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 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

THE LAST HEIST (2016, Mike Mendez)

 

* * 

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

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 deep in the ocean: 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 TV: 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 watching. 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 much 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, from 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?

 

Previously:  EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM

Next time:  THE LAST MOVIE STAR 

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 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 and all of that scene. 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 yet found 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, that was 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 a man killing anyone in his path he feels entitled to. 

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, being accused of assaulting his wife and 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 to be said about the contribution of random crew members?

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, too, 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 SURVIVORS (2021, Drew Mylrea)

 

* * 

A man and his son's isolated existence deep in some snowy woods is threatened when the boy becomes curious about the outside world.   

Starring  Stephen Moyer, Drew Van Acker, Alicia Silverstone

Written by  Josh Janowicz   

Produced by  Shaun Sanghani, Sunil Perkash, Akaash Yadav, Michael Jefferson   

Duration  98 minutes   

You know when you see an actor who's new to you and they make such an impression that you always associate them with that performance? That’s how I feel about Stephen Moyer.

You see, back in 2001, I stumbled upon him in a two-part TV miniseries on Channel 4 called Men Only. The show caught my attention because the five friends at its centre all supported my beloved Crystal Palace Football Club. Moyer played a real sleazy bastard, who enjoyed taking clandestine photos of women during sex using an attachment on his Game Boy Color (!) And it’s been a struggle for me to picture Moyer as anything other than a misogynistic date-raper ever since.

I’m well aware that the vast majority of people have never even heard of this obscure acting credit, especially outside of the UK, even though it also starred Marc Warren (WANTED, GREEN STREET) and Martin Freeman (THE HOBBIT, some Marvel stuff). But many more viewers will be familiar with him from another TV show, True Blood. I tried watching that one and couldn't get into it, but for a lot of people out there, they won’t be able to see Moyer pop up in something without picturing him in some kind of sexy vampire blood-letting scenario.

This must be why until recent years (before The Sopranos) movie stars shunned TV: you don’t want to get tied down to one character, to the point that no one can accept you playing anything else.

Moyer's LAST SURVIVORS co-star Alicia Silverstone, meanwhile, has suffered a similar fate in her career – worse, in fact. And not from a TV role, but from a breakout movie: playing a teen socialite in CLUELESS (1995).

Back then, Silverstone probably thought her career was going well and that there was no way she would end up being known only for one role – and then in 1997 she did BATMAN AND ROBIN. A movie disaster-zone that derailed not only her career, but, to a higher or lesser degree, those of co-stars Chris O’Donnell, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Uma Thurman and Elle Macpherson, as well as director Joel Schumacher and the character of Batman itself on the silver screen.

Anyway, LAST SURVIVORS sees Moyer and Silverstone in the same project and trying yet again to embed a different memory of themselves in the viewer’s mind. They're co-starring in a ... oh joy, it’s another post-apocalyptic movie.

You can see why this type of flick appeals to the budget filmmaker. You don’t need a big cast; in fact, you can get away with having just a handful of characters moping about the place (unless you’re trying to do something like MAD MAX). You can get away with being extremely vague about what happened pre-apocalypse, so you don’t even have to properly think your scenario through. And settings can be places that it’s easy to hire outside of business hours and which you can readily make look in a vague state of abandon: schools or offices or even private homes – they just need to be left a little untidy to give the impression of being neglected for however long you want to imply. The more isolated the locations are, the better.

LAST SURVIVORS ticks every one of those boxes. It also demonstrates another tired trope with its opening music: a dreary, almost nursery rhyme-style ballad, like when they take a well-known song and slow it down and draw out its familiar melody for a trailer; or, if it’s a legacy sequel or new adaptation, doing the same to that franchise’s well-known theme song (see: INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY, JURASSIC WORLD, SUPER MARIO BROS. THE MOVIE, etc).

And I wish LAST SURVIVORS got better from that first impression, but, alas ...

We open on a young man, outside in a snowy wilderness gathering animals from traps. He lives with his old man (Moyer) and it’s just the two of them in a rundown cabin, lighting fires, hunting, surviving. Bantering competitively about who can cut down the most trees in one day – hey, with no internet or PlayStation 5, you gotta amuse yourself somehow.

They got guns. Don’t you worry about that – and not just for huntin’, neither. A few shots from afar while they’re bringing home the wood send Dad hurtling out to investigate, with an order for sonny to "shoot in the face" anyone who approaches their home.

Dad pops a wannabe intruder out in their yard, with son expressing his frustration about getting sentry duty rather than being allowed to pump a few rounds into something bigger than the usual rabbits and pheasants.

But uncertainty has started to curdle in the youngster’s mind. The man his dad shot grabs him and splutters, "Tell my daughter I love her." Yet his old man told him that all the ‘outsiders’ are nothing but callous murderers who need to be killed before they get their chance to kill them. And then, when sonny is forced to venture further afield to get some antibiotics for his sick pa, he encounters the matronly Silverstone – whose kindliness puts into doubt everything that he had been led to believe, and sets him on a path to realising that maybe his dad hasn't been totally truthful about what’s really beyond the woods.

So basically, what we have here is that someone saw M Night Shyamalan’s THE VILLAGE and said, "Let’s do that, but on a smaller scale and with colder weather!"

Moyer and Silverstone are both fine. He certainly isn’t any kind of sexual predator this time (no doubt owing to a diminished libido from near-starvation); she doesn't wear any designer gear or ever say "Like, totally, whatever."

But sadly, this forgettable film is unlikely to change how people perceive either actor. Or, to be honest, have any kind impact at all.

Two stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Not to spoil the twist for anyone who hasn’t seen THE VILLAGE, but … no.

What would a movie called THE FIRST SURVIVORS be about?  Once you know that twist, that opposite title would work for this film equally well.

Previously:  LAST FLAG FLYING

Next time:  THE LAST PHOTOGRAPH

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

THE LAST SEDUCTION (1994, John Dahl)

 * * * * 

She’s a woman in a man’s world – and in his pants, and in his wallet. Whatever it takes to get her hands on nearly a million dollars.

Starring  Linda Fiorentino, Peter Berg, Bill Pullman, JT Walsh, Bill Nunn

Written by  Steve Barancik

Produced by  Jonathan Shestack   

Duration  110 minutes   

Bill Pullman had terrible luck onscreen with women in the ’90s. SOMMERSBY, MALICE, SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE – he doesn’t get the girl in any of them. As if people getting him mixed up with Bill Paxton all the time wasn’t bad enough! Even though that's plainly preposterous (unlike Dermott Mulroney and Dylan McDermott or Kim Coates and Elias Koteas; now, those I can understand.)

THE LAST SEDUCTION was part of Pullman’s luckless streak of cinematic romance, but it isn’t actually his movie. His character's merely one of the men spun into the web weaved by his wife Bridget (Linda Fiorentino), in his case when she pinches the $700,000 he made selling pharmaceutical cocaine and does a runner from their New York apartment. 

Unlike the Pullman/Paxton phenomenon, Fiorentino definitely wasn't getting mistaken for anyone else. With LAST SEDUCTION, she carved a distinct place on the list of classic femme fatales, among Ava Gardner in THE KILLERS, Barbara Stanwyck in DOUBLE INDEMNITY, Sharon Stone in BASIC INSTINCT and Kathleen Turner in BODY HEAT – although come to think of it, Fiorentino does sound a bit like the throaty-voiced Turner.

But her Bridget is a true one-off, a whip-smart and resourceful force of nature who gets what she wants, always looks out for number one, and makes sure she has a damn good time along the way.

Peter Berg – just before veering from acting to directing with VERY BAD THINGS, followed by a succession of tepid Mark Wahlberg projects – plays the needy feminine role here. He's Mike, a local from the small town in which our heroine hides out while the heat dies down back in NYC. At first Mike's just a fuck buddy, but Bridget quickly pegs him as more useful as a patsy for a new scheme she’s brewing up.

It's sometimes said that movies need to have sympathetic characters in order to work. Do they bollocks! It’s asinine to criticise a picture for expecting you to side with someone less than angelic; a bland lament trotted out by people unable to process that you can relate to a flawed person while not approving of their behaviour.

In LAST SEDUCTION, Bridget lies, steals, blackmails, curses like Jack Nicholson in THE LAST DETAIL, uses people, has zero empathy ... and we want her to succeed. Why? Because she’s determined and resourceful, she’s quick-witted and smart and she doesn’t take shit from anyone. Most of us are meek and listless in our everyday lives; we respect someone who ruthlessly pursues their goals, even if we don’t like what those goals are.

And hey, guess what – it’s fiction we’re talking about here! Newsflash: we all have less than pure impulses and the realm of fantasy is a harmless place to indulge them, whether that’s just in our own minds or during a couple of hours spent watching a movie. Better like that than actually acting on them.

THE LAST SEDUCTION does still hedge its bets, but rather cleverly. Pullman's character impulsively hits Bridget in the opening scene, framing all her subsequent betrayals as stemming from domestic abuse. So in the viewer’s eyes, not to mention her own, she's the wronged one and spends the movie fighting back. Plus it helps that Pullman forgoes his usual nice guy routine to play the kind of sleazebag Tom Sizemore would have been proud of.

Fiorentino is formidable as Bridget, who remains pleasingly unrepentant until the bitter end. Director John Dahl (KILL ME AGAIN, RED ROCK WEST) adds another solid neo-noir to his resume, and we all get to enjoy some time on the wrong side of the tracks, before crossing safely back over to our straight-arrow lives, where we all live like flawless saints.

And for the record, Bill Pullman has been happily married since 1987, has three children, and did in fact get a happy romantic ending in 1995's WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING. So, there's hope for all of us. 

Four stars out of five.

 

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  As Bridget drives away scot-free at the end, it seems highly doubtful that she won’t be using her powers of seduction again on the next hapless male who either gets in the way of what she wants or who can be manipulated into helping her acquire it.

What would a movie called THE FIRST SEDUCTION be about?  Maybe it’s about time we had a Bridget Gregory origin story?

 

Previously:  THE LAST DETAIL

Next time:  THE LAST SUPPER

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LAST PASSENGER (2013, Omid Nooshin)

 

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These commuters have more than leaves on the line to worry about – the train’s out of control, the driver’s uncontactable and they’re not slowing down.

Starring  Dougray Scott, Kara Tointon, Iddo Goldberg, David Schofield, Lindsay Duncan

Written by  Omid Nooshin, Andrew Love, Kas Graham

Produced by  Ado Yoshizaki Cassuto, Zack Winfield 

Duration  93 minutes 

I don’t think about LAST PASSENGER star Dougray Scott very often. When I do, it’s usually on one of two occasions. 

One is that TWIN TOWN is on TV, where he plays a Glasgow Rangers top-wearing total bastard corrupt cop, who clashes with Rhys Ifans (in his breakout role) and his brother.

The other occasion that prompts me to ponder Dougray Scott is when there is mention of famous casting decisions that never were. Tom Selleck as Indiana Jones. Nicolas Cage as Superman. Sean Connery as Gandalf. All of those meant that the actor missed out on increased fame or a huge payday, or both.

But none are as notorious as Dougray Scott's near-miss: Wolverine. 

He had the role in 2000's X-MEN movie, but reshoots on MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 2 meant that he couldn’t commit. Talk about life-changing – just compare his and Hugh Jackman’s career trajectories from that point onwards.

And so here we are 13 years later, with Dougray finding himself starring in little-known but pretty decent low-budget British thriller LAST PASSENGER. (For context, in 2013 Hugh was about to make his seventh appearance as the retractable-clawed superhero.)

The first thing one notices when watching this movie is that the locomotive looks well out of date for the mid-2010s. I’ve long suspected that there's a decommissioned fleet of last generation London trains (and buses) that are kept in a depot somewhere for filmmakers to use. I mean, the ones here still have doors you can open between stations and windows that go all the way down! Those went out in the late ’80s, around the time that seat belts in cars became mandatory.

Anyway, Scott is on one such train this particular evening heading out of the capital (to Glasgow? Would be a long trip, but he is using his native accent), with his seven-year-old son in tow. My initial expectation that the anachronistic train was due to the story being set 30 years ago was dashed when he gets a call on his mobile: he has ‘Deck the Halls’ as his ringtone, so we must be approaching Christmas. The numerous piss-heads jumping about on the seats implied as much, but then again that could be any night on a British train journey. And the script shoehorns into his phone conversation that Scott’s character is a doctor, so you know someone’s going to need medical attention down the line.

Kara Tointon, at that point not long off soap opera Eastenders, is the flirtatious young woman he meets in his carriage. Tointon has an appealing presence and could easily occupy the place Lily James currently holds in our lives, or play her sister or something. Anyway, Scott starts to notice suspicious things, both inside and outside the train, and she’s the only one who believes him. Soon, they realise they’re among only half a dozen passengers left – and they might not be making it to their final destination. Let’s just say that those fully operational doors and windows are going to be needed as the remaining passengers explore the speeding train inside and out, trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

The first thing that comes to mind when one thinks ‘train-set thriller’ is THE LADY VANISHES (1938). That’s not only one of the great confided-space suspense yarns, but one of Hitchcock’s very best from his post-sound, still-British period. We’re not expecting that, of course, but LAST PASSENGER is still a solid little flick. 

And while it also can’t compete with existential masterpiece RUNAWAY TRAIN (1985) or the original THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE (1974), it’s definitely better than weak slasher TERROR TRAIN (1980) or the overrated pair of SNOWPIERCER (2013) and BULLET TRAIN (2022) – the latter of which being one of the worst films I have seen in a very long time.

I’d put LAST PASSENGER on par with Steven Seagal’s UNDER SIEGE 2: DARK TERRITORY (1995) and South Korean zombie horror TRAIN TO BUSAN (2016). In other words:

Three stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  As I said in the review, Scott teams up with a handful of other misfits and it’s no spoiler to say that they don’t all die. So, pluralising here would have been more accurate.

What would a movie called FIRST PASSENGER be about?  Someone who got up extremely early to catch the train, just so they can get their favourite window seat.

Previously:  THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST

Next time:  THE LAST HARD MEN

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com