Directed by:
Jee-woon KimCinematography:
Ji-yong KimComposer:
MowgCast:
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Forest Whitaker, Rodrigo Santoro, Peter Stormare, Jaimie Alexander, Eduardo Noriega, Zach Gilford, Luis Guzmán, Johnny Knoxville (more)Plots(1)
After leaving his LAPD narcotics post, Sheriff Ray Owens (Arnold Schwarzenegger) settles into a life fighting what little crime takes place in sleepy border town Sommerton Junction. That peaceful existence is shattered when notorious drug kingpin Gabriel Cortez (Eduardo Noriega) escapes FBI custody in Vegas and makes a break towards the US-Mexican border, with only Sommerton Junction standing in his way. Sheriff Owens must now muster his forces to stop this deadly fugitive slipping across the border and disappearing forever. So Owens arms himself with a rag tag group of misfits including Johnny Knoxville, Luis Guzmán and Jaimie Alexander, aided by Federal Agent Forest Whitaker. This is their last stand - a bloody showdown that will either put Owens and Sommerton Junction on the map forever... or blow them out of existence. Tense, testosterone fuelled and armed to the max, this is cult Korean Director Kim Jee-Woon's debut American film - and his unique new take on a classic genre. (Roadshow Entertainment)
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Reviews (13)
A likable cast in a simple action flick that sometimes surprises with a good idea and sometimes disappoints with a cheap
cliché. With Arnold, big guns, sexy chicks, a fast car chase in a corn field, etc., The Last Stand is quite entertaining and
definitely better than what the insipid trailer promised.
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OK, let the main character, written somewhere between Wayne and Eastwood, play a guy with a heavy Germanic accent. In more emotionally tense scenes, he resembles a bulldozer accidentally parked at a bicycle show and makes jokes about being an immigrant. Place under it the soundtrack, which partly springs up in heavy bass offensives, sometimes pays modernity, sometimes shifts to (probably ironic) classics, and often also the western ancestors. And let a Korean film it all, so that it sometimes resembles a border western, sometimes series crap about Texas rangers, sometimes an 80's action film and sometimes modern (I still can't decide whether the überdigital cuts in some of the action were a stylish intention or not). A film is most likely to be made that works best in segments where no one is acting or talking. The problem is that there are very few of those segments, and also the fact that Arnie doesn't act in comic / dramatic scenes any better in the new millennium than in his golden years - and there are very few scenes where he can give his sarcastic one-liners. The significant difference from the eighties is that the crowds will no longer be rushing to go see it. It's a pity - the last The Expendables showed the path that these old tanks can still go down. It just takes more exaggeration, self-reflection and fewer attempts to "make character". During the final fight on the digital bridge, I couldn't decide whether to feel amusement or slight regret over that anachronism. A bit of both in the end, this is The Last Stand.
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Jee-woon Kim's ability to make the viewer tolerate unbelievable plot twists and WTF characters and their motivations lies in creating a fictional micro-universe that, if you embrace it, gave you the experience the director wanted you to have. The Last Stand may have had all the makings to follow its predecessors in this, but somehow it all got screwed up. The FBI command room destroys the illusion of the fatalistic isolation of the heroes, the governor is an extremely inept actor (one you'd almost forget), and no one has drilled into the director's head enough that there's a marked difference between making a movie in Korea and the US. That's why some of the action scenes look pretty lame, even as the camera whizzes past on a crane when the characters are just standing around and talking. As a result, The Last Stand doesn't so much resuscitate Arnold's career, but the era of 90s B-movies with Van Damme, where main street stands in for an entire city, the supporting characters shoot the bad guys with one hand, fall in love with each other with the other, and the heroes don't give their honor away for free. I don't blame the director, though. Given that he still didn't know a word of English during filming, the blame clearly lies with his translator.
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An excellent modern western that has absolutely everything it should have. Plus Arnold Schwarzenegger. The action scenes are imaginative and clear, the cast is one of a kind (Peter Stormare enjoying himself!), the script rides the nostalgic wave and, thanks to a generous portion of humor, it can afford to use even hackneyed clichés without getting on one's nerves. Arnold is simply wonderful in the role of the uncompromising Austrian buffer who stands in the way of the fleeing thug. There is no point in criticizing his acting - he is still the same action actor, who just needs to say one sentence, throw one harsh look, then shoot one magazine and crown everything with one funny line. The Last Stand is entertaining (a really long shootout lightened by funny moments of all kinds), it is suspenseful (the first clash with Stormare's gang), breathtaking (the car chase in the cornfield really blew me away), and it doesn’t need much to be a lot better than The Expendables 2 (the ending on the bridge).
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The classic comes alive, maybe not to the same extent as in the hyped-up The Expendables, but enough to bring a heady and warm feeling to the heart of action fans with its pure character (lots of catchphrases, big guns, bad guys and fast cars) and straightforwardness. It's been a long time since I've watched an action film with such a likeable cast and such a great balance of humour, which can often outshine a cheesy cliché or logic hole. Of course, looming over it all is the great Schwarzenegger, a huge star who only needs to appear on screen and throw one of his trademark glances, something he still manages with absolute bravado. Stormare is fine as the bad guy, Whitaker was not a happy choice and Knoxville with his permanently open mouth has to be endured. But when I think of The Last Stand with the benefit of hindsight, all I can recall is a far-fetched and incredibly stupid B-movie, the kind we have seen in the hundreds, but this, believe me, can not completely refute any of the aforementioned positives. 65%
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