THE LAST STARFIGHTER (1984, Nick Castle)

 

* * * 

A teenager is so good at videogaming that aliens snap him up to fight in an interstellar war for real.

Starring  Lance Guest, Dan O'Herlihy, Robert Preston, Catherine Mary Stewart

Written by  Jonathan R Betuel

Produced by  Gary Adelson, Edward O Denault

Duration  101 minutes

INT. LORIMAR PRODUCTIONS, HOLLYWOOD, CA. - MID ‘80S

FADE IN on a HUGE MOUNTAIN, not unlike the Paramount logo.

PULL OUT to reveal that it is actually a HUGE PILE OF COCAINE, stacked up on a LONG DESK in a CORPORATE BOARDROOM.

We take in more of the boardroom and the several MOVIE EXECUTIVES who are buzzing around in an animated state of BRAINSTORMING. The walls are covered in POST-IT NOTES and the EXECUTIVES are GESTICULATING WILDLY at each other.

One of them, clearly the BOSS, CRASHES DOWN face-first into the coke and begins SNORTING IT LIKE AN OPEN HATCH ON A SPACE SHIP, while we tune into a nearby conversation.

 

EXECUTIVE #1
(excitedly)

I’ve got it! I’ve got it!

 

EXECUTIVE #2

What? What?

 

The BOSS looks up from his SCARFACE-STYLE MOUNTAIN OF POWDER to take in their exchange. The white mask on his face makes it look like he is participating in a DRUG-FUELLED REVERSE MINSTRAL SHOW.

EXECUTIVE #1

Okay, so you’ve got Arnold Schwarzenegger, right? He’s big, right?

 

EXECUTIVE #2

Big. Yeah?

 

EXECUTIVE #1

Right, okay, and so then you’ve got Danny Devito. He’s, he’s--

 

BOSS
(getting it)

Small...

EXECUTIVE #1

Yes! Small! They couldn’t be any different, but what if, what if-- guys, you’ve gotta hear this-- what if--

 

EXECUTIVE #3
(interrupting)

No good.

 

EXECUTIVE #1

What?

 

EXECUTIVE #3

My buddy is Ivan Reitman’s assistant. His people are already working on a treatment, I think it’s called 'Condom Full of Walnuts Meets Testicle with Arms'. Arnold and Danny as brothers. 

(beat)

I told my buddy they’re gonna need to work on that title.

 

SILENCE. Apart from the sound of ENORMOUS LINES OF COCAINE being snorted.

BOSS
(getting an idea)

Guys...

 

His colleagues all TURN TO HIM in TWITCHY ANTICIPATION.

 

BOSS (CONT'D)

I’ve got it. Kids like video games, right?

 

EXECUTIVE #2

Yeah...

 

BOSS

What’s better than just playing a video game?

 

No one knows. Many stand around RUBBING THEIR GUMS, as if expecting to find the answer there.

 

BOSS

Being a real hero in your own video game!

GASPS around the room. Everyone starts to rack up an EXTRA CHUNKY LINE. Everyone except EXECUTIVE #1.

 

EXECUTIVE #1
(timidly)

But, but boss ... didn’t Disney already do that? TROM or something--

 

BOSS

You’re fired!

(pushes an intercom)

Marlene, get me Universal.

(thinks a beat)

And Pablo Escobar!

FADE TO BLACK

Allow me to indulge in some nostalgia for a moment.

No, not for THE LAST STARFIGHTER. I’m certain I watched it as an adolescent but couldn’t remember much – just something about an arcade machine in a motorway service-station (actually turns out it was a trailer park), some kind of proto-X-WING game that our lead was so good at, he somehow got recruited to fight actual aliens. Other than that, I wasn't sure which memories were of this film and which were of everyone’s favourite Fred Savage-starring Super Mario Bros. 3 commercial, THE WIZARD.

My nostalgia is instead for a time when arcade machines were everywhere. If you popped out with your Dad to get fish and chips on a Friday night, there would be a Streetfighter 2 or Final Fight cabinet you could have a go on while the bloke behind the counter was still scooping out the chunky chips to join your battered saveloy. Cinema foyers had them, too; I have vivid memories of darting out of the queue for ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES at the ABC Catford to give the 3D Pac-Mania a go.

But as the ’90s wore on, bit by bit the coin-operated game in the corner disappeared. Some suffered the indignity of being replaced by a fruit machine, which was no substitute, let me tell you.

THE LAST STARFIGHTER takes us back to that glorious time when the arcade machine was still king. 

The film booms into life with a space backdrop and a musical score that is the exact median between STAR WARS and SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE, over credits that come at you like FLASH GORDON. You certainly can’t accuse this thing of not setting its stall out early.

Our hero is Alex Rogan, who pines to escape his small town existence, where his reliability as a handyman around the trailer park means that he can't get away to spend Saturday with his pickup-driving pals and love interest – old Mrs Elvira’s dodgy pipework isn’t going to fix itself!

Now, Lance Guest was 24 at the time of filming, playing a character who is supposed to be a teenager. As with every time this happens, the most the filmmakers can do to sustain the illusion of youth is to keep poor Lance completely clean-shaven at all times. They must have had to put a razor to him between every take to prevent even one tell-tale hair poking through, removing trash bags full of empty shaving foam cans from the set each day. It’s surely only a matter of time before we see a class action lawsuit filed by Guest, Richard Grieco (TEEN AGENT), Alan Ruck (FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF), Billy Warlock (SOCIETY) and the rest against movie studios for historic abuse, claiming debilitating skin conditions caused by years of stubble rash.

Anyway, Alex saunters off to relieve his frustrations by yanking furiously on his joystick. But today won't be like any of the other times he's stood prone in front of a screen with his brow furrowed and sweat seeping out of his pores. "Nine-hundred thousand – you're gonna bust the record!" exclaims the toothless old cleaner who likes to watch Alex when he's playing with himself.

This prompts the entire community to evacuate their trailers and gather around one man (I mean, boy) and his Starfighter arcade cabinet. The bleeps and blips are joined by whoops and cheers until the entire spectacle climaxes with the machine announcing that Alex is indeed a "record breaker".

But the trailer park folk aren’t the only ones to witness Alex be the best of the best at aiming long pixilated lines at moving pixilated shapes on a black background. Later that night, a humanoid alien in a flying DeLorean (five years before BACK TO THE FUTURE PART 2!) turns up and tells Alex that the game was really a recruitment tool and that Alex is "the best we’ve ever seen".

From then on, it’s basically what A NEW HOPE would have been like if the third act had taken up 80% of the movie. Back in 1984, with no new STAR WARS on the horizon after RETURN OF THE JEDI closed off the trilogy the previous summer, this would have been catnip for those desperately jonesing for more battles in space.

Viewed today, it's a palatable slice of cheese-on-toast from an era when a kid could still dream of immortality being just a 20p coin away.

Three stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  It’s kind of unclear as to how Alex is the last of those who fight among the stars, since he meets a shitload of others from a bunch of different planets. 

What would a movie called THE FIRST STARFIGHTER be about?  Arguably, it's STAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACE – since that whole saga is set ‘a long time ago’, they presumably made it into space before the rest of us.

Previously:  THE LAST SEVEN

Next time:  THE LAST THING HE WANTED

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

THE LAST SEVEN (2010, Imran Naqvi)

 

* 

A man wakes up alone in a deserted London where he and six others appear to be the only ones left alive.

Starring  Tamer Hassan, Simon Phillips, Ronan Vibert, Daisy Head, Danny Dyer

Written by  John Stanley   

Produced by  Simon Phillips, Toby Meredith   

Duration  84 minutes   

   

 

Well, that was a disappointment. Multiple, in fact.

Here are my top seven disappointing things about THE LAST SEVEN.

Disappointment #1: Not enough Danny Dyer.

For a while back there Danny Dyer was kind of a star, in the UK at least. He’s now firmly entrenched in the acting retirement of misery soap Eastenders, but at one point he must have had grander ambitions.

Curiously, there doesn't appear to have been any attempt to break America. Surely the idea crossed his mind. Was he just irredeemably bad at the accent? Did he flat-out refuse to soften up and do a romcom, or be a comedy sidekick, or a gay best friend? Or was the concept of ‘geezer’ not meaning someone over 65 simply unfathomable to Hollywood casting directors?

Something I’ve always disputed is Dyer’s reputation for ‘hard man’ roles. Does it come from all those buried-on-streaming or end-of-the-supermarket-aisle DVD efforts – films that have had zero impact on the cultural landscape? It must do, because here is the evidence from his best-known titles:

 – HUMAN TRAFFIC: Caught by his mum wanking in his bedroom during a phone sex call = not a hard man.

– MEAN MACHINE: Mild mannered and timid on the football pitch, despite being in prison = not a hard man.

– THE FOOTBALL FACTORY: Spends the whole film worried about getting his head kicked in; eventually does get his head kicked in = not a hard man.

– THE BUSINESS: Lets frequent collaborator Tamer Hassan (see below) and weaselly Geoff Bell push him around for an hour and a half = not a hard man.

– OUTLAW: Looks unspeakably awkward when required to wield a pump-action shotgun = not a hard man.

– STRAIGHTHEADS: Has sex with Gillian Anderson (plus) but then fails to protect her from getting brutally raped (minus) = not a hard man.

– SEVERANCE: Survives a work retreat in the Hungarian countryside that turns into a life or death struggle against sadistic poachers, but only by numbing himself to the ordeal by quaffing magic mushrooms = not a hard man.

In THE LAST SEVEN, Dyer plays ‘The Angel of Death’: a mysterious, bloodied and blindfolded figure who keeps popping up on the periphery to try to inject tension and urgency.

And, criminally, apart from some opening and closing voiceover, where his Bow-Bells lilt is distinctly toned down, he never speaks. Boo.

Disappointment #2: Not enough Danny Dyer and Tamer Hassan together.

If Dyer could have been the geezer De Niro, then Tamer Hassan was his Joe Pesci – with, of course, Nick Love as their Scorsese.

After the abovementioned Love pair of FACTORY and BUSINESS, Danny and Tamer also cameoed together in spoof THE HOOLIGAN FACTORY, as well as both essaying DEAD MAN RUNNING, FREERUNNER and CITY RATS.

That means THE LAST SEVEN ties them with the number of projects Bob D and Joe P did together on (funnily enough) seven. Except, much like Pesci’s quickie appearances in A BRONX TALE, THE GOOD SHEPHERD and ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, they aren’t screen partners this time.

Disappointment #3: Missed opportunity with London locations.

The movie opens 28 DAYS LATER-style with a man waking up in an empty London. And of course he’s right in the centre, somewhere between Bank tube station and Fenchurch Street, by the looks of it. Now, okay, fine, that’s fair enough for starters, you have to give the people what they expect.

But why not show some lesser-photographed parts of London in your movie, just for a change? Would it kill you to travel south a little and dolly up Brixton high street? Pan away from the Catford cat statue at a Dutch angle? Give us a crane shot of the Ladywell water tower?

Disappointment #4: Nothing happens for ages.

I mean, okay, you’ve managed to get the entire Square Mile deserted to film in, presumably on a Sunday morning, with the coming-down ravers kept at bay by a production assistant just out of shot.

But why drag the opening out for nearly 20 minutes, especially when the entire film is only 84? That's nearly a quarter of the running time! And especially when it's not even an original opening, having already been done by a much better film 10 years earlier (as well as in Atlanta for the pilot of The Walking Dead).

Disappointment #5: When more characters are finally introduced, still nothing much happens.

Tamer plays a military man (with a machine gun and everything) and there’s also a posh politician type and a young woman.

After lots of wandering about between skyscrapers, speculating about the desertedness and why no one can remember anything, the young woman says, ‘We have to go somewhere, we have to do something!’

I wasn’t sure whether she was pleading with another character or the director.

Disappointment #6: It’s all backstory.

As the number of survivors reaches the anticipated amount, intermittent flashbacks gradually (and I do mean gradually) reveal what went down before the world turned to shit.

But it would have been better to structure the story so that what the characters are doing now was more compelling than what went on before. 

Better acting, characters we care about and tolerable dialogue would have helped, too.

Disappointment #7: There’s a guy in it who looks a bit like Alan Rickman (Ronan Vibert), but he’s not Alan Rickman.

And although the much-missed thespian was still with us in 2011, let's be honest: he wouldn’t have touched a tepid project like THE LAST SEVEN with a ten-foot pole.

And neither should you.

One star out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  The whole convoluted plot curdles into something completely baffling by the end, so your guess is as good as mine.

What would a movie called THE FIRST SEVEN be about?  How about profiling the top seven number sevens in Premier League history? Ooh, let’s see. I’d say... Cantona, Beckham, Pires, Le Tissier, Ronaldo, Luis Suarez and Son Heung-min. And as a plus, that would definitely be something Danny and Tamer could settle down on the sofa with a case of lager and happily watch together.

Previously:  LAST HOLIDAY

Next time:  THE LAST STARFIGHTER

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

LAST HOLIDAY (2006, Wayne Wang)

 

* * 

A department store assistant is diagnosed with a rare brain condition and only has weeks to live, so she takes off on a luxury holiday to Europe.

Starring  Queen Latifah, LL Cool J, Timothy Hutton, Gérard Depardieu, Alicia Witt, Giancarlo Esposito 

Written by  Jeffrey Price, Peter S Seaman   

Produced by  Laurence Mark, Jack Rapke   

Duration  112 minutes   

   

Dear Mom,

Greetings from sunny Hollywood! Yes, I made it here in one piece! Sorry for not writing sooner, but I wanted to be able to put a return address – the Studio City YMCA just wasn’t gonna cut it!

But now I’m sitting here writing to you on my own desk (second hand) in my own room, in my own apartment! Well, I got the living room anyway, the sofa bed. It’s a one-bedroom, see, and I’m rooming with this British guy I met in the Y, who also wants to be a screenwriter. He’s got the bedroom, I got the living room, but don’t worry ma, he pays more of the rent.

And you’ll be pleased to hear that this letter isn’t the only thing I’m writing. Yes, I’ve started working on my first screenplay!

Okay, so here it goes. It’s about this woman, like an everywoman – like ‘everyman’, but a lady! She’s kind of like… not a loser, exactly, but definitely not happy. She buys her food with a big pile of coupons, her only social activity is singing in the church choir, she lives in a rundown neighbourhood near a bridge (alone, of course), with a shitty car that barely runs.

And, you know, she works in a department store in a real crappy job and her boss is a total jerk – like, his cell phone rings and he actually answers it in front of her, and all he cares about is money, whereas she wants to make the customers happy, that kind of thing. So yeah, like, overall, she’s real good natured and everybody loves her and all of that.

And those food coupons, they’re not just some random detail, Mom! You see, what she really wants to be is a chef. When she gets home every day, she watches TV cooking shows, and prepares all the food along with the TV chef. And she takes photos of the dishes she cooks and puts them in a scrapbook. It’s like a dream book for her, her aspiration book or something. Maybe that’s what I’ll call it in the screenplay!

But for sure she definitely also has this other book called ‘Possibilities’, where she’s cut and pasted the head of a guy she’s in love with onto photos next to herself. He’s her dream man, and he’s also her colleague! No, Mom, I know what you’re thinking. It’s not going to be creepy. It’s going to be real sweet and charming! 

Anyways, so here’s where it gets real interesting. This is the best part. Now, I gotta admit up front, I didn’t exactly come up with this idea totally from my own little mind. My roomie, he was reading this book named Last Holiday, by this old English writer who goes by JB Priestley. And Mom, I didn’t actually read the book or anything (you know me!), but I did read the back of it. And I don’t know anything about getting rights or permission or whatever, but I’ll worry about that later – this is the kind of idea that is too good to ignore.

You see, I was looking for a way to set the woman in my movie free, but how? What would make it so she can burst out of her funk and finally make the most of her life?

Well, this is it, here goes: she finds out she only has three weeks to live!

Isn’t that genius? Isn’t that original?

So she marches into her boss’s office and not only does she quit, she grabs his cell phone and smashes it on the floor! Wham! ‘That was a $200 phone!” he yells. I might even put the dialogue in capital letters so that the actor knows to really yell it loudly!

So what next? Well, she decides she’s gonna live her dream of being a chef in, now get this Mom, tell me this is not totally awesome: Europe! Can you believe that?

Now, when I told this to my British roomie, he said something really weird. He said that Europe is not, like, just this one place that’s kinda all of the same. He claims it’s actually a continent full of many different countries, all with unique cultures and that we Americans should stop lumping an entire continent together like we do. He said that was totally ignorant! 

Well, boo to him. This is gonna be an American movie for Americans. And in this American movie, my American leading lady goes to Europe and does European things with all those quirky, cute little European people. And snooty, right? Those Europeans are kinda snooty, everyone knows that. Of course, we'll make her spend most of the movie with other Americans who are on vacation or whatever, because we can't have too many Europeans around, that would be crazy.

I guess she can fly to France? In first class, of course. France is in Europe, right? That’s the one with Paris, I'm pretty sure. I think I heard once that they have, like, a lot of food in France. So that could be where she goes to learn how to cook. I'm not sure yet. Hey, remember that movie GREEN CARD, where they had that guy who was French (or was he English?) who had to pretend to be married to Andie MacDowell to stay in the US of A? Imagine if they ended up casting him as a celebrity chef who trains her! That would be super sweet.

Heck, maybe I just won’t even say which one of those cute little European countries she’s gone to, what difference does it make? That way, we can have all kinds of accents and languages and whatever all together, to be extra quirky and hilarious.

So anyways, you know, she goes to this European spa hotel place, and flies a helicopter, and goes skiing, and base-jumping, and has a PRETTY WOMAN-style shopping montage in a fancy department store, and does a load of other kinds of awesome things (all in a super-cute and quirky European style).

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Three weeks to live? Major downer! But no, Mom, and this is where you’re gonna see how spending all that money to send me to UCLA was totally worth it. Because, okay, get this: it turns out she actually isn’t about to die! Maybe the brain scanning machine or whatever was actually broken! Or maybe the doctor made a mistake, like he looked at her chart upside down or something! I’ll probably have to make him European, too, or at least some kind of foreigner, if he's gonna be one of these real quirky, campy, useless doctors.

So that’s gonna mean I can write an awesome happy ending, where she’s had the time of her life, and realised that life is all worth living after all, and got her man, and opened her own restaurant, all of that. The audience is gonna walk out of theatres with a smile as wide as the Hollywood sign!

Right, gotta go. Just thinking about this awesome screenplay makes me wanna get back to it! Say hi to little Billy-Joe and Susie-Anne for me.

Love to Dad,

Your son

P.S. I'm planning to write you again, certainly for a second or third time.

Two stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Since she is not, in fact, about to die, it would be extremely unlikely for her to never go on another holiday.

What would a movie called FIRST HOLIDAY be about?  Personally, I spent a lot of my youth in the Yorkshire coastal towns of Scarborough and Bridlington (both in Europe, for the record).

Previously:  X-MEN: THE LAST STAND

Next time:  THE LAST SEVEN

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

X-MEN: THE LAST STAND (2006, Brett Ratner)

 

* * 

Three groups squabble over a cure for mutation: the X-Men, other mutants who are bad and so not part of the X-Men, and some nefarious non-mutants (AKA humans).

Starring  Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Anna Paquin, Kelsey Grammar

Written by  Simon Kinberg, Zak Penn

Produced by  Lauren Shuler Donner, Ralph Winter, Avi Arad

Duration  104 minutes

Quiz time! What do these films all have in common:

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN, ANT-MAN AND THE WASP, STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN, ALI G INDAHOUSE, TOY STORY 2, TOY STORY 3 and X-MEN: THE LAST STAND?

Answer: they all start with a ‘fake-action prologue’, where we’re supposed to believe that our characters are in peril, but it turns out they were safe all along. This is not to be confused with beginning the movie in medias res, like all the other Bonds and the Indiana Jones series, where our hero is in the middle of an adventure that is not part of this film’s story, but is nevertheless a real incident with actual stakes.

Usually these fake-outs are a dream or a flashback, but in the case of X-MEN: THE LAST STAND it's some kind of simulation/training. Up until now I’ve only ever found this trope to be mildly irritating, but  something about how director Brett Ratner starts THE LAST STAND (not to be confused with THE LAST STAND) really got on my nerves.

I think it’s because the man can’t decide on an opening so instead gives us three in a row, like the endings in THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING.

First, we have some kind of Jean Grey origin story ("20 years earlier"), featuring Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen with uncanny valley GCI de-aging, during which Ratner gets the tedious contractually-obliged Stan Lee cameo out the way early doors.

Then, there's another flashback ("10 years earlier") to a father walking in on his son cutting off his nascent wings in the bathroom, a boy who will grow up to become Ben Foster’s mutant Angel.

Then, following the credits, we have the actual opening ("In the not-too-distant future"), where Wolverine, Storm, Rogue et al are fighting some giant robot thing in a post-apocalyptic wasteland/studio backlot, which – yes – turns out to be a Star Trek holodeck-style setup. Wolverine defeats the enemy all by himself, going against Storm’s insistence that "we work as a team". Then as they walk out, Halle Berry delivers more lines like "You can't just change the rules when you feel like it!" and "This isn't a game!", all the time wondering if she has to start wearing her fucking Oscar on a chain around her neck to get sent any decent scripts.

And the rest of the film?

Well, Bill Duke turns up in a DR STRANGELOVE-style war room among other important-looking bureaucrats. Kelsey Grammer makes sure he hits all his cues so he has to spend as little time in the blue make-up chair as possible. Ratner gives Anthony Heald a cameo as ‘FBI Mystique Interrogator’ to remind us all about his own RED DRAGON (bad idea) or possibly THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (bad idea – but for the opposite reason).

Vinnie Jones proves that he was once a thing; Elliot Page is still Ellen Page; Famke Janssen is angrier and more sexed-up than usual; James Marsden is barely in it; R Lee Ermey does his drill sergeant thing but sadly only off screen; Harper’s boss from TV's Industry is one of the bad mutants and also apparently a hedgehog; and all in all the whole mess puts the viewer in the unusual position of pining for Bryan Singer.

Two stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  No, they went on to make loads more X-MEN movies, with no doubt many more to come long into the future until we’re all old and dead and mouldy in the ground.

What would a movie called X-MEN: THE FIRST STAND be about?  I’d have to look into the history of the source comic books, which is never going to happen.

Previously:  THE LAST SAMURAI 

Next time:  LAST HOLIDAY

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

THE LAST SAMURAI (2003, Edward Zwick)

 

* * * 

After he is captured in battle, an American soldier starts to quite dig the Samurai culture that he’s supposed to be obliterating.

Starring  Tom Cruise, Ken Watanabe, Billy Connolly, Tony Goldwyn, Timothy Spall, Hiroyuki Sanada

Written by  John Logan, Edward Zwick, Marshall Herskovitz

Produced by  Marshall Herskovitz, Edward Zwick, Tom Cruise, Paula Wagner

Duration  154 minutes

  

 

You know, you try to judge a film on its own merits. Not everything must aspire to be great art, or follow a familiar narrative path, or be blazingly original. As Robert De Niro tells a baffled John Cazale in THE DEER HUNTER, "This is this."

But when sitting down to watch THE LAST SAMURAI, I couldn’t blank out one thought that ran through my mind on repeat: "How much will it resemble DANCES WITH WOLVES?"

First, let’s talk about Tom Cruise. I like Tom Cruise. By that, I mean I like his contribution to cinema. I’m not interested in him personally and wouldn’t deign to focus on gossip and hearsay – he can believe in what he wants and be as eccentric on as many talk shows as he wishes. (I will say that I've heard first-hand that he's generous and professional on set: a plasterer friend of mine worked on 2017’s THE MUMMY at Shepperton Studios).

Cruise is the last of the old-school movie stars. Despite entering his 60s, he’s not fading away (his top grossing movies are 2022’s TOP GUN: MAVERICK and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE FALLOUT from 2018) and he remains a leading man, rather than making a late-career switch to character actor or villain.

And by ‘old-school’, I mean big in the late ’80s and into the ’90s, the period when the star was still everything. Kevin Costner? TV actor now; ditto Harrison Ford, despite reaching for Indy’s fedora one last time. Mel Gibson? Reputation forever tarnished; I suppose the jury’s still out on Will Smith. Bruce Willis has retired for health reasons. Arnie? Stallone? Eddie Murphy? Jim Carrey? 

I guess the other Tom, Hanks, is up there too, but he hasn’t starred in any ‘last’ films, so I won’t dwell on him. From the ladies, you’ve really only got Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock; you could make cases for Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman, too.

But despite my fondness for The Cruiser, his mega-wattage presence actually distracted from a critical analysis of THE LAST SAMURAI. The abovementioned nagging question became "How much is it Tom Cruise trying to do DANCES WITH WOLVES?" – and even as far as "Did Cruise do this movie because one day he was pondering, 'Hmm, if Kevin Costner can be a white saviour to America’s indigenous people, can I pull it off for the samurai in Japan?”’

OK, onto the film itself.

It’s the 1870s. Cruise enters the picture drunk, bloodshot and disillusioned. He’s a war hero, reduced to pantomiming his exploits on stage to flog Winchester rifles and working for the reliably slimy William Atherton (Walter "It’s true, this man has no penis" Peck in GHOSTBUSTERS and Dick "Did ya get that?" Thornburg in DIE HARD).

He’s soon tapped up by government-types for a gig in Japan, where he’ll get the chance to pal around with Timothy Spall and Billy Connolly while training up some Japanese ‘savages’ in the art of warfare. The idea being that they’ll then be better equipped to defeat some rebel samurai who are not too keen on their new emperor. Eager for more beer money, Cruise accepts, and is soon showing villagers that you've gotta press the stock against your shoulder and reload by poking that stick thing down the muzzle.

That is, until he’s captured by Ken Watanabe’s samurais in a one-sided battle. For a while, Cruise is then your regular disheartened POW, spending his days supplementing his alcoholism with sake and having even more PTSD battle-flashbacks than usual. But, in time, he starts to respect the samurai culture and gains their trust, eventually training in their ways and buddying up with Watanabe.

So, the samurai are the good guys of this story. But who could the genuine enemy be, if it’s not the American intruder? Only Goddamn ninjas, that's who! And it's when defending his new pals against a night-time ninja raid that The Cruiser finally ingratiates himself – and gets real close to Watanabe’s sister.

If you’re familiar with DANCES WITH WOLVES then it might sound like my fears were well founded. But, in fact, THE LAST SAMURAI is really a kind of inverted version of that Best Picture winner. The white boy doesn’t really change or ‘save’ anyone; rather it’s them who make the profound difference to his life. The title doesn’t even refer to Cruise, but to Watanabe – like if the Costner movie had instead been called THE BALLAD OF KICKING BIRD.

So, all in all, a pleasant surprise. And the film holds up, in no small part due to its lead.

Something else surprised me, only this time in a not-good way: I wasn’t too keen on the Hans Zimmer score. It’s a bit of a generic regurgitation of better themes from his THE THIN RED LINE, GLADIATOR, BLACK HAWK DOWN era, only with a few flute noises thrown in.

I’d’ve much preferred if he’d just trotted out some of his old cues from BLACK RAIN instead, maybe with those flutes replacing the ’80s synths. Ah, well.

Three stars out of five.

 

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  See review. They probably should have added ‘(By the way, it’s not the bloke on the poster)’.

What would a movie called THE FIRST SAMURAI be about?  Hopefully it would be based on the side-scrolling Amiga-era slash-em-up platformer of the same name. I like to imagine Ed Zwick hiding in his trailer and playing it non-stop on the set of LEGENDS OF THE FALL when he’s supposed to be prepping a scene, making ‘swish-swish’ sword noises and fantasising about helming his own samurai epic.

Previously:  THE LAST HURRAH

Next time:  X-MEN: THE LAST STAND 

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

THE LAST HURRAH (1958, John Ford)

 

* * * 

The veteran mayor of a New England city embarks upon one last mayoral campaign using whatever means necessary.   

Starring  Spencer Tracy, Jeffrey Hunter, Dianne Foster, Pat O’Brien, Basil Rathbone

Written by  Frank S Nugent   

Produced by  John Ford

Duration  121 minutes   

   

 

Sick Boy: "It's certainly a phenomenon in all walks of life."

Mark Renton: "What do you mean?"

Sick Boy: "Well, at one time, you’ve got it, and then you lose it, and it’s gone forever."

Mark Renton: "So we all get old and then we can’t hack it anymore. Is that it? That’s your theory?"

Sick Boy: "Yeah."

 

That exchange is from mainline-chasing slice of Edinburgh wit TRAINSPOTTING. Now, it’s been a while since I read the book, but I’m pretty sure this dialogue was invented for the film by screenwriter John Hodge, just like Sick Boy’s Sean Connery fixation.

That means it would have been shortly after the film’s release in 1996 that Quentin Tarantino heard these words – and you can be certain that he did go see TRAINSPOTTING. This would have been during the lull after the one-two punch of RESERVOIR DOGS and PULP FICTION, when QT was escaping into his Elmore Leonard back catalogue, trying to drown out his anxiety that having avoided a sophomore slump, surely he wouldn't be so lucky with his third film ( ... a senior slump?)

It wasn’t until 2012 during press for DJANGO UNCHAINED that Quentin revealed that he intends to only direct 10 films: "I like the idea of leaving them wanting a bit more... I want to go out while I’m still hard."

So I’m certain that he would have nodded along with Sick Boy’s claims while watching that quirky British movie everyone was talking about. And I’m equally sure that the filmmaker already had a list of directors whose careers he wanted to emulate, but whose finales he wished to avoid.

Was he thinking of Sam Peckinpah? CONVOY had been a paycheque job, and though a successful one, it was hardly THE WILD BUNCH. But THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND was a total mess and an embarrassing note to go out on. 

Or how about Billy Wilder? Did the legend who made DOUBLE INDEMNITY, THE LOST WEEKEND, SUNSET BOULEVARD, ACE IN THE HOLE, STALAG 17, SOME LIKE IT HOT and THE APARTMENT really limp to the finish line with THE FRONT PAGE, FEDORA and BUDDY BUDDY?

Or maybe, just maybe, Tarantino was thinking of John Ford.

THE LAST HURRAH was not Ford’s final credit. But it’s widely seen as the start of his career descent, having peaked with THE SEARCHERS in 1956 and with nowhere left to go from there but down. There would not be another MY DARLING CLEMANTINE or THE GRAPES OF WRATH or RIO GRANDE, with only 1962’s THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE considered on par with his past glories.

Was Ford even pondering issues of being over the hill when he took the job? Because the plot would bear this out, being that it concerns a veteran in his field trying to stay relevant and keep at the top of his game.

(Ford has a producer credit on LAST HURRAH, too – the only producer credit, there aren't even any of those amorphous ‘executive-’ or ‘associate-’ or ‘co-’ ones. When a director does this, does it mean that he cares more about the project? Obviously, that’s the case if he wrote the script, but surely producing is a sign that it's more than a job for hire?)

There are distinctly CITIZEN KANE vibes early doors, with Spencer Tracy playing an elected figure introduced to much fanfare and newspaper headlines. In fact, Orson Welles was reportedly considered for the character but never got back to Ford in time. But it’s just as well, since Tracy owns the role. All I knew about him going in was that he won two Oscars in a row (a feat not repeated until Tom Hanks in the ’90s) and that he was romantically involved with Katharine Hepburn. But now I recognise him as absolutely more than just the answer to a trivia question.

Here, he essays the part of the curmudgeonly but charming mayor with gusto, and although I wouldn’t say that I was on the edge of my seat throughout all the political dealings and manoeuvrings (it’s kind of like a proto-House of Cards), not only was Tracy clearly fully committed to the cause – like Ford, he was in the twilight of his career – but his director showed that he still had a steady hand and masterful control over the material.

And this after Ford had more than 100 films under his belt (counting several early ‘lost’ efforts)! I guess they made ’em outta sterner stuff back then; nevertheless, if THE LAST HURRAH is anything to go by, QT may be wide of the mark in worrying that his prowess behind the camera will inevitably fade once his output reaches double digits. 

Bring on the 40-years-later legacy sequel to RESERVOIR DOGS in 2032, I say!

Three stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Any film where the protagonist dies at the end (oh – spoiler alert, I guess) can be classed as pretty definitive.

What would a movie called THE FIRST HURRAH be about?  A much more youthful Tracy, galivanting around in an open-top car, possibly with Katharine on his arm wearing one of those Jackie O headscarves (she, not he).

Previously:  THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS

Next time:  THE LAST SAMURAI

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS (1992, Michael Mann)

 

* * * 

In 1757, a white man brought up by the Mohican Native American tribe tracks down a British colonel’s kidnapped daughters.

Starring  Daniel Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe, Wes Studi, Pete Postlethwaite, Jared Harris

Written by  Michael Mann, Christopher Crowe

Produced by  Michael Mann, Hunt Lowry

Duration  112 minutes

Authenticity. That’s the most important thing in art, right?

Some people seem to think so. "Hey, did you know, it’s based on a true story?" "It is? Oh wow, drop everything and fire that baby up!"

The idea that something you are about to watch or read really happened is definitely fetishised in some quarters. The audience's desire for 'truth' was memorably played upon by the Coen brothers in FARGO, where they claimed that the events in the movie had really happened, when in fact they had not. Although the subsequent TV version did flog the joke to death somewhat by reiterating it at the start of every episode.

It’s like those people who won’t read novels. You know the type: they smugly inform you that they only read ‘for information’. Their time is much too precious to be wasted on childish made-up stories that interrupt their noble quest for knowledge.

I’m reminded of this exchange early on in SIDEWAYS between Paul Giamatti's wannabe novelist and his friend's future father-in-law.

 

Father-in-law: "What is the subject of your book? Non-fiction?"

Giamatti: "Uh, no. It's a novel, fiction. Although there is quite a bit from my own life ... so I suppose that technically some of it is non-fiction."

Father-in-law: "Good, I like non-fiction. There is so much to know about this world. I think you read something somebody just invented: waste of time."

Giamatti: "That's an … interesting perspective."

 

What has all this got to do what THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS? Its director Michael Mann, that’s what. Now, there’s a man(n) who loves him some authenticity and is not afraid to put in the necessary preparation.

"Gosh, Mike, how d'ya make sure people get that sweet, sweet authenticity from your flicks?"

"I’ll tell ya how, buddy. I’m gonna stay overnight at Folsom Prison for THE JERICHO MILE. I’m gonna bring in the SAS fella who wrote Bravo Two Zero to give combat training so Bob De Niro and Val Kilmer look shit-hot in HEAT. For my MIAMI VICE movie, I’m gonna send Colin Farrell along on FBI drug busts in Dominican gang slums.

"And for MOHICANS, the granddaddy of them all? Well sir, this time I’ve got your man Double-D Lewis on board and let me tell ya, that cat’s as bonkers about prep as yours truly. So I’m gonna have him live out in the actual woods: tracking and skinning animals, building canoes, fighting people with tomahawks, and running about while reloading one of those old flintlock guns. And he’s gonna stay in character day and night, with that gun never leaving his Goddamn side."

Yes, finally the ultimate meticulous director met the quintessential method actor. So here’s the crucial question: did all that preparation and authenticity help towards making a great movie?

Well … I guess. It’s all kind of wasted on me, because MOHICANS just isn’t really my cup of tea.

Historical battle-type stuff doesn't do it for me. BRAVEHEART, GLADIATOR, 300, GLORY... I'm OK from about World War One onwards, but if you turn the clock back too far, all the elaborate costumes and wigs and "Yes my Lord, privy permit me to allow thy liege" stuff grates on me. Blokes swinging swords about on horseback doesn't raise my pulse; I sat through the LORD OF THE RINGS films one time only and have never seen an episode of Game of Thrones.

MOHICANS is clearly a four-star film. It's tense, dramatic and competently acted by a talented cast. Mann's trusty cinematographer Dante Spinotti makes you feel the glow of the candles and smell the leaves on the trees. Trevor Jones's score is one for the ages, although he clearly recycled it a year later for CLIFFHANGER (now that's my kind of movie). The battles are well-staged and make you feel like you're really there.

But because I can't shake my two-star attitude, I'm going to have to meet this film in the middle. Sorry, Michael and Daniel – all the preparation in the world can't move someone who would rather be watching Stallone inauthentically climb up a mountain in a T-shirt.

Three stars out of five.

 

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Since there was no sequel, nor one on the horizon, let’s just go for ‘yes’. 

What would a movie called THE FIRST OF THE MOHICANS be about?  According to Britannica, "When first contacted by the Dutch, the Mohican were at war with the Mohawk, and in 1664 they were forced to move from Schodack, near Albany, to what is now Stockbridge, Mass." There ya go – there’s your plot. You’re welcome.

Previously:  THE LAST STAND

Next time:  THE LAST HURRAH

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com