Hardassed cop Kurt Bellmore (Jeff Wincott) is in hot pursuit of a violent gang of bank robbers lead by Snake Underwood
(Jonathan Fuller), but the
criminals’ organization may be more expansive than originally suspected.
There’s a scene in Joseph Merhi’s Last Man Standing where our stalwart hero is driving his banker
wife Anabella (Jillian McWhirter) to
work. No great shakes, as the scene
tells us nothing other than that Snake and his cohorts are highly likely to hit
Anabella’s bank that day (they do). What’s
interesting about the scene is that the protagonists are listening to a radio
program where two talk show hosts are debating the effects of violent
television shows. Their conversation
isn’t all that engaging (basically “is too,” “is not”), but what piqued my
interest is that this conversation plays such a prominent part in the
scene. It isn’t just background noise
(and if it is, it’s better than the conversation between Anabella and Kurt),
and it got me wondering what the filmmakers were trying to do with the
scene. Nothing is solved on the radio
show, but I think that the idea was to plant the notion in the heads of this
film’s viewers. While I like to think
that the intent was to stimulate debate on the subject (and it may very well
have been), in the context of this film it plays more as an excuse for the
level of violence in it. By
acknowledging this debate, there is a sort of self-knowledge that understands
that violent television (and, by extension, films) is something people may
contemplate philosophically, but there’s no real harm because it’s all make
believe, and you want it, anyway.
So, I’ll indulge them. My personal take on the matter is that
constant barrages of empty sex and gratuitous violence do desensitize viewers
to a point (how many slasher films have we cheered at where the killer
gruesomely dispatches his hyper-amorous victims?). Yet, it’s one thing to take pleasure in these
types of things on screen and quite another to translate them into violence in
the real world. I do believe that the
key lies in the ability to separate fiction from reality, and I think that this
applies not only to people with mental issues but also to people who are reared
on these actions with no frame of reference to the negative consequences of
them in the real world. I think when
violent behavior is encouraged (or simply not addressed at all) as the only way
to be “on top” (and there actually are parents/guardians/et cetera who think
this way and pass it on to their children) and it’s reinforced through violent
fictional images, then you get violent, amoral members of society. You can read this more as a condemnation of
certain modern “parents” (and society in general) than of violent
entertainment, and you’d be right. Of
course, you could also go into a whole tangent with this argument about the
effects of video games in recent years as well, but I’m not knowledgeable enough
on that end of it to get into it (and besides, this is intended to be my
general opinion in short), but I do feel it ties into it somewhere. Feel free to discuss.
Last Man Standing follows the textbook for low budget action. You have the virile cop who latches onto a
case and won’t let go. Things get
personal when a character he has a deep attachment to gets murdered. You have Kurt’s fellow cops who play the role
of contagonists, harassing him and making his life more difficult. You have a scene set in a garish strip
club. You have colorful villains whose
comeuppance can’t come soon enough.
Nonetheless, the film veers enough away from the standard template to distinguish
itself a bit from the crowd. Kurt is
married to Anabella rather than merely being in a relationship with her, a
point that suggests that he’s less of a loner than is usual. Kurt’s partner Doc (the perennially hangdog Jonathan Banks) lives at home with his
elderly mother who serves him odd meals (she puts mushrooms in his breakfast
cereal) and packs his lunch in a child’s lunchbox. Snake isn’t as cool a customer as he could
be, and his constant frustration with people who dun him for money owed gives
him an air of believability (but just an air).
More than this, Merhi’s direction has a visual flair
that falls in line with some of the best action films from Hong Kong at this
time. The camera sweeps across the sets,
accentuating the build up to the action and stylizing the action itself as it
plays out. The filmmakers are also not
afraid to open the frame up and choreograph the action within a geography the
audience can follow. There are a couple
of POV shots from inside automobiles as they flip and roll over. The editing does get a bit dodgy, especially
in the last few action sequences, but overall, it still stands up with films
made for much more money.
It stands to reason, then, that
the action in an action film needs to work well, and here it really, really
does. The film has several car chase
scenes that impress, not only because of the level of the effects and stuntwork
(lots of cars explode and fly through the air, and lots of other cars become
collateral damage as the chase moves onto the highways of Los Angeles [and I
have to say that I was amazed the filmmakers got permission to do a lot of the
things they did on the actual streets, because this is some A-level auto
carnage]). The interpersonal action
scenes also work quite well, with Wincott
delivering some nice kicks to the heads of the baddies, and the mix of
hand-to-hand and gunplay action is nicely balanced. Further, the stuntmen in Last Man Standing fly through a lot (and I mean A LOT) of mirrors
and panes of glass. It’s almost a
fetish. And all of this work is
practical, which gives it a grounded realism, even as things get nuts. In the current era, where action films have
largely become cartoons dissociated from reality in their overuse/over-reliance
on computer-generated effects, it’s always refreshing (and I’ll be the first to
admit it; it plays to my unapologetic sense of nostalgia) to be able to get
involved in a film’s action scenes through the sense of verisimilitude that practical
effects/stunts offer. As my first
experience with the world of PM
Entertainment, I can confidently state that it won’t be my last.
MVT: The stunts and the
direction of same are magnificent.
Make or Break: The opening
heist delivers in every way you could ask for from an action film.
Score: 7/10