Review of The Last Winter (2006) by Bran P — 04 Oct 2007

It is about time that a movie took an environmental horror--here Global Warming--and turned it into a literal and almost unseen monster.

In remote Alaska an oil company tries tries to balance environmental harm against its own profit margin, but instead of discovering whether or not oil digging is plausible, the company instead finds some nasty stuff.

First, head honcho Ed Pollack's (Ron Perlman) nephew (Zach Gilford) turns crazy after a night out in the tundra alone. Instead of using this as a reason to send the delirious boy home, taskmaster and resident arsehole Pollack instead uses it as a set up for a string of macho lines about toughness. It's unmistakable that despite the hyper masculinity, what really drives him is his commitment to oil.

Played as Pollack's opposite is James Hoffman (James LeGros) whose concern is avoiding what he sees is a sour gas effect precipitated by uncommonly warm temperatures. The warm temperatures have caused 10,000 year old ice to melt, and, according to Hoffman, it is the sour gas that is making everybody crazy.

Director Larry Fessenden leaves some ambiguity by having some of the men see the green gas (hee!) monster, and others flatly stating that it's not there. Has the desolate situation--with little human companionship or stimulation, where men and women routinely turn to booze to assuage the loneliness--yielded some cabin fever, or is there really something out there in the snow picking these men off one by one?

What the film lacks is real tension. At some points, it's as if the director is enjoying playing duck hunt with his characters. They die in such quick succession, that it's hard to root for any of them. Also, Fessenden adds unnecessary gore, which is strange in this context.

While the message about global warming is good, there is just not enough of an actual film built around that message to make this one as powerful as it could have been.