LAST SEEN ALIVE (2022, Brian Goodman)

 

* * 

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 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), 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, I 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 about how recently they watched 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

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

THE LAST HEIST (2016, Mike Mendez)

 

* * 

Some criminals try to take money that isn't theirs from a bank.

Starring  Henry Rollins, Torrance Coombs, Victoria Pratt

Written by  Guy Stevenson

Produced by  Rick Benattar, Nigel Thomas

Duration  84 minutes

 

 

I must confess, I'd never heard of THE LAST HEIST. Wait, neither had you? Well, that's all right then!

So of course, the first thing I did was look the movie up on IMDb. And I found exactly one item of interest. There was a spate of movies with the same or similar names released within a six-year period. THE LAST HEIST itself in 2016 was followed by ONE LAST LAST HEIST in 2019 (not a sequel) and then THE LAST HEIST in 2022 (not a remake).

Does a few heist movies coming out around the same time constitute a trend? Sure, why not! And if so, what's to stop me now listing some other movie trends from years gone by – you know, ones that people actually noticed? 

All right then, here we go:

– Bleak and violent depictions of the Vietnam War: PLATOON (1986), FULL METAL JACKET, HAMBURGER HILL (both 1987).

– Underwater thrillers where explorers discover strange new creatures: THE ABYSS, DEEPSTAR SIX, LEVIATHAN (all 1989).

– Disaster films about volcanic eruptions: DANTE'S PEAK, VOLCANO (both 1997)

– Disaster films about an asteroid hurtling toward Earth: DEEP IMPACT, ARMAGEDDON (both 1998).

– Films in which a person or person's lives are broadcast on television: THE TRUMAN SHOW, PLEASANTVILLE (both 1998), EDTV (1999).

– Science fiction films questioning what is real or an illusion: THE MATRIX, THE THIRTEENTH FLOOR, EXISTENZ (all 1999).

– Modern-day Shakespeare adaptations featuring Julia Stiles: 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU (1999), HAMLET (2000), O (2001).

– Science fiction adventure films about Mars: MISSION TO MARS, RED PLANET (both 2000), GHOSTS OF MARS (2001).

– Romantic comedies about friends who start a casual sexual relationship and end up falling in love: NO STRINGS ATTACHED, FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS (both 2011).

– Films about American nuns in Rome who are pregnant with the antichrist: THE FIRST OMEN, IMMACULATE (both 2024).

Plus let's not forget Gene Hackman's bizarre late-career choices.

Honestly though, the trend THE LAST HEIST fits into isn't really bank robbery movies. It's movies you find on streaming that you can't imagine people will watch. Which is a pretty big trend, and not one likely to end any time soon.

Seriously, why would anyone put this movie on? If you had the urge to see criminals breaking into places, why would you choose THE LAST HEIST ahead of the numerous better alternatives? OCEAN'S ELEVEN, KILLING ZOE, INSIDE MAN, DOG DAY AFTERNOON, POINT BREAK, THE LAST DAYS OF AMERICAN CRIME ... actually, scrap that last one.

Maybe you would watch it to give yourself a new drinking game, one that revolves around spotting action movie clichés? I'm not going to attempt to list all THE LAST HEIST's crimes against originality, but here's a representative example: "You can't shoot me, you've got the safety on!" I'm sure you know the trope, but more details and some other guilty films can be found here.

Maybe you love hearing unimaginative dialogue? Such as: 

– "It’s showtime!" 

– "Did you get the stuff?"

– And this tried-and-tested exchange: "Fuck you!" "Fuck me? No, fuck you!"

Or perhaps unrealistic character choices are more your speed? My favourite: cop has a gun on someone from a safe distance, but elects to unnecessarily approach them, allowing himself to be disarmed and shot with his own weapon. 

Maybe you want to see THE LAST HEIST because it's a case study in how modern digital effects allow low-budget action films to both be more ambitious and look a lot cheaper? The guns here are never actually fired: flame bursts and rat-a-tat noises are added in post-production. Handguns never cycle their rounds; smoke and ejected shell casings are CGI.

Or could it be you'd watch this movie for Henry Rollins? I'd never heard of the man, but the copy surrounding the movie presents him as some sort of name. He seems to be channelling the creepy calm of Christian Bale's Patrick Bateman in AMERICAN PSYCHO, pinstripe suit and everything. Except that he looks like a nerdy bespectacled stockbroker, rather than the buffed-up alpha bro type. His performance is definitely a highlight.

And here's where I must give THE LAST HEIST some credit for putting at least one original spin on the bank robbery formula. Rollins plays a hostage who is really a serial killer and who breaks loose to roam the bank's back offices, picking off the robbers and becoming as big an adversary to them as the cops outside. So, kind of if John McClane had ended up being a psycho.

You know, come to think of it, it's funny how DIE HARD isn't considered a heist flick. And in fact, as THE LAST HEIST trundles along, it ends up owing quite a debt to that action classic.

Stop me if you've heard any of this before:

– The robbers are after bearer bonds. 

– There's one good cop on the outside, who sees through the thieves' plan.

– Later, macho specialists turn up and claim jurisdiction, with a strategy that pays no regard to civilian casualties.

– There's a name gag to rival "Agents Johnson and Johnson ... no relation", with characters called Smith and Jones. 

– It's even set in Los Angeles, though it probably wasn't filmed there.

Anyway, THE LAST HEIST earns its extra star for Rollins and for at least attempting to do something new within a deeply worn formula. And also for the curveball ending where it lets the bad guy win.

Oh, sorry – spoiler for a film you've never heard of and are never going to watch.

Two stars out of five.

 

 

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  There will be other heists, but none carried out by this crew.

What would a movie called THE FIRST HEIST be like?  OCEAN'S ONE? Robbing the church collection?

 

Previously:  EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM

Next time:  THE LAST MOVIE STAR 

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

UNDISPUTED 2: LAST MAN STANDING (2006, Isaac Florentine)

* * * 

A professional boxer and former felon thinks he's done fighting in illegal prison tournaments. The Russian mob has other ideas.

Starring  Michael Jai White, Scott Adkins, Ben Cross, Eli Danker, Mark Ivanir, Ken Lerner

Written by  James Townsend, David N White   

Produced by  Boaz Davidson, David Varod, Danny Dimbort   

Duration  94 minutes   

 

When it comes to action movies, I have a secret shame. A shame that causes me no little anguish.

Some background. Growing up, it was all Arnie. COMMANDO, THE TERMINATOR(s), PREDATOR, TOTAL RECALL. And to a lesser extent, LAST ACTION HERO and THE RUNNING MAN. Although not RAW DEAL, never that one. (Does anyone out there like RAW DEAL?)

Later, I started to warm up to Stallone, as well: FIRST BLOOD, TANGO & CASH, DEMOLITION MAN and (especially) CLIFFHANGER. And I would come to respect that he also writes and directs.

Between those two titans, there was always a smattering of Willis, Van-Damme, Lundgren and Seagal in between.

But as the 1990s drew to a close, so did the box office dominance of these muscle men. I consider FACE/OFF (1997) to be the last great 'classic' studio action picture. BLADE made a solid impression a year later, but showed worrying signs of ushering in the superhero apocalypse that was to come. Then the most overrated movie of the 20th Century, THE MATRIX, hit big in 1999, ensuring that nerds' fantasies of breaking free from drudgery to wear costumes and wield special powers would dominate action cinema for the coming decades.

So, the age of the R-rated/18-certificate action movie was over. I gritted my teeth as the appeal grew broader, CGI started to dominate, and the mayhem got watered down. Adapting from source material for people who still need their books to have pictures became the norm. A little part of me died; I mourned by keeping my physical media collection close by.

This is the source of my shame. That I gave up. That I rolled over like a cowardly henchman in the final stretch, when he realises he that he has no chance against the hero.

And yet, it wasn't over. Not really. Like a tournament in a JCVD movie, the action scene merely went underground. It just carried on in the direct-to-video market, which is still flourishing today. (The term 'DTV' endures, even if we've long moved past going direct to video or even DVD and into the age of streaming.)

The budgets went down. The aging stars adjusted. New icons emerged. The quality may be patchy, but no more than it ever was.

Diving into the DTV action pool is well overdue for me – although, in my defense, I did recently check out the rightly lauded latter-day UNIVERSAL SOLDIER sequels, REGENERATION and DAY OF RECKONING. 

And handily, the players involved with UNDISPUTED 2: LAST MAN STANDING happen to make it a pretty good DTV action primer. For starters, director Isaac Florentine (NINJA, ACTS OF VENGEANCE) is one of the sub-genre's leading helmers. Star Michael Jai White (SPAWN, EXIT WOUNDS), meanwhile, is a charismatic leading man – and if you've never seen his hilarious blaxploitation spoof BLACK DYNAMITE, please do. 

But as well as those two, UNDISPUTED 2 features Birmingham-born Scott Adkins (ACCIDENT MAN, CLOSE RANGE). He's the poster boy of DTV action, as well as occasionally dipping his lethal toe into Hollywood's waters: THE EXPENDABLES 2, ZERO DARK THIRTY, JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4.

So, watching UNDISPUTED 2: LAST MAN STANDING, then. First thing to note is that it's not to be confused with this movie. The director of that, Walter Hill, actually helmed the first UNDISPUTED, as well as middling Arnie vehicle RED HEAT. Do try to keep up at the back.

Anyway, Michael Jai White plays George Chambers, a boxer who, as played by Ving Rhames in UNDISPUTED 1, won a prison boxing tournament and was then released. We catch up with him as he's trying to get his professional punching people career back on track. Currently, he's touring Russia, while doing a Bill Murray in LOST IN TRANSLATION on the side: hawking booze in cheesy commercials.

This film is set in a world in which the mega-rich elite watch privately televised mixed martial arts fights between hardened cons, broadcast straight from the prison and run by the Russian mob. Currently, this pseudo-sport is dominated by Atkins' character. He enters the ring like a celebrity: hood up, the crowd chanting his name: "Boyka! Boyka! Boyka!" There may as well be entry music.

Since Boyka tends to obliterate any mug foolish enough to touch gloves with him, no one is bothering to bet anymore. The mob's solution? Frame former champ and Mike Tyson-substitute Chambers for cocaine trafficking and throw him in the same slammer, putting him on a collision course with the mighty Boyka.

Look, I'm going to be honest. Boxing has never done much for me. Mostly over in a couple of rounds, primarily two fighters grappling up close and rarely landing any blows. And yet it's surrounded by immense hype, the fighters slag each other off in the press, etc.

MMA, however, I think I could get into. All I've seen of it comes from the movies, but it seems a lot more dynamic: spinning kicks, throws, exotic combos. And that's certainly what we get here. Florentine shoots the bouts with intensity, keeping both fighters in frame most of the time, giving a good sense of where they are in relation to each other. But also going in tight for some brutal close-ups and sprinkling a little slo-mo here and there. Plenty of blood flying out, bones breaking. Lovely.

UNDISPUTED 2 is not only an unlikely sequel – the Hill-directed original hardly set the world alight – but it also birthed a further two instalments. Both of which featuring Boyka as the hero

That Adkins, I'm telling ya. The hardest man to ever come out of the Midlands. Our beloved action genre is in good, sweaty, blood-caked hands. Long may it continue, and shame be damned. Everybody: "Boyka! Boyka! Boyka!"

Three stars out of five.

 

 

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  If you lose one of these fights, you are not the one who remains vertical. So, yeah, I'd say so.

What would FIRST MAN STANDING be like?  A tournament film focusing on a fan who is always the first to get off his feet and start applauding during the fights.

 

Previously:  THE LAST KISS

Next time:  THE LAST BUS

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

LAST THREE DAYS (2020, Brian Ulrich)

* * 

A rookie narcotics cop inadvertently starts jumping back and forth through time.

Starring  Robert Palmer Watkins, Thomas Wilson Brown, Deborah Lee Smith, Roy Huang

Written by  Brian Ulrich

Produced by  Brian Ulrich, Julianna Ulrich, Jonathan M Black

Duration  86 minutes

 

 

I've tried to avoid doing these reviews in a predicable, bog-standard 'and then this happens, and then that happens' style. But for LAST THREE DAYS, I'm going to do exactly that, for better or for worse. 

Let's see how we get on!

Monday, 22st, a title card tells us. We're in a house, it looks like a crime has taken place. Empty beer bottles, furniture knocked over. Expended shell casings, a discarded handgun. Jack, a police officer and our protagonist, is there, and his colleagues soon burst in and pull their guns on him. Uh-oh; what have you done, Jack? He pleads innocence, but whatever has gone down here, the evidence against the young cop is pretty damning.

Then it's seven years ago. College-student Jack is in shorts, sitting underneath a tree, study books open. Then a pretty girl turns up and tells him that this is her favourite study spot. Jack agrees to let her sit there if he can take her out to dinner. She tells him she's writing an essay on the nature of time and memories; the audience is invited to believe that this is relevant to her nursing degree, not just clumsy foreshadowing. Jack, meanwhile, is majoring in criminal law and aspires to be a top detective.

They walk and talk and flirt. He gets her name and number. She's Beth. We montage through their relationship. Soon they're married, moving in together, now indeed working as police officer and nurse.

Then it's seven years later again, this time Wednesday, 17th. Beth comes home from her nursing job to an exposition-rich noticeboard, where she's marked that it's been 'Five days without Jack', and also that it's soon going to be their fifth wedding anniversary.

Then we’re with Jack and his veteran partner, Dave, busting into a drug dealer's house. "Sometimes in life we're given second chances," Jack informs the perp while cuffing him. "What we do with them … is up to us." Philosopher as well as lawman is our Jack.

Meanwhile, Beth is still waiting for Jack to come home. Instead, he goes to play cards with his cop buddies in a bar. They talk about local gang warfare, specifically the Japanese 'Yakus'. (Is ‘Yakuza’ a trademark or something? Or did the filmmakers want to avoid upsetting a real/real dangerous group?). Jack gets a call from the missus, wondering if he is ever coming home. He argues that as the newest member of the team he needs to socialise with his colleagues to build trust.

Beth hangs up. She is working late too, getting relationship advice from an older colleague, who insists that Jack does still love her.

Then it's the next day, Thursday, 18th. Jack assures Beth via text that he will be home tonight. Later, he and Dave meet up with a young Japanese woman to try and find out about the Yakus' next move. 

Davey Boy is a bit too cavalier for Jack: he boasts about not caring about doing a bust without a warrant or breaking any other rules, if it means they gets a result. But Jack nevertheless assures his increasingly dodgy-seeming partner that he does have his back. So, he agrees to go out for yet another drink after work – neglecting poor Beth for the umpteenth time, leaving her alone dressed in her best sexy outfit and nursing (no pun intended) a cold steak dinner. Jack didn't even realise that it's their anniversary today! 

And when he comes home drunk and accuses her of not respecting him, she accuses him of turning into his father, which he’s mentioned is his worst nightmare. So, Jack storms out again and catches up with Dave and the others in a strip bar. You can now mark 'strip bar' off from your cop movie clichés bingo card.

Next morning, Jack wakes up hungover in his own house, but alone: no Beth. And it turns out that rather than being Friday morning like it should be, it's actually Monday, 22nd! So just what the hell has happened to the LAST THREE DAYS?

He goes to Dave's house and finds it dishevelled; in fact, we're now back at the setup from the start of the movie. Jack's own gun is in the vicinity, as is a sexy photo Beth gave him of herself way back in the day. And when he plays Dave's answerphone messages, he hears Beth saying that she's left Jack and that she loves Dave! WTF?

Then a masked man bursts in and tries to shoot Jack, who shoots back. Before he can see if he's tagged him, Jack finds Dave’s bloodied corpse in the bathroom. When Jack's other cop pals turn up, it doesn't look good for our poor rookie. He legs it out the house but, in his haste, doesn't look both ways and is hit by a car.

Then Jack wakes in a dumpster, with no gun and a busted phone. But now when he checks the date on his watch it turns out that it's Sunday, 21st!

Jack happens upon (I guess?) some members of the Yaku and kidnaps one, getting out of him that they killed Dave and have framed Jack. And as for Beth, her whereabouts and whether that "I've left you for Dave" message was genuine? Jack still doesn't know!

After tussling with the Yakus, Jack races home and finds a "I still love you Jack, happy anniversary!" note from Beth. So, determined to piece together what the fuck is going on, Jack pulls down that exposition-tool whiteboard they have in their kitchen and starts doodling on it, lines and names and arrows, with dates and times. It’s a little like that scene with Doc Brown and the blackboard in BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II.

Then Jack wakes up again and it's Saturday now (the 20th – do try to keep up) and Dave is still alive. And Jack's getting into a car with Dave and asking him what's going on, when did he last see Beth? But Dave quickly moves the conversation onto work, specifically the against-protocol methods he wants to use to bust the Yakus.

Those include meeting their female informant (at least I think that’s what she was) with her Yaku pals in a warehouse. Soon, the female big boss Yaku emerges from the shadows. She doesn't trust Dave and at gunpoint forces him to admit that they're cops. (So, I guess they were undercover this whole time?) Then there's a shootout. The informant (?) girl is shot and the two cops run away. Then another shootout, on the pavement this time. Dave is hit, so gives Jack some incriminating evidence he has about the Yakus and tells him to take off. Then the Yakus call Dave "a real piece of shit" and shoot him dead.

Presently, Jack finds a payphone and tries calling Beth but can't get through. So, nursing a Yuka-administered gunshot wound, he goes to the hospital where she works. He doesn't find her, but, after collapsing due to blood loss, he is treated by Beth's nurse friend. The friend tells him that he had an unknown narcotic in his bloodstream – it's 'reaper', the new designer drug that the Yakus are dealing. Could they have slipped Jack some and that's what has been altering his perception of time?

We finally see where Beth is: staying with her dad. Jack rushes to her, but he's not in time to stop her getting kidnapped (pick up that bingo marker again) – and we see the Yaku forcing her at gunpoint to leave that cryptic answerphone message about leaving Jack and loving Dave.

Then it's the morning of Friday, the 19th. Alone again, Jack wakes up in bed and tries to call Beth – no answer! All seems lost. Jack meets Dave and tells him that he's off the case: "I've got a wife, man. It's time I started thinking about her." But Dave threatens him: turns out he's ultimately working for the Yakus, so wants to make sure Jack does what he's told, otherwise Dave will order his Yaku pals to hurt Beth. It's been/is/was/will be Dave who setting Jack up, all along! Damn, some partner!

The two of them tussle in a parking garage and Jack eventually gets the upper hand. He then has just 15 minutes to race to rescue Beth before she's due to be grabbed by one of Dave's/the Yaku's goons. He makes it, but she rejects his attempts at reconciliation.

But, no, wait a minute – in the movie’s final moments she kisses him in their kitchen as the sun sets through the window. These kids are gonna be all right, folks.

Phew, we made it! Blimey, that was hard work. Don't think I'll be doing that again any time soon.

Oh, and the film is OK, if a bit incoherent. Nothing amazing, but not one-star bad.

Two stars out of five.

 

 

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Actually one of the more accurate uses I’ve come across. Although if I were to be pedantic, I'd say they should have gone for 'the previous'.

What would a movie called FIRST THREE DAYS be like?  In terms of cop movies, sounds like it would be a longer version of TRAINING DAY. A movie to which this one has been compared, to the extent that anyone but me has actually bothered writing about LAST THREE DAYS.

 

Previously:  I’LL ALWAYS KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER

Next time:  THE LAST KISS

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

THE LAST CASTLE (2001, Rod Lurie)

 

* * * 

In a tough military prison, one inmate leads a rebellion against the corrupt warden. 

Starring  Robert Redford, James Gandolfini, Mark Ruffalo, Clifton Collins Jr, Delroy Lindo 

Written by  David Scarpa, Graham Yost 

Produced by  Robert Lawrence 

Duration  132 minutes

Separating art from the artist. Some people really struggle with it. Since I think that a rational, intelligent person, one who can tell fantasy from reality, should have no problem, I try my best. 

I'll still watch a Woody Allen movie (well, I haven't bothered with most of the newer ones; I'm talking about his mid-70s to mid-90s peak). As an example from a different medium, I remember how when I was at school, many people said they hated Oasis because they couldn’t stand the Gallagher brothers; personally, I wasn't dwelling on their personalities when I was belting along to 'Live Forever' or 'Supersonic'.

But I do struggle sometimes. Specifically, with two actors. One is Kevin Spacey; that's a strange one for me, though. Rather than boycotting the movies he's in, I actually find that his reputation now enhances his performances, since most of his characters are unsavoury and/or predatory types anyway (heartfelt attempts like PLAY IT FORWARD were never going to work, let's face it.)

The other actor is Robert Redford. I was always a little suspicious of his golden boy looks and megawatt smile, exacerbated in INDECENT PROPOSAL, where he plays an all-time sleazeball with a billionaire's arrogant lack of accountability.

But it was reading Peter Biskind's Down and Dirty Pictures that left me never being able to look at Redford the same way again. 

The book is pretty much the '90s version of Biskind's more famous Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, which was about the '70s movie brats (Scorsese, Friedkin, De Palma, Spielberg, etc). Pictures covers the independent movie scene of the late 20th Century. Included are Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith, Steven Soderbergh, Paul Thomas Anderson, David O Russell ... and, rather regrettably, Miramax, AKA the Weinstein brothers. 

And it has many chapters on the Sundance Film Festival, founded by one Charles Robert Redford Jr. Biskind portrays Redford as unreliable and full of himself; woefully under-committed to his own institution, forever breaking promises and failing to turn up. Now, the author does admit to having a vendetta against Redford, for reasons that remain vague, and the actor/director doesn't seem to have this reputation anywhere else. Yet the description stuck with me, and I haven't been able to view Butch Cassidy's pal in the same light since.

Redford is a charisma actor: more charm than talent. And that can work; hell, it usually does, that's kind of the point. But not all viewers can be won over. I have a friend, for instance, who doesn't like George Clooney, finding him smarmy and smug. And while I can see his point, my own heart melted 30 years ago watching salt and pepper-haired Dr Doug Ross every Thursday night on ER, and he's had a hold on me ever since.

Redford's THE LAST CASTLE co-star James Gandolfini was another charisma actor, albeit also a supremely talented performer overall. Here, however, he plays your archetypal sadistic warden. (More on Gandolfini in a minute.)

Yes, this is a prison movie – a military prison movie, but I don't think that makes much of a difference. As such, the first thing the viewer does is compare the film to modern titan of the genre THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION. And it starts similarly, with new prisoners arriving and the current inmates (including a young Mark Ruffalo) placing bets on who won't last the first night. But it soon takes its own path.

Redford's character, one of those newbies, is spoken about in revered, awed tones before he even appears onscreen. He's a highly decorated general, who turns up to this prison (nicknamed 'the castle') in full uniform and medals, although he's down to his vest after checking into his cell – still looking good at 65, Bob!

Adapting to life inside, General Redford mostly keeps himself to himself. He just wants to quietly do his time while absorbing people telling him things like "you are a great man, you've done so much for your country!" and "my father said you kept him alive in Hanoi!" Sometimes, he breaks things up by delivering inspirational speeches, most notably to a stammering Clifton Collins Jr. 

(If it's ever revealed what this saint among men did to end up behind bars, I missed it. Something about disobeying a direct order, I think. Was probably one of those morally murky ones.)

Warden Gandolfini, meanwhile, keeps himself amused with stunts like confiscating the inmates' basketballs and gleefully watching the resultant brawl from a window in his ivory tower. He lets the fighting go on until he gets bored, and then tells the guards to shoot some prisoners at random.

And Redford's soon running afoul of the warden's tyranny, when the prison boss decides to knock Mr War Hero down a peg or two. He's punished for standing up for the other prisoners and forced to arbitrarily carry heavy rocks from one side of the yard to the other. For this, we upgrade from vest to a shirtless Redford, curly ginger chest hair and all. 

Next, he starts persuading these thieves and murderers and whatever else to rebuild a broken wall, as a symbolic act of loyalty and companionship. And from there, it's a battle of wits to the end, with Redford deciding that it's going to be him who runs this penal establishment, not the onetime Tony Soprano. By the end, the former is leading a full-on prison escape/battle which, as per the whole 'castle' motif, resembles the final stretch of ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES, with Gandolfini even eyeing up a ceremonial sword he has in his office as a potential weapon.

I also wanted to mention Delroy Lindo, who turns up as Redford's ex-colleague and advocate. Only because a) Lindo was such a beloved staple of '90s cinema (THE HARD WAY, CONGO, GET SHORTY [also with Gandolfini], BROKEN ARROW, RANSOM, A LIFE LESS ORDINARY, etc); and b) while ostensibly from the USA, he actually spent his early childhood in the London borough of Lewisham, like me. Respect due.

As for THE LAST CASTLE itself ... it's fine. Redford won't annoy most people and, to be fair, he's likable enough here. Biskind was probably wrong ... probably. It's not among the greatest prison movies (SHAWSHANK, ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ, that part in FACE/OFF) and is a little too rah-rah flag-waving for this non-American. I mean, the Goddamn climax is a bullet-ridden Redford hoisting up the stars and stripes, with the flag then filling the screen as the movie fades to black over triumphant music.

But if you like stories about men behind bars overcoming adversity, then it'll do fine. Plus at one point Ruffalo pilots a helicopter and destroys a guard tower with its tail rotor. That's something Morgan Freeman's crusty lifer Red never got to do, at least.

Three stars out of five.

Additional: Another point in Redford's favour is his 1980 directorial debut, ORDINARY PEOPLE, which I happened to watch recently. What a great movie! It definitely takes the title of most forgotten '80s Best Picture winner away from THE LAST EMPEROR. Only, you know, undeservedly forgotten in this case.

Valid use of the word ‘last’? I guess it’s supposed to be some kind of metaphor for changing times, or maybe the overcoming the ‘last castle’ in all of us? 

What would a movie called THE FIRST CASTLE be about?  An hilarious and charming coming of age story about two young brothers who both enter a sandcastle building competition. 

Previously:  THE LAST FACE

Next time:  THE LAST JOURNEY

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com