Review of The Last Stand (2013) by Oliver M — 06 Jan 2014

Arnold Schwarzenegger is back as Sheriff Ray Owens, an ex-LAPD Narcotics officer who left the big city to live out the rest of his days looking after a sleepy Arizona border-town. But, when a botched criminal transport puts a ruthless drug cartel leader behind the wheel of a really fast car, it's up to Sheriff Ray and his rag-tag group of deputies to arm up for one last stand!

As a die hard fan of Arnie, and the 80's action cinema style he helped to invent, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't frothing at the mouth to see this movie. It was to be the seven time Mr. Olympia's triumphant return to the big screen after taking nearly a decade off to be the Govenator of Caulifornia. While I didn't really understand why he'd choose a film where he's playing a small town sheriff taking on a drug cartel leader in a fast car, instead of the script I wrote for him where he's a retired elite commando summoned out of retirement and dropped into a war zone to rescue his kidnapped grandkids, it's Arnie, so I was still excited.

After seeing the movie, I think he should have done my movie instead.

Is The Last Stand the balls-to-the-wall action extravaganza Arnie fans were hoping for upon his return? Nope. I'd say this movie barely even qualifies as a strong action movie at all. Save for a decent shoot-out near the end of the film, and one nifty car chase segment, there isn't much here for action fans to sink their eyeballs into.

Everything about this movie feels phoned in. From the acting, to the directing, to the script, everything just feels "meh" and never really rises above it. Peter Stormare (as bad guy, Burrell) and Johnny Knoxville (as crazy gun museum owner, Dinkum) are the only bright spots. Both play their characters with enough color and style to help offset the blandness that surrounds them, but there isn't enough of them to save the movie.

Part of me wonders if the problems with this flick stem from Arnie suffering from acting ring-rust, and this being the Hollywood debut of Korean director, Kim Jee-Woon. For those familiar with Kim Jee-Woon, you'll recognize some serious classics like, I Saw the Devil and The Good, the Bad, the Weird. With such amazing work in his directorial oeuvre, it makes the utter lack of excitement within The Last Stand pretty surprising. I'd wager that throughout the production of the movie, Kim was inundated with studio notes like, "Remember that this movie isn't for Korea, so don't do anything super crazy, because our audiences won't understand it" and "We think those crazy stunt ideas you have that would actually be very, very cool, are just too much for American audiences to handle, so please water them down.".

The Last Stand isn't the best work of anyone involved. It's boring and lazy. It took me three separate sittings to actually get through the whole thing. If you're considering watching this movie, I'd recommend checking out some of Arnie's previous work instead, or maybe one of the aforementioned Kim Jee-Woon flicks. They'll totally PUMP YOU UP!