The Last Victim

It wasn't a movie you had to watch, but it wasn't bad at all. However, it's a bit boring.

Action was a bit slow. But good movie to watch Friday night. Good job!

Hate the drag-on slow pace. A thriller should avoid such slow-burn tempo. The totally unnecessary narration is another letdown, couldn't quite understand why the screenplay or the director needed to insert such unwanted blah, blah, and blah. Camera work is fine but too traditionally cliched and formulaic way of shooting, such as shot the person stepping out of the car, the shoes touching the ground, driver-side car door closed, then the camera following pair of shoes walking forward, the camera following them, then gradually raise up from legs, thighs, to upper body, but still only showing the back of the person...That, really sucks big time, man.

Then, there's a scene showing the sheriff and the female deputy sat on the rear of the police truck eating (lunch or supper?) in broad daylight. Then again, same eating scene, but it's totally dark. How long a meal could be last so long and so slow for just couple of sandwiches? Are the eating scenes that dragged so long for the purpose of building up the tension or just for the purpose to make the movie itself longer? So many unnecessary scenes could be smartly cut off and edited, but no, those scenes just have to stay to fill up the empty on-going. Man, why we have to watch a throw-back deadbeat thriller like this? An eatery in the middle of nowhere still opening for business at late night? It even equipped CCTV? One old woman running the diner?

Also, the killing spree is just kinda clueless and totally exaggerated, just to serve the hollow screenplay.

The first 90 minutes of this movie aren't horrible, but it's very slow without much of value. It has trouble investing you in the story or characters even though it spends lots of time trying to.

In the last 15 minutes it gets really stupid. And you realize how little you care about the outcome. (1 viewing, 5/20/2022)

It's such a shame, this had so much potential, especially with the stellar performances. As a neo-noir wester thriller, this was beautifully shot by Naveen A. Chathapuram in his directorial and writing debut.

But the jointly written story by the three writers was a disjointed convoluted mess, riddled with plot holes, and not as smart or as thrilling as it thought it was. It started off with promise, but the last act became so unbelievably dumb and lazy, that it will leave you feeling you wasted your investment is staring to watch it. I'm baffled how all three writers thought this would be an adequate and thrilling story.

Cinematography was excellent, and the score on point. It's too bad the actors wasted their talents on what could have been really great, but instead was a missed opportunity. It's a generous 5/10, all for the cast and cinematography.

This film had the potential to be great. Too bad that wasn't the case. It starts out ok but goes downhill pretty fast. About 30 minutes in I had lost total interest. Basic 5 star film.