The Last Stand: This Movie Is Completely Off the Rails

Although research indicates that The Last Stand had a director, and this director was director Jee-woon Kim, the first ten minutes of this film alone, disputes this claim. Instead, audiences are presented with what appear to be a series of outtakes that somehow snuck their way into the film, as if Kim chose to shoot scenes one-time Ed-Wood-style and whatever resulted was fine by him. Fortunately, the film gets better, but nowhere near enough to make this experience worthwhile.

Premise: Drug Czar escapes the FBI ad the only thing standing in his way is an angry Arizona Sheriff and a sleepy town. Result: A messy, clichéd action film that spends more time being ridiculous than making sense.

The Last Stand focuses on a sleepy Arizona town near the U.S.-Mexico border where the most exciting occurrences revolve around shooting hanging meat and being arrested for drunken disorderly.  Fortunately for them, there is pleasantly gruff Sheriff Ray Owens (Arnold Schwarzenegger), who essentially wanders around town, guiding the townspeople and his deputies out of the way of their own incompetence.

Of course, there is ineptitude of a far more severe kind taking place in Las Vegas, where FBI Agent John Bannister (Forest Whitaker) and his band of midget-clowns are escorting Drug Czar Gabriel Cortez (Eduardo Noriega) to prison.  However, due to some fair planning on Cortez’s part and shocking uselessness on the part of the FBI, he escapes with a hostage, Agent Ellen Richards (Genesis Rodriguez), and a fictional Corvette that is faster than some aircraft.

Of course, well ahead, he also has his henchmen lining the roads to keep it clear for him.  In addition, he has worked out his logistical escape, and his uber-henchman, Burrell (Peter Stormare), is firmly in place just outside Owens’ town.

Essentially, the point of the film rests on Owens deliberate desire to stop Cortez from passing through his town on his way to Mexico.  To be fair, this doesn’t stem simply from some sense of deep-rooted Justice; after Burrell and his men attack the Deputies, this essentially, has become personal.  And with his motley crew in place -Mike Figerola (Luis Guzmán), Jerry Bailey (Zach Gilford), Sarah Torrence (Jaimie Alexander), town hot-guy waste-away Frank Martiniz (Rodrigo Santoro), and local-yocal Lewis Dinkum (Johnny Knoxville)- Owens indeed will make his last stand.

While the first half of this film is slow and largely unwatchable, the second half settles nicely into passable watchability.  It never gets good, so to speak, but there are plenty of humorous moments and tons of gun violence which numbs the brain pleasantly like cinematic morphine, lulling us into a false sense of intrigue.

And audiences might also get the feeling that the actors themselves are in on the joke, laughing just as hard at a film that hits new levels of predictability and the preposterous.  Yes, there are old people being old and cavalier with their lives, yes there’s plenty of unnecessary but mildly amusing slapstick – hell, there is even a scene in which a gun fight ensues directly in front of a watermelon stand.  Really?

To this end, the acting in this film comes full circle, starting in a dark, dark place and ultimately serving no purpose at all.  To say that Schwarzenegger is out of practice would be the same as observing the mummified remains of a Pharaoh and commenting on its deft mobility. Fortunately, as the film continues, and observers grow drunker on the intoxicating spectacle on screen, he appears to get better, or at least recalls where syllables of English words should be pronounced.

It hurts him deeply, no doubt, that there are no trademark lines that we have come to expect from Schwarzenegger; instead, the best we get are a few gruff jokes, hysterical facial expressions, a reference to his noticeable age, and a “shmuck” joke that never connects.  Oh well, we all know he’ll “be back”.  Apologies.

Whitaker, for his end, seems as confused as audiences as to what he is even doing in this film.  Lodged firmly in a performer Catch-22, he either under-performs to keep pace with his peers or over-performs, attracting attention to an Academy Award Winner being woefully out-of-place.  It’s not ever clear which road he chose.

Several other cast members are strangely notable for all the wrong reasons.  Stormare manages to put on several different accents for his character, but all at the same time, making him seem like a man possessed and speaking in tongues. To continue the communication issue, Santoro seems miscast in his role as a burned out Iraq vet when it is virtually impossible to understand anything he is even saying.

Knoxville is sufficiently endearing but it is never clear what is happening with his character: is he crazy or is he mentally disabled?  Is he both?  Who knows – certainly not Knoxville.  And the rest are fair performances but ultimately forgettable.

The resolution of this film is satisfying in as far as, in fact, the film actually ends.  Contrary to sentiments during the film, where there is a very real sense that on-screen events may torment observers for all of time, it is quite nice that Kim actually chose to stop at some point.

Ultimately, this film is below even low expectations.  It takes far too long to even approximate interesting and even when it does, it is almost too ridiculous to be more than incidental amusement.  It may not be the worst film in recent memory, but it is certainly the worst Schwarzenegger has done in a very long time (acknowledging his eight year hiatus as the Govern-ator).  Fans and film-lovers alike can only hope that this will not foreshadow things to come

Rating: 4 – A case of PBR and a “Dear John” letter