3.5 stars. Rating: R, for considerable violence, gore and profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.18.13
The New Year seems to have
brought a run of transplanted Westerns.
Last week, the Magnificent
Seven template wound up in 1950s Los Angeles, as Gangster Squad. This week,
Howard Hawks’ iconic 1959 John Wayne oater, Rio Lobo — which John Carpenter
riffed, just as suspensefully, as 1976’s Assault on Precinct 13 — has been transformed
into a modern-day mission to stop a notorious Mexican drug kingpin from making
it back to the safety of his native country.
 |
| When screwball Lewis Dinkum (Johnny Knoxville, being carried) gets pinned down by gunfire, Frank (Rodrigo Santoro) charges into the thick of battle in a rescue attempt. Things have gotten out of hand in the sleepy little town of Sommerton Junction, and they're about to get even worse... |
The only thing in his way: the
helplessly outnumbered and outgunned citizens in the pokey little border town
of Sommerton Junction.
The Last Stand marks the
American directorial debut of South Korean director Kim Jee-woon, perhaps known
on these shores for A Tale of Two Sisters and his genre-bending Oriental
Western, The Good, the Bad, the Weird, which was Korea’s top box-office hit
in 2008.
No surprise, then, that Kim would
favor us with a variation on a classic American Western known for its blend of
suspense, deftly sketched characters and snarky humor (in this case, quite dark
at times).
Frankly, Arnold Schwarzenegger
couldn’t have selected a better comeback vehicle, at this point in his career.
Andrew Knauer’s story — clearly shaped by the earlier Hawks and Carpenter
films, with scripting assists from Jeffrey Nachmanoff and George Nolfi — plays
to Arnie’s advancing age, while amply demonstrating that movie action heroes
never die, they just find more inventive ways to get the job done.
Mind you, this scenario is wholly
outlandish and ludicrous, and no laws are broken more than the basic laws of
physics. But it’s all in good fun — if unexpectedly gory at times — and you’ll
have no trouble embracing Kim’s all-stops-out rhythm.
Events kick off late one evening
in Las Vegas, as grim-faced FBI Agent John Bannister (Forest Whitaker) oversees
the transfer of drug lord Gabriel Cortez (Eduardo Noriega) via a special
prisoner convoy. Borrowing a gag from James Bond’s You Only Live Twice, Cortez makes an impressive escape; within minutes, he’s speeding from the scene
at 250 miles per hour (!) in a tricked-up Corvette ZR1.
Worse yet, Cortez has a hostage
handcuffed in the passenger seat: FBI Agent Ellen Richards (Genesis Rodriguez).
Meanwhile, down in Sommerton
Junction, Sheriff Ray Owens (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is anticipating a quiet day
off. Almost the entire town has emptied to cheer the local football team during
an away game, leaving only Owens’ small patrol force and a few regulars at the
local diner.
But things aren’t quite as calm
as they appear. Owens notices a couple of strangers who seem out of place in
the diner; one of them — Peter Stormare, as Burrell — seems oddly smug. Still,
it’s nothing more than an idle hunch. Owens has other fish to fry, such as
ensuring that two of his deputies — Figgie (Luis Guzmán) and Jerry (Zach
Gilford, of TV’s Friday Night Lights) — don’t hurt themselves while playing
with unusual hardware at the gun museum run by local kook Lewis Dinkum (Johnny
Knoxville).
As it happens, though, Owens’
hunch was accurate; Burrell and his colleagues are up to no good. Indeed,
they’re constructing a military-style bridge across the nearby canyon, in order
to give Cortez a clear path into Mexico. The FBI and Border Patrol will be
concentrating their forces at the nearest legitimate highway crossing point,
while Burrell and his mercenaries — in order to ensure Cortez has no trouble — intend
to kill everybody left in Sommerton Junction.
Goodness.
The forces of virtue are further
augmented by Owens’ remaining deputy, Sarah (Jaimie Alexander) and Frank
(Rodrigo Santoro), a onetime local golden boy whose life has gone to hell;
indeed, he’s currently locked up on a drunk-and-disorderly charge.
Kim and his scripters take their
time setting this stage, giving us ample opportunity to bond with these jes’
plain folks. Jerry chafes at his somnambulant life in Sommerton Junction, and
wants the greater excitement of a beat in Los Angeles; knowing that Owens once
was a narcotics cop in the City of Angels, Jerry hopes for a good word.
Jerry and Frank also are longtime
best buds, and the latter has history with Sarah. Truth be told, Jerry appears
to be sweet on her as well, but he realizes that she has eyes only for Frank
... even if she’s disgusted with him at the moment.
Gilford makes Jerry decent and
sincere, if a bit impetuous; his desire for “more excitement” definitely falls
into the “be careful what you wish for” category. Alexander is appropriately
plucky as Sarah, and I like her heart-to-heart with Schwarzenegger’s Owens,
once things have turned nasty.
Santoro is just right as the
scruffy loser looking to redeem himself, while Guzmán delivers some gentle
chuckles as the stalwart but deeply worried Figgie. After all, Figgie has a
point: They are outclassed.
Broad comic relief comes from
Knoxville’s Lewis Dinkum, a screwball whose goofy grin always seems to emerge
at the wrong time. This part clearly was shaped for the former Jackass star,
since a deranged stunt involving a streetlight has Knoxville written all over
it. Still, Knoxville doesn’t overplay his hand; Dinkum never becomes so
farcical that he turns into a cartoon.
Frankly, he seems like just the
sort of wingnut who’d settle in a community like Sommerton Junction.
Noriega is just right as Cortez:
smooth and suave, with the bearing of a truly powerful and dangerous man who
knows that quiet conversation and a chilly smile can be much scarier than
grandiose behavior. That said, Cortez has his reckless side: He loves to drive
fast cars, hence his chosen means of heading for the border.
Storemare’s Burrell is the
vicious, disheveled yin to Cortez’s sleek and sophisticated yang. Burrell is a
genuinely nasty piece of work, his favorite weapon a handgun every bit as huge
as the one Dinkum likes to carry (and, rather affectionately, has named).
Despite this film’s obvious
design as Schwarzenegger’s comeback vehicle, Kim carefully balances all these
characters; the result is more ensemble piece than one-man action epic (a very
good thing). Schwarzenegger has plenty of time, during the quieter ramp-up to
the story’s explosive third act, to establish Owens as a guy who has come to
terms with this new, more peaceful life.
That said, Kim eventually ensures
that Schwarzenegger gets to deliver some of the tight-lipped, take-no-prisoners
mayhem that made him a star, back in the 1980s and ’90s. Appropriately, though,
the stunts have been dialed back a bit, reflecting the limitations that come
with maturity.
“How ya feelin’, Ray?” one of the
diner coots asks, after the sheriff crashes through a wall.
“Old,” Schwarzenegger replies,
with perfect timing.
Hey, you gotta give him credit
for acknowledging the obvious.
Stunt coordinators Darrin
Prescott and Wade Allen are kept busy with the Corvette ZR1’s various antics, a
few of which — most particularly the method by which Cortez evades a SWAT team
— are so far beyond the pale that you can’t help rolling your eyes. Kim and
editor Steven Kemper try hard, but we never get a sense that Cortez really is
hurtling down the road in excess of 200 miles per hour ... although it’s
definitely a tantalizing concept.
The film’s otherwise lighthearted
tone is marred on two counts: by the number of faceless cops and FBI agents cut
to ribbons by excessive gunfire; and by the even gorier maimings, mutilations
and flying limbs that punctuate the climactic battle. Kim apparently intends this
over-the-top mayhem to be darkly humorous, but I’d argue that he gets a
healthier giggle from (for example) an encounter between a serene old biddy and
one of Burrell’s goons.
Make no mistake: The Last Stand is precisely the sort of exploitative, B-movie thriller that has characterized
numerous Lionsgate productions, but there’s also no denying the campy pleasure
to be had when a predictable formula is executed so well.
No comments:
Post a Comment