The Last Stand (2013)

Waste of time

That was an excellent one.

Good idea lost in the noise

Expected more

A good time for Schwarzenegger fans. The action is excellent. I liked the characters. The film moves along at a good pace. The film has a satisfying finale. The car in the film, that Corvette ZR1. That car is beautiful. I like the idea of the film about a drug lord trying to escape across the border and a small town sheriff bringing his friends together to make a last stand to stop him while dealing with a gang of mercenaries.

The story in The Last Stand is pretty dumb if you ask me. Why would a most wanted escaped drug lord drive through the desert in a fast car to fled to Mexico? The whole police force and FBI are aware of it, know exactly where he is at any point and still don't manage to put up a few road blocks. And than building a bridge over a canyon to fled to Mexico. Really? That's the best idea they could come up with? If I was that drug lord I would just hide for a while and make myself invisible for the rest of the world, the time it all calms down and then just use the hundreds of easy ways to fled the country. The story is just too ridiculous. But if you're okay with that and you just want to see action scenes I guess that's what you get. The cast is what it is. Arnold Schwarzenegger proves again he isn't a great actor. You would think after so many years in the USA that he could manage to loose his ridiculous accent but no. Jimmy Knoxville should just continue Jackass and leave it at that. And Forrest Whitaker, he has had better roles than this one, that's the only thing I have to say about it. The Last Stand is just not good enough and doesn't deserve a higher rating than an average 5.

Either if this film is made solely to make a comeback for Arnold Schwarzenegger or simply to tickle the sense of low brow humor of twelve year old boys and rob them for their allowance, it's not working, and I'm happy to know it didn't make it at the box office. And, what is a brilliant actor like Forest Whitaker doing in this film, trying to soil his career? The only reason for him and several top actors to participate in this non sense, must be to pay Arnold some kind of tribute or/and that they got payed loads. And that's mainly what this is, loads of a lot of nothing, stuffed with old "clichés", actors asked to make bad and boring lines funny, when the only result is an annoying embarrassment. I was about to give it 2, only because the "entré" of Forest Whitaker all of a sudden gave me hope, but even he blew it. If this is supposed to be Arnold's last stand, then let's hope it is.

The Last Stand chucks Arnold Schwarzenegger in to a role where his gun does (most of) the talking. When all is quiet in the small town of Sommerton, the big man feels uneasy with the dialogue he's given, but when all hell breaks loose it's like he never gave up acting. TLS is his first full-length feature since governing California.There's a roughly spun narrative, drawn together by Deputy Ray Owens (Schwarzenegger) and his police rookies, who're investigating a murder, and Forest Whitaker's FBI hot shots, who're made to look stupid as they're consistently outmaneuvered by an escaped drug lord (Eduardo Noriega) who's making his way to the Mexican border. Both stories are linked... or are they? Little information is given to justify the events taking place in Sommerton. When Owens and his team, which includes Jackass' Johnny Knoxville (he's actually quite entertaining) fortify their town, it's easy to forget when the bullets fly and the blood drenches the dirt. The action is almost perfect; the level of gore pushes its 15 rating to the edge. Even the car chase sequence is expertly played. South-Korean director Jee-woon Kim makes his first film for the west, and rightfully so. The Last Stand, with a few hints of dire acting, has a equal level of cheesy lines and ferocious action. One to watch for the Schwarzenegger lovers.