Review of The Last Stand (2013) by Tom R — 16 Feb 2014

This is an absolutely dumb action film, but getting so have Arnold back in the saddle as an action hero is pretty darn fun. I'd have liked to have seen Arnold paired with a better script and a director like Paul Verhoven or Walter Hill, but surrounding himself with a great cast that includes Forest Whitaker, Johnny Knoxville, Luis Guzmán, Peter Stormare, Zach "Matt Saracen" Gilford, and an uncredited Harry Dean Stanton as Mr.

Parsons for memorable one scene goes a long ways. Harry Dean is still the champion of my all-time favorite one scene performance at Mr. Eckert in "Red Dawn," telling his boys "I was hard on you when you was growin' up.

I did things that made you hate me. Now, you can see why I did. I don't want no more tears shed for me, ya hear? I'm not gonna be there for you now, you gotta look out for each other..." But I digress about a much better action film.

Directed by Kim Jee-woon, who made the well respected Korean serial killer film "I Saw the Devil" (which I still haven't seen yet). The action scenes are competent if not especially compelling and are thankfully not as bombastic as your average Michel Bay film.

It certainly did not feel nearly as inventive as director 's previous film "The Good, the Bad, the Weird The Good, the Bad, the Weird" though. Now I'm fine with Arnold doing a silly action flick and delivering corny one liners, but my main complaint is that we don't actually get to see Arnold be an action hero until near the end of the film.

There's plenty of action leading up to that point, but Arnold is not the one doing the terminating. A good cast and decent enough of action manage to carry a pretty awful script and make this film worth watching for Arnold fans.