Review of The Last Stand (2013) by Kevbo85 — 09 Aug 2013

Heading into it, I fully expected "The Last Stand" to be boilerplate Schwarzenegger: Guns, one-liners, poor attempts at dramatic turns, car chases, and more guns. "The Last Stand" is all these things, but manages to make it all worthwhile, working a fun supporting cast around the obviously aged Schwarzenegger while pumping every ounce of adrenaline from the predictable action sequences.

Trailers attempted to heavily sell Johnny Knoxville's role as some sort of zany sidekick, but his role is more limited than that, and its probably for the best. He adds to the fun of course, but it is the perturbed Peter Stormare who injects the highest amount of amusement. For a secondary villain, there is enough in his part to have made him the focal point of the entire film. Forrest Whittaker turns in a generic but satisfactory role as a head FBI Agent trying to recapture an escaped drug cartel kingpin, which is the entire plot in a nutshell. Again, nothing surprising here.

As for Arnold, he is a casual master at this sort of film, and despite the wear and tear, he is still more than believable as a small-town sheriff who doesn't know the meaning of the word 'quit'. Early attempts at fleshing out a bit of backstory on the character are appreciated, but ultimately unnecessary; it's Arnold Schwarzenegger, he's a cop, and there are bad guys between him and the film's eventual ending.

You can easily fill in the blanks without even watching it, but I recommend it anyway, because it does exactly what its supposed to do and wastes only a small amount of time trying to be something it isn't.