LAST SURVIVORS (2021, Drew Mylrea)

 

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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 Martin Freeman (Bilbo Baggins in THE HOBBIT) and Marc Warren (WANTED, GREEN STREET). 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 (like, 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.

Alicia Silverstone has suffered a similar fate in her career – worse, in fact. And not from a TV role, but from a breakout movie: playing teen socialite Cher 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 she did BATMAN AND ROBIN, in 1997. A movie disaster-zone that derailed not only her career, but, to a higher or lesser degree, those of co-stars George Clooney, Chris O’Donnell, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Uma Thurman and Elle Macpherson, as well as director Joel Schumacher and the character of Batman 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 the MAD MAX sequels). 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 of ages-old IP, 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've 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 those ‘outsiders’ were nothing but callous murderers who need to be killed before they get their chance to do the same. 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 ain'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 again, 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 (possibly owing to a lack of opportunities and 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)

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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

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

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 think about 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, 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 2013. 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. She 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 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 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