Score 5.5/10
Arnold Schwarzenegger returns to the big scene after a long hiatus to star as Ray Owens, a small town sheriff with a history. I don’t mean to discredit his other roles in the Expendables and what not, but this is a film that banks its entire existence on our favorite foreign body of muscle. He is no stranger to being the center of attention, but the question is how well does all that leathery skin stretched over all that aging muscle hold up after so many years of being the tough guy? And the answer? Well, for the most part, Arnold does a fine job. It’s the rest of the movie that lags behind.
The premise is simple. Some big shot cartel guy is about to get the axe on American Soil for his crimes against humanity until, through the use of a hundred foot crane plucking his mobile prison from an FBI convoy, he makes a daring escape through the Las Vegas Strip. Yes, it is as ridiculous as it sounds and unfortunately it is completely emotionless and unexciting as well. Without notice, we are thrown into the situation and expected to believe that something important is about to unfold.
John Bannister, played by Forest Whitaker, leads his team to what seems to be a half-assed attempt to get this dangerous criminal from point A to point B. So we sit and watch as this big shot cartel guy manages to overpower and disarm a Federal Agent from the inside of a secured van despite being handcuffed and looking like a hipster with a perm. His cronies who meet him on the roof attach an explosive device to the back of the van and without consideration to his safety, they detonate it and set him free. I suppose it beats the cumbersome task of picking the lock or obtaining the key but hey it’s an action movie right? He makes his getaway in a supped up Corvette and kidnaps a female agent along the way just for good measure.
On the other side of the world, Arnold is taking it easy in a town that has recently been vacated due to some important football game that’s happening in another far away town. Arnold stays back and watches over things with his inexperienced and slightly thick skulled deputies, completely oblivious that the great Gabriel Cortez, the cartel guy, is about to make a run for the border through his beloved town of Sommerton. Unfortunately for Arnold and the movie, nothing else really happens. I mean, there is of course a small skirmish that occurs in the desert in the middle of the night when a pair of Arnold’s deputies stumbles upon Cortez’s cronies unpacking a mobile bridge from a fifty foot trailer but it’s all just dull stepping stones to the films climax. The film is indeed titled “The Last Stand” for a reason and makes no reservation as to what the film is building up to. Arnold and his team of loonies will make an attempt to create an impenetrable blockade so that Cortez cannot make it to the border.
This ghetto version of the ending sequences of Saving Private Ryan does have its charms though. One of the film’s most endearing moments is seeing Arnold roll up onto the battlefield in an oversized school bus, positioned in the back with an old school mini-gun and taking no prisoners. Johnny Knoxville plays one of Arnold’s deputies and seeing his face as he helps feed bullets into the spinning monster is a classic moment of old mixed with the new. There are some other good death scenes in the movie that will satisfy those who came to see shit blow up and the film even makes a good discussion point for all the gun enthusiast out there
who might be hating on Obama.
This film will make you want to go home and polish your six shooter and put on your finest red, white, and blue linens and shout “Give me Liberty or Give me Death!” so loud that you’ll scare your liberal neighbors.
Also, if you happen to be a fan of Chevy cars you’re in for a treat. A good portion of this movie is dedicated to some steaming car on car action as a Corvette and Camaro go at out in a silly game of cat and mouse in the middle of a corn field.
As the film’s ending credits hit the screen I was expecting a P.S.A stating that no corn was harmed in the making of this film but, unfortunately, there was no such announcement. Oh well, this is America right? We should be able to destroy an entire crop of food if we want to! The scene comes to an end as Arnold and Cortez eventually get out of their cars and duke it out on the bridge in an MMA style showdown. Yea…
Despite my love of the Govenator, it’s very hard to give this movie anything over a six. Hell, a 5.5 is probably pushing it but the film does possess some entertainment value. A lack of energy and writing prevents his movie from reaching its state of fruition and we can only hope that the slew of Arnold movies that are currently in production will turn out better.