The Last Request

From the very beginning the film had me laughing and I knew I was in for a very unusual ride. Somehow the writer director managed to blend off beat with even more off beat with a some warmth, especially towards the end of the movie.

Tony Lo Bianco and Mario Cantone shared a scene in the church and they were more like a comedy team than two actors working together in a movie. The biggest name in the movie was Danny Aiello who was brilliant as the over the top dying pop. T.R. Knight was perfectly cast as the nerdy son who has to work through all of of his fears on a quest his dying dad wouldn't take no for an answer. He was also matched perfectly with Sabrina Loydd the girl he doesn't know is the one. It's a simple story but anymore and the outlandish jokes wouldn't have worked. This is charming, funny film that somehow is kind of sick at the same time. I loved it. I'm glad I rented it. I'll have to thank the friend who turned me on to this little gem.

I was watching this film with a group of friends and we were hysterical. I had first seen this in New York when it won the New York Independent Film and video festival. The audience there was laughing just as hard as my friends.

The humor is off beat with constant surprises. And Danny Aiello is brilliant and the dying dad who was a former comic. The one liners are great and delivered like an old pro. TR Knight is brilliant as the former seminarian. Gilbert Gottfried, one of the familiar cranky voice, was used cleverly. He never said a word. The comedy mixed strangeness with warmth and it worked.

My friends think this could turn out to be a cult film.

I highly recommend it.

It's just plan fun. Nothing deep. Nothing profound. Nothing controversial, well maybe one thing, a sight gag but I won't get into that here.

This is an coming of age story that takes a familiar trail but the the twists and turns in the form of odd ball characters make this enjoyable ride full of strange treats.

TR Knight from Grey's Anatomy plays the lead, which by the look of him was shot before the TV. It's almost like his character George started here and grew into what it has become on the TV show. His death bed ridden father is played by Danny Aiello, who hams it up as an old time comic, who despite his failing health can't stop laughing at his own jokes. Mario Cantone is great as a want to be at one time actor, who runs an actors retirement home and take his job very seriously in a very funny way. The story is about a kid trying to please his father but in don't so he's really pleasing himself. And it seems like he was the last to know. Sabrina Loydd plays his love interest and they seem to fit better than the matches they made for him on Grey's anatomy. If you're looking for a movie to feel good about and laugh at without getting a bombarded by profanity and body functions jokes than this is your baby. Which is what the movie is really all about.

Danny A. is no comic master and I should have learned that from "Hudson Hawk." No, in a flick like this he's more into yukking it up on his own end, and not the audience. Laughing all the way to the bank would be my guess.

I wasn't kidding, 15 minutes was all I could invest in this crap, and the only other movie I had left to watch was a foreign film that looked riskier. It wasn't, thus, a low-budget horror offering from New Zealand beats Danny A. and company. It wasn't even close.

Danny! Stick with mob movies with lots of blood. There's still time. Avoid comedy, Dan.

A friend told me to rent this film and as usual he was right. This was a very funny film sort of an updated early Woody Allen. The were some great visuals and funny, strange characters. The simplicity of the story, which surprisingly worked in conjunction with the wild humor.

The writer was very clever in that he must have written this to appeal to both old and young. The humor being wacky, the story about coming of age, yet much of it was set in an old age home. He was blending the twenty something TR Knight's struggle to grow up with the old peoples struggle just to hang on.

Danny Aiello was great playing the dying father, who's last request is for one of his sons to carry on the family name. Without telling you too much TR if forces to quit the seminary and take on the challenge. And a challenge is what he goes through. Using therapy he works past his detached mother to rise to that challenge. It's a very funny, simple movie with lots of laughs and some heart. Rent it.