Last Run

"Last Run" is all about Asante, an ex-CIA operative in the Communist bloc whose position was made defunct by the end the the cold war and who is paid to escort a wanted-dead-or-alive Soviet ex-security chief to the West against all odds. "Last Run" is an okay Budapest location shoot with Asante serving as a solid centerpiece. However, there's insufficient character development to give us an emotional connection, the action is little more than a lot of shootouts, the drama is mostly lots of scurrying and skulking, and the story is so convoluted it's difficult to follow. Worth a look for the bleary eyed couch potato and Asante fans. (C)

Sure, like most films of this genre there are some holes in the plot. But when it's filmed beautifully, in some stunning locations, and well- acted, especially by Armand Assante who spends the whole movie glowering as if he's about to explode, then it's easy to forget a few logic leaps and just enjoy this movie. There are some great chase sequences, and some good tension, and it keeps you guessing. Forgive the flaws, appreciate the scenery, and appreciate an above-average spy thriller.

Although Last Run is just another spy/secret agent/cold war movie, it's working pretty well. A team of American and Russian agents try to bring a Russian agent over the borders of the east into the West... of course the Iron Wall doesn't exist anymore in 2001, and Americans and Russians work together, so there are lots of more Gangsters and double agents kicking the butts of our heroes...

The film is thrilling, and the action scenes (lots of great shoot outs) are photographed very well. The score reminds me a lot of John Barry's old James Bond movie soundtracks and adds a certain sixties' feeling to the film. The locations are also unusual, being filmed in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria and Germany, mostly on the beautiful countryside.

The actors are also well chosen. Instead of taking dumb non-actors like Michael Dudikoff, Dolph Lundgren or Jean-Claude Van Damme for this movie, the director and producers chose mature actors like Armande Assante, Ornela Muti and Juergen Prochnow of "Das Boot" fame as main actors. Assante plays the cool and disillusioned U.S. agent very convincing, and pretty Ornela Muti looks like a stunning, red-haired version of The Avenger's Diana Rigg.

A good secret agent thriller in the wake of Ian Fleming's, Frederik Forsythe's and Colin Forbes' political thrillers that proves that cold war plots are still worth a good movie in the new millennium.

I feel kinda sorry that LAST RUN didn`t get a theatrical release. It is a perfect B-film that Joel Silver and Jerry Bruckeheimer should be churning out between blockbusters. Hickox masterfully direct East European locations, as good as Michael Oblowitz on a good day.

The plot is straight eighties spy yarn. A team of ex-CIA enforcers are hired to extract a former Soviet bigwig that has some useful post-Cold War know-how. The team is led by hardboiled Assante who lost his wife in the last extraction job.

The script follows the plot and gives us enough detail to care for the characters, gives us enough suspense and twists to care for the plot and sets up some nice action set-pieces.

Sadly, Hickox never cut it in mainstream Hollywood and his resume is quite mixed, look at bizarre failure JILL RIPPS or INVASION OF YOUR PRIVACY but in this one he does some A-work with a direct-to-video budget. Every set-piece is smart and juggular and able to grip you by the neck and yet never blow early and uncover the flat budget. Give this man a 25-million-per-actioner-Joel-Silver-treatment (ROMEO MUST DIE, EXIT WOUNDS, CRADLE 2 THE GRAVE) and he`ll outgun Bartkowiak by a mile.

The problem with Hickox making it in Hollywood is that his filmography is too hectic for PR managers. The director of JILL RIPPS is a hard-sell. It is so sad that PR schemes are more important than actual movies in contemporary Hollywood. I cherished the times when Anthony`s dad Douglas was making pictures, when directors were either auteurs or anonymous executors hired to make pictures for pictures` sake. And yet I hope there are enough people unaffected by this PR business who can enjoy a good B-movie and consider Hickox an author that he truly is.

I hope Hickox yet unreleased film BLAST! that seems to be heading to theatres proves to be a surprise hit. We need this man back!

I rented a DVD of Last Run and I would like to comment. I have watched the film one time and part-way a second time. The photography is very attractive with European Landscapes and some urban subjects. The movie must be watched more than one time to get the plot. The politics of the plot are suppressed. There is a dialogue line about "I do not know which side won the cold war". The movie could go either of two ways. One is more of the action movie comic book plot. I go to a lot of movies for the simple plotting. The other way and I think maybe a follow-up movie like Last Run is something like the alienated existential intelligence man. The lead role is smoother than "Frank Banner" (I am using the IMDB credits page for my information here) but the art direction and production would be similar to what I watched last night. Last Run is pretty good. I can give the movie three stars out of five. But I want to write some more.

The woman in the movie are all mature, adult and over eighteen years of age. I must write that I wonder if they rent or own. They all die in the movie and Frank gets upset and yells the word NO and tries to revive one of the women. (The cast link does not work on the IMDB credits page to get the names. What do you know?) The women are attractive and European. Since I had problems following the politics of the plot story line I wonder how much the locations, which are in Hungary and Austria, are important. One scene shows a map in color and I want to use the stop button on my remote to look at the map a little more closely. There are weapons in the movie. The audio seems to be subdued and filtered which is a good thing because I do not need to pay for volume that it too loud and would damage my equipment or my friendship with my neighbors. The music is recorded, interesting and orchestral. There is little Rock music in this film. I do not remember indigenous music in the native languages. But the weapons could need to be identified by a specialist in arms. I do not know. I just wondered if identifying the arms and the locations would help in the plotting.

The end of the movie is a scene from a open space of land with statues and monuments from the communist era. One statue of Lenin is photographed on the screen. The end of the story is the digging up of dirt on one of the Eastern intelligence bosses from a safebox that has been hidden near the statues. And that is it. Kind of anti-climactic! I have gone through critiquing and letting people read my thoughts. Thanks. But what makes my review important? Why not enjoy the film and let it ride? Let the show go on. Well the answer is technical really and not aesthetic. The beginning of the movie reminds me of the computer game Myst and also Sim-Isle. The point in the game where the statuary is around the fountain. And just a little of the soundtrack of Last Run seems to be from Sim-Isle. I have both games and returned my warranties. The main part of the movie does not continue this. Just briefly in the beginning. Then the last scene with the communist statuary resembles the earlier scene and Myst also. The open space of land with the statuary appears to be a real place. But the games are hard to play. I mean for the audience and the market for computers, PCs and DVDs a lot of people might not be able to figure out the solution to puzzle games or to work to successfully development an island's economy like in Sim-Isle. I know that I can't. I just play for fun. Why sell game software to this market? You see some customers would never be writing a program script. It is just not something they will learn. But the PCs and DVD drives have enough processor power to enable these scripts and integrated programming environments.

I cleansed my DVD disk wiping from inside to outside with glass cleaner. The photography which is excellent in Last Run sometimes is washy looking and I wondered if this had something to do with the suppressed plot or the movie business because there is rain in some of the scenes and raindrops appear on the automobile glass and resemble the problems with the disk. I do not think it was the cleanser because the washy look was always cut with the scene and the lighting. Like a dark scene with a washy fault on my disk and cut to a brilliant outdoor landscape shot that was very attractive and had no technical faults. Maybe I am not washing the disk correctly?

Finally when rewatching the film the second time I turned on the Spanish subtitles to see if I could follow the plot-line by reading and including the Latin. But except for the characters names, no deal. But I enjoyed the disk more with the subtitles on. I watch the subtitles all the time on other disks.