The Last Victim

I'm not sure what people are griping about. I guess they think they could do a better film. (Bloody doubtful) There's nothing all that wrong with this movie. Some good performances, decent soundtrack, effective atmosphere. I think audiences just look for something to complain about.

It's not gonna win any awards but it's an entertaining watch.

Perlman is solid. Larter is strong. And the "bad guys" seem legitimately and worryingly nefarious.

Admittedly, there' a bit of an interesting interpretive scene the puts a speed bump on the road through the action, but it's short and somewhat logical.

The narrative may raise a few questions of continuity, and I can see a lot of grumbling about the writing. But when people site examples like The Mentalist as counter examples of good writing, you have to question the validity of the criticism. And I actually liked the Mentalist.

Again, this ain't palm d'or quality, but it's more interesting than a CBS formula crime drama.

It's such a shame, this had so much potential, especially with the stellar performances. As a neo-noir wester thriller, this was beautifully shot by Naveen A. Chathapuram in his directorial and writing debut.

But the jointly written story by the three writers was a disjointed convoluted mess, riddled with plot holes, and not as smart or as thrilling as it thought it was. It started off with promise, but the last act became so unbelievably dumb and lazy, that it will leave you feeling you wasted your investment is staring to watch it. I'm baffled how all three writers thought this would be an adequate and thrilling story.

Cinematography was excellent, and the score on point. It's too bad the actors wasted their talents on what could have been really great, but instead was a missed opportunity. It's a generous 5/10, all for the cast and cinematography.

That is my recommendation to Hollywood. If you try it, I think you will find it is win win. As for the film, the cinematographer was in love with the locale, every shot is perfectly framed. Perlman could not give a bad performance even if he wanted to. Larter, in her 40s, still connects with the audience. The dog is well played. Basically the kind of film where you spend more time thinking about how to improve it than actually enjoying it.

The first 90 minutes of this movie aren't horrible, but it's very slow without much of value. It has trouble investing you in the story or characters even though it spends lots of time trying to.

In the last 15 minutes it gets really stupid. And you realize how little you care about the outcome. (1 viewing, 5/20/2022)

This film had the potential to be great. Too bad that wasn't the case. It starts out ok but goes downhill pretty fast. About 30 minutes in I had lost total interest. Basic 5 star film.