now?

Only if what you need right now is noise to put on in the background while you do something else, like fold the laundry. And only then if you really can't abide the sound of silence.

6. Is it pretentious?

Richard Dreyfus's grizzled mentor figure is introduced playing chess in a park (apparently against himself). 

Groan. Using chess has to be the number-one cliché in the history of cinema; that and references to THE WIZARD OF OZ. Or in modern times, eulogising Batman and/or Superman.

7. Do any of the featured players have personal reputations that mean we aren't any longer allowed to enjoy their work?

In May 2024, JAWS star Dreyfuss attended a screening of the Spielberg classic at a cinema in Massachusetts. He took to the stage wearing a dress and then went on what a number of media outlets described as a "sexist and transphobic rant". Targets included Barbra Streisand, trans teenagers and the Motion Picture Academy of America's inclusively rules.

Abhorrent, for sure. My question is, will I still be able to watch ANOTHER STAKEOUT, MR HOLLAND'S OPUS, POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE, et al? Or does the veto only count for pictures he starred in from the point of the scandal onwards? Which would make 2021's EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM safe, too. 

I wish someone would clarify the rules. Then I might have had a reason to avoid this movie altogether.

Oh, and the cameoing Michael Madsen (RIP) was no angel, either: drink, drugs, accused of assaulting his wife, arrested for battery.

8. What was the budget and does the film 'do well' for it?

The number is unconfirmed, but it can't have been much. Dreyfuss and Madsen probably received a good chuck for their few minutes of screen time each. Whatever they were paid, it was worth it for giving the movie at least something to catch the eye when it pops up during a streaming scroll. Because certainly nothing else makes it stand out.

9. Is there something that can be said about the contributions of less high-profile members of the crew?

Cinematographer Anthony J Rickert-Epstein manages to keep a consistent washed-out look throughout, like when you dial the 'colour' setting on your TV all the way down.

It's edited by Eric Potter, who seems to specialise in incoherent fight scenes. He goes for a fractured timeline, but fails to make this choice elicit any suspense or narrative drive. He does as least keep the running time mercifully brief.

The production designer is Johnson Cooley, who kits the cast out in a nice variety of bland, muted outfits. Wait, is that what a production designer does? The sets all look cheap, if it means that instead.

The makeup department consists of Britney Daley and Emily Unnasch, and they make sure that ... um ... shiny faces are kept to a minimum?

Meanwhile, art director Russell Jones ... ah, forget it.

I would also like to note that EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM has 32 credited producers. Thirty-two! That's across executive, co-executive, associate, line and just plain old producer, including its four best-known actors. What does this tell us? Buggered if I know.

10. What are the 'missed opportunities'?

You have to think. With all the money you need to make a movie: to secure the sets; employ the cast and crew; transport all the equipment; schedule everything and keep on track; get all the footage you need; lock down an edit. And finally, to get the thing actually released and seen by ... well, at least one person.

You have to think: what an opportunity to make something good. And so, yes, we do have an opportunity missed here. They could have made a much better movie than EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM.

One star out of five.

 

 

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Hunter gets some of them, but certainly not every last one. Of them.

What would a movie called EVERY FIRST ONE OF THEM be like?  A grammatical travesty.

 

Previously:  LAST OF THE GRADS

Next time:  THE LAST HEIST

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

LAST OF THE GRADS (2021, Jay Jenkins, Collin Kliewe)

 

* 

It's the last day of school. And it could also be the last day ... of their lives.

Starring  Jessica Lang, Sara Eklund, Jadon Cal, Jim Fitzpatrick, Ethan Rich

Written by  Jay Jenkins, Collin Kliewe

Produced by  Jay Jenkins, Collin Kliewe, David Prue

Duration   113 minutes

Here's one of those notorious Hollywood stories. Might be true, might be bullshit. The fact that it comes from a famously subversive comedian does make you sceptical; but then again, it could be crazy enough to be true.

So, Bill Murray voices Garfield in GARFIELD: THE MOVIE (2004). It's a career choice he says he regrets during his cameo as himself in ZOMBIELAND (2013).

A year later, The New York Post reported Murray revealing why he chose to lend his vocal talents to the fat orange cat. His reason? He thought he was signing on to star in a movie written by one of the Coen brothers. He only realised he was mistaken after it was too late. You see, it was actually Joel Cohen, with an 'H', who had a hand in GARFIELD's script. The writer of, er, MONSTER MASH: THE MOVIE and MONEY TALKS, not the one who came up with RAISING ARIZONA and BARTON FINK.

All right, so now I'd like you to imagine something. You're a plucky young filmmaker. You have written a screenplay called LAST OF THE GRADS. You want to secure funding to direct it, and you know this will be easier with acting talent attached. You already have popular YouTuber 'Cr1TiKaL' in a small role, so that's the young demographic sorted.

But you want to cover all your bases. It's a competitive marketplace out there, you need someone from the other end of the appeal scale. An older star; Hollywood royalty. Your script is for a throwback slasher ... didn’t Jamie Lee Curtis successfully turn up again in the 2018 HALLOWEEN revival? OK, hiring an older female star doesn't always work, but surely it's worth a try?

Then, you notice the name of one of the actresses auditioning for LAST OF THE GRADS. And it gives you an idea. What about saying that you have cast Jessica Lange? Which would be close to the truth; hopefully close enough to get away with. 

Because instead of the Oscar-winning star of THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE, TOOTISE and CAPE FEAR, you actually have Jessica Lang, who was in, um, LITTLE SISTER, TWISTED REVERIE and DARK ECHOS. But by the time anyone realises, it'll be too late!

This latter story is one that I definitely made up. But it does beg the question of what exactly young Miss Lang, the eventual lead in LAST OF THE GRADS, is trying to pull.

No member of the guilds that represent actors in the UK (Equity) or US (SAG-AFTRA) is allowed to have an identical working name to any other. You may in fact not be aware that there's a Billy Murray out there, most famous for nine years playing DS Don Beech in British cop show The Bill. 

I couldn't find much online about the young lady in question, but surely there are only two possibilities: 

a) she was born Jessica Lang, was permitted to use that name despite the similarity to an existing actress, and she doesn't mind the potential confusion; or 

b) she was christened something else and decided to choose Jessica Lang as her stage name, presumably with the intention of encouraging confusion.

Which one is it? Will we ever know? It's certainly not as clear cut as with someone like James Deen, the porn star who was in that Bret Easton Ellis/Paul Schrader/Lindsay Lohan joint THE CANYONS in 2013.

So it's with this maddening uncertainty left unresolved that we move onto LAST OF THE GRADS. 

Here we have the kind of retro slasher that could have been made 40 years ago. It's of the school-set breed, joining the ranks of BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974), PROM NIGHT (1980), FINAL EXAM (1981), STUDENT BODIES (1981), RETURN TO HORROR HIGH (1987), CUTTING CLASS (1989), CHILD'S PLAY 3 (1991), and so on.

Like many a slasher, it starts with backstory. In this case far too much backstory, and with expositional voiceover to boot. It sets up two outcast teenage boys as a pair of killers. They're like a less-convincing version of those preppy lads from FUNNY GAMES and its remake, in which they're played by Michael Pitt and future BRUTALIST director Brady Corbet.

The boys' cross-country killing spree, reported during the opening credits in fake-looking newscasts, earns them the collective nickname the Coast-to-Coast Killer. But no one knows who they are, or if they even exist and aren't just an urban legend. 

And then finally, we settle in on the final day at a high school, where the youngsters are preparing to graduate. Featuring the usual soap opera stuff: unrequited love; jocks off on football scholarships; promises to stay in touch after summer; yearbooks being signed.

Meanwhile, the local cops suspect that their sleepy town could be the next target for the killers, because ... I didn't quite get that part. But anyway, they of course turn out to be right.

From then on, LAST OF THE GRADS plays out exactly how you'd expect. Are there any surprises? No. Is it derivative, awkwardly acted, tediously scripted, cheesily scored, lacking in suspense and without any decent kills? Yes. 

Do I recommend it?

Let's just say I'm as likely to do that as I am to believe someone could mistake 20-something Jessica Lang for 76-year-old Jessica Lange. Or, for that matter, that an A-list actor would sign on for a talking cat movie believing that it's from the writer of FARGO and THE BIG LEBOWSKI. And then to go on to star in its sequel, too (GARFIELD 2: A TALE OF TWO KITTIES).

One star out of five.

 

 

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Some live, some die. So ... yes, somewhat.

What would a movie called FIRST OF THE GRADS be about?  I guess if they give out the scrolls in alphabetical order, it would be about a bloke called Aaron A Aaronson.

Previously:  THE LAST TIME I COMMITTED SUICIDE

Next time:  EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

I'LL ALWAYS KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER (2006, Sylvain White)

 

* 

Someone learns about something bad that a different someone did 12 months prior.  

Starring  Brooke Nevin, David Paetkau, Torrey DeVitto, Ben Easter, Don Shanks

Written by  Michael D Weiss

Produced by  Neal H Moritz, Erik Feig, Nancy Kirhoffer, Amanda Lewis

Duration  92 minutes   

 

Years ago, I worked with someone who confessed to always reading the last page of a book first.

"Why?" I asked her, incredulous. 

"Because I can't stand the suspense, I have to know how it ends," came the reply.

This struck me as plainly ridiculous. Not that there would have been any point me arguing with her – in the words of Bobby Brown, that was her prerogative. But certainly it's not something I would ever do myself.

(Although I did once watch a fan edit of PULP FICTION where the scenes had been reordered chronologically. It wasn't as good.)

Here's the thing. One of the least-heralded but most-important aspects of writing is structure. I'm not necessarily talking about nonlinear narratives, or MEMENTO-style trickery. More like, in what order does the audience learn things? Are certain events shown or not shown? How long do we linger over particular incidents? Stuff like that.

The writer (or, since this is now film we're talking about, writers plural) must make these decisions. They make them to serve the story and what they want the impact on the viewer to be. They've chosen to arranged things this way, out of the millions of other possible alternatives; that's their prerogative, their right as an artist.

So, messing around with the structure is kind of disrespectful, in my opinion. I wonder if my ex-colleague also used to skip her DVDs ahead to the final chapter? Shudder.

When it comes to a series of films, that's a structure too. You're supposed to go original first, then any sequels. Sure, some people have come up with other orders to watch things, like with the STAR WARS universe, but that's mostly kept to the realms of hardcore geekdom.

I have done it, but not usually by choice. ALIENS and TERMINATOR 2 were both considered to be less intense than their predecessors, so as a youngster I was allowed to watch them years before the originals. And the first HALLOWEEN I saw, round a friend's house, was the controversially Michael Myers-free third one, SEASON OF THE WITCH. And I didn't even realise at the time that it wasn't the first film, so for years I was one of the rare people who didn't associate the franchise with its famous bogeyman.

So, on viewing I'LL ALWAYS KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, I tried to imagine I'd watched this film first. If so, would I have gone back and sought out the earlier ones? And to what extent does this reference those films? The answers are 'no' and 'slavishly', respectively. Or, as you'll see if you read on, I should probably say disrespectfully.

We begin in a carnival, like the start of another slasher threequal, FINAL DESTINATION 3, following the predicable gaggle of teenagers. Soon it's all:

"Have you guys heard of the Fisherman? Every fourth of July he gets out his hat and slicker, he sharpens up his hook and runs wild. But only on teenagers, ones with dirty little secrets."

"So he's like Santa in reverse? He goes after the naughty kids?"

In the slasher tradition of THE BURNING, PROM NIGHT, THE HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW, et al, it's a prank gone wrong that prompts the later killings. Our bland teens want to exploit the Fisherman legend by faking one of their friends receiving death by hook. But it goes wrong and he dies for real, and they make a pact to keep it to themselves.

We jump to next summer and our thinly sketched youths are feeling guilty about their dead buddy, especially lead/final girl Amber. Then everyone starts getting those ominous 'I know' messages, and before you can say 'mind your own business, mate' we get: a succession of kills and near-kills; Fisherman sightings and non-sightings; guilt and defiance. Rinse, repeat.

The cast is populated with unknowns, kids who were at the same auditions as those who made it onto shows like One Tree Hill and The OC, but who had to then watch on jealously as their peers achieved stardom while they instead popped up in things like I'LL ALWAYS KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER.

Clearly, the third entry in this almost-franchise isn't a direct follow up. Parts one and two had the connecting tissue of Jennifer Love Hewitt and were released fewer than 12 months apart. No JLC here, and nearly a decade has passed this time.

But I also can't help wondering: when is a sequel really a remake? Because when you get something like this, where it seems like they just dug out the original script and gave it a rewrite, how can you say it is actually a continuation? Yes, the characters are different and so is the location and some details. But that often happens in remakes, too.  They did add a supernatural element this time – but so what? The fact is, we still have the same basic structure and plot beats.

It's like they took a house, stripped off all the wallpaper and threw out the furniture and then redecorated. Except, they used lazy college kids to do the work and went to the local skip for supplies. And in terms of films that blur the line between sequel and remake, this does the opposite of going from EL MARIACHI to DESPERADO or when Sam Raimi redid THE EVIL DEAD as EVIL DEAD II: lower budget, fewer stars, less imagination, flair and filmmaking confidence.

There is a lot of what used to be called MTV-editing, now sometimes labelled 'Avid farts', an expression credited to online critic Outlaw Vern, Avid being the industry-standard editing software. It's not just cutting often to leave micro-short shot lengths, it's also adding white flashes and 'woosh' sounds to manufacture some excitement. Usually without success.

OK, to be fair, there was one sequence in I'LL ALWAYS KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER that impressed me. Not really the execution, but the concept. One of our teens, the blond not-Ryan Philippe one, is swimming alone at night. The Fisherman turns up, as is standard, and immediately hooks our boy’s ankle while he's trying to splash away. So, it’s like the Fisherman is actually going fishing!

I'd also like to think that the character name 'Amber Williams' is a tribute to the EVIL DEAD series’ Ash Williams, memorably portrayed by Bruce Campbell.

The only thing I can genuinely recommend I'LL ALWAYS KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER for is a drinking game. Do a shot any time someone denies the existence of the killer or you hear the words 'I know'; whenever the edit lets out an Avid fart, down your drink. After about 10 minutes, you won't know who knows what about anything anymore.

One star out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  God, please, please.

What would a movie called I'LL ALWAYS KNOW WHAT YOU DID FIRST SUMMER be about?  I’m sorry, I can’t. I just … I just can’t get my head around it. Sorry.

 

Previously:  THE LAST MOVIE

Next time:  LAST THREE DAYS

 

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

THE LAST FACE (2016, Sean Penn)

 * 

They were two people in love, during a war. The war was brutal. But just as brutal … was their love.

Starring  Charlize Theron, Javier Bardem, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Jean Reno

Written by  Erin Dignam   

Produced by  Bill Gerber, Matt Palmieri, Bill Pohlad

Duration  132 minutes

 

 

THE LAST FACE reminds me of SUPERMAN III. Bear with me a minute.

It would be so easy to get the wrong idea about an actor if you only knew them from one film, and if that role turned out to be atypical.

Imagine if the only Bruce Willis movie you'd ever seen was DEATH BECOMES HER, where he plays a hen-pecked, nerdy plastic surgeon. Or if for Tom Hanks it was as an enforcer for the Irish mafia in ROAD TO PERDITION. Or Cameron Diaz as a mousey spinster in BEING JOHN MALKOVICH. Or what about nice guys playing villains: Albert Brooks in DRIVE, Steve Carrell in FOXCATCHER, Tom Cruise in COLLATERAL or MAGNOLIA, Stanley Tucci in THE LOVELY BONES, Henry Fonda in ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST …

For me, it's Richard Pryor. Watching the Christopher Reeve Superman movies growing up, the one that made the biggest impression on me was the much-maligned SUPERMAN III (although it’s not as maligned as film number four, nuclear disarmament propaganda THE QUEST FOR PEACE). The movie exists for me as a succession of memories: the chemical factory fire, with its bubbling jars of acid and Supes freezing a nearby lake to use for water; the Man of Steel getting drunk and picking a junkyard fight with his physically manifested bespectacled alter ego; the female villain being restrained by wires while a supercomputer builds her into a terrifying, metal-eyed robot lady.

All that, and also Richard Pryor. Bumbling, wisecracking, downtrodden, seduced by bad influences for a taste of success – but actually a harmless goof. Pryor had played this type on screen before and would again, but only after first having burned himself into the public’s consciousness as a no-holds-barred stand-up comedian. The family-friendly comedies and collaborations with Gene Wilder only came later, and for most people those were a departure from the edginess they had come to know. But pre-teenage me had no idea about Pryor being a brilliant deliverer of hilarious and profanity-leaden monologues about contemporary America.

Now, as evidenced by the list above, a casting aberration is often when someone who is usually virtuous becomes a baddie, or the usually glamorous plays dowdy. And there is, of course, a tradition of comedians segueing into dramatic roles. Robin Williams is a good example, going back and forth throughout his career. But while the ultimately feelgood GOOD WILL HUNTING or AWAKENINGS or WHAT DREAMS MAY COME are one thing, if all you’d seen is ONE HOUR PHOTO (stalker) or INSOMNIA (murderer) or AUGUST RUSH (child exploiter) or DEAD AGAIN (disgraced psychiatrist) or DEATH TO SMOOCHY (alcoholic children’s entertainer), you’d have a far different impression of the former Mork from Ork – despite the fact that clearly he always wanted to stretch himself with a range of roles.

All of this brings us to the director of THE LAST FACE. Sean Penn has to be the most humourless person to ever get his break playing a comedic role; or indeed to have ever given such an inaccurate first impression of how his career would end up. Penn's first major part was as archetypal stoner Jeff Spicoli in FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH: long blond hair, “woah, dude!” surfer talk, Vans trainers, hilarious stunts like ordering pizza to the classroom – basically, nothing like the Penn we would come to know and … um, to know. And sure enough, only one year later he was headlining uncompromising juvie flick BAD BOYS, forging a career path of dourness and self-seriousness (his cameo in Friends notwithstanding).

Now, with THE LAST FACE, we aren't dealing with Penn the actor; I know that. But his natural sensibility transfers to his work behind the camera – and that is entirely evident in this, his fifth feature and surely his worst (for the record, I really liked the one before this, INTO THE WILD).

No one can claim that Penn doesn't have good intentions. He certainly wanted to highlight some serious issues, judging by the opening salvo (white text over an outline of Africa, in a graphic style that bizarrely recalls the opening of ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK):

 

Ten years apart, the Liberian civil war of 2003 and the ongoing conflict with South Sudan today share a singular brutality of corrupted innocence.

Heavy. OK, but then straight after we get this, which turns out to be a grim portent of the quality of movie coming up:

 

A corruption of innocence only known to the West by any remotely common degree ... through the brutality of an impossible love ... shared by a man ... and a woman ...

Um, what?

Then we're into a cosy domestic scene of our impossibly gorgeous stars, Charlize Theron and Javier Bardem, whispering sweet nothings to each other in soft-focus close ups. So, I guess this is the love between the man and the woman that is going to be both brutal and impossible, to the extent that it is the only way that Westerners such as us (and them – although Charlize is actually South African) can 'know' a pair of years-apart but comparable African wars?

It's pretty confusing, and kind of an odd premise for an ostensibly sincere project. And pretty tasteless, too, right? Wouldn't it have been better to highlight the plight of the Liberians and Sudanese by, you know, focusing on the actual people from those countries?

And as we follow this allegorical love story over 132 tedious minutes, as Charlize lobbies stuffy men in stuffy rooms and Javier plunges arm deep into bloody corpses in hospital tents, the awkwardness of the movie's conceit never lets us go.

It's there in the predictable, sub-romcom ups and downs of their relationship. It's there in the cheesy dialogue, overblown speeches and forced emotion. It's there in the marginalising of talented co-stars like Jean Reno, Adèle Exarchopoulos and Jared Harris. And it's definitely there in the swelling Hans Zimmer score, one of his rare paint-by-numbers jobs that lets no melodramatic moment pass by without mining it for maximum melodrama.

THE LAST FACE got booed at its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. You hear that now and then about a movie, and usually it turns out to be not so bad in the end.

This isn't one of those occasions.

Come back, Jeff Spicoli, all is forgiven! Double pepperoni all round!

One star out of five.

 

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  I have no idea what this movie’s title means. The last face you see before you die? Is it Javier's? Charlize's? ... Sean Penn's?!

What would a movie called THE FIRST FACE be about?  “In the early 11th century, Ibn al-Haytham's Maqala fi al-Binkam described a mechanical water clock that, for the first time in history, accurately measures time in hours and minutes. To represent the hours and minutes, Ibn al-Haytham invented ... a clock face.” I want to see that as a movie, History Wiki!

Previously:  THE LAST MAN

Next time:  THE LAST CASTLE

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

THE LAST MAN (2019, Rodrigo H Vila)

 

* 

It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel … like it’s yet another post-apocalypse movie, this time with a lot of brooding, murky visuals and Hayden Christensen.

Starring  Hayden Christensen, Harvey Keitel, Marco Leonardi, Liz Solari, Justin Kelly, Rafael Spregelburd

Written by  Rodrigo H Vila, Gustavo Lencina   

Produced by  Gustavo Lencina, Rodrigo H Vila

Duration  100 minutes   

 

(Ring ring, ring ring)

 

“Hello?”

 

“Hi, um, is that Mr Keitel?”

 

“No, Mr Keitel is my father.”

 

“Oh … um, but …”

 

“And also me. I’m just teasing you, son.”

 

“Right …”

 

“What can I do for you?”

 

“Sorry to call so late … it’s Hayden.”

 

“I’m sorry … who?”

 

“Hayden Christensen.”

 

“From the contractor? Ah, I’m glad you called, son. I needed to talk to you about windows. Now, my wife, she thinks we should be getting the oak frames, but me, well …”

 

“No, sorry, I’m not calling about your, uh, about your windows.”

 

“Oh, I apologise. So, who did you say you were?”

 

“Christensen, Hayden Christensen.”

 

“Hmm.”

 

“From the STAR WARS prequels?”

 

“Oh, you were the little kid, in that space race?”

 

“No, that was Jake Lloyd. Look, Mr Keitel–”

 

“Harvey.”

 

“Harvey, I’m Hayden Christensen. We’re gonna be in this movie together, THE LAST MAN?”

 

“Oh, right! Now I remember. And son, I was right the first time.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Well, I’m only doing that movie so I can get us a sunroom in the Malibu place. Or a solarium, whatever you call it. So, in a way, you were calling me about that.”

 

“... Right.”

 

“So, what’s on your mind, Hayden? Young Padawan?”

 

“Well, Mr … Harvey. It’s just that … I’m having second thoughts about the movie.”

 

“Oh? Can’t your agent negotiate a better fee?”

 

“No, it’s not the money … although … no, that’s the thing. I’m not doing it just for the money.”

 

“Of course you’re not. You’re young.”

 

“Well, I’m 37 now …”

 

“Really? Jeez, those STAR WARS movies were a while ago now, huh?”

 

“Tell me about it.”

 

“So, OK, you’re relatively young. You still have a career ahead of you.”

 

“Well …”

 

“But me, I’ve been doing this for 50 years! I don’t have to care about what the actual movie is. If I decide – or, more usually, the old lady decides – that it’s time for a new conservatory, then so long as they pay me enough to cover the costs, you better believe that I’m getting that conservatory.”

 

“OK, but it’s different for me.”

 

“Of course it is, Hayden. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

 

“So, what I really wanted to know was–”

 

“You wanted to know if I think that you should do this film.”

 

“Yes! If you don’t mind.”

 

“You’d like some advice from someone who’s been around the block once or twice.”

 

“Exactly.”

 

“Or three or four times.”

 

“Right.”

 

“Hmm. Well, what is it that’s giving you doubts, son?”

 

“OK. Well, look. You’ve read the script, right?”

 

“Why in the hell would I do that?”

“Right, OK, sorry. Um, but you do know that it’s kind of a grim, dystopian, vaguely futuristic type deal?”

 

“I had a vague inkling.”

“I start off with a beard, losing my mind, in a hellhole. Flashbacks to a war where I'm a soldier.”

“Mmm …”

“I have a lot of voiceover exposition at the start ... it's set in a world the sounds like Blade Runner but on a ten-dollar budget. I describe it as being ‘the end of the world’.”

“OK …”

“I get the shit kicked out of me by a skinhead gang in the rain about 10 pages in. Then, at 15 pages, I hold a gun to my head but can't pull the trigger.”

“Right …”

“I can't really work out what happened in the backstory in my narration: the economy collapses, millions dead, I think there was some kind of ecological disaster? Then you show up on TV, talking about ‘a storm coming’, but I can't work out of if you're speaking about an actual storm or if it's just a metaphor.”

“Oh, that’s right. Like you, I have a beard in this one. So, I'm going to play the character as a spiritual successor to Jacob in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, where I also had a beard. Except my beard is going to be longer this time.”

“Right. Um, so I also meet some creepy kid, or he may just be a manifestation of my own insanity or my guilt or something like that. Then about 25 pages in I decide I need some money for ... something, so I get a job. It's not clear what this job entails, but I'm interviewed in an office by a man in a suit. Then after about 30 pages, an old army buddy of mine turns up at my apartment, and I at first pull out a gun on him not trusting that he's real, but then he does seem to be ... Harvey, I hate to admit it, but I’m completely lost with this script! There's just so little cohesion between scenes. Nothing makes any sense.”

"OK, let's pull things back a little. Do you get to do anything heroic?"

“Well, I turn the tables on the skinheads after about 40 pages, grabbing one of their guns and shooting them.”

"Anything else?"

“I kind of just skim-read it after that. I think I have an affair with my new boss's daughter, and towards the end I'm locked up in a cell, not sure why ... there's a kind of Mexican standoff at the climax, me with a shotgun facing down two other guys with handguns.”

"Like me at the end of RESERVOIR DOGS! ... Except, no shotguns."

“I guess …”

“Hmm.”

“So … what do you think?”

“Hayden, son?”

“Yes, Harvey?”

“I have four rules for my career. Or at least I did, you know, when I was your age.”

“OK …”

“Would you like me to tell you them?”

“Yes please.”

“The first one is, find a high-class director and stick to him like glue. Now, I did five films with Marty Scorsese and yes, he ended up making Bobby D his go-to guy instead. Which is fine, I’m over it now. But I knew Marty was good, and he knew how to use me. Now, you had the right idea with George Lucas …”

“I thought so at the time …”

“But we’re talking about a man who obviously does not like to direct motion pictures. So, find yourself a new guy who's a bit more prolific.”

“OK.”

“Next rule: Show your vulnerable side. You’ve seen BAD LIEUTENANT? The scene in the church? Or when I’m cradling Tim Roth at the end of DOGS? Or my scene alone with Jodie Foster in TAXI DRIVER? Or basically any time I’m on screen in THE PIANO?”

“Yes! All brilliant work, Harvey.”

“Aw, thanks. The point is, kid, you can be the tough guy, but if you wanna win ‘em round, you gotta make ‘em cry.”

“Got it.”

“The third rule is, you can’t just be vulnerable on the inside. You gotta show what you’re worth underneath, behind all the bullshit we protect ourselves with.”

“Wait, are you talking about–”

“Yes, Hayden. You gotta go nude. You gotta let ‘em see Little Hayden.”

“Um …”

“I have appeared naked in seven motion pictures. Can Bobby DeNiro say that? Can Pacino say that? Did Marlon or Nicholson or Paul Newman ever do that? I don’t think so!”

“I see.”

“One final rule, kid.”

“Hit me, Harvey.”

“Cops. You gotta play cops.”

“OK.”

“COPKILLER, MORTAL THOUGHTS, THELMA & LOUISE, BAD LIEUTENANT, RISING SUN, THE YOUNG AMERICANS, CLOCKERS, COP LAND, RED DRAGON, NATIONAL TREASURE and its sequel … and those are just the ones I can remember.”

“Wow.”

“You betcha. So: latch onto a hot director, be vulnerable, give your johnson some air, and hold a badge. Nothing to it.”

“Got it. Thanks for the advice, Harvey.”

“No problem kid. See you on set – and hey, would it be OK if I showed you a few catalogues between setups? Because, I gotta tell you, oak frames are OK, but I'm leaning towards mahogany, or maybe pine. Or even accoya, whatever the hell that is ..."

“Sure, Harvey. It'd be my pleasure.”

“Thanks, kid. See ya.”

“Bye.”

(Click)

 

One star out of five.

 

 

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Who the fuck knows.

What would a movie called THE FIRST MAN be about?  In 2016, if his wife had won the election, that would have been Bill Clinton.

 

Previously:  THE LAST TREE

Next time:  THE LAST FACE

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com