Last Call

Paolo Pilladi is a director who made a movie with very good actors using a story with lots of potential and a camera work which was quite good... so why the movie felt so flat? Almost like making a cocktail in The Bucket which does not taste well because something is missing, but I cannot pinpoint what!

I really liked the social impact of the story mixed up with the personal drama but all I could actually remember from watching it were the scenes where Irish guys live their dreams through wasted time of drunkenness!

Was excited to watch this film as I grew up in Upper Darby PA where this film was based on. But the plot never took off, was really slow and disjointed and was hard for me to connect with any of the characters. As it ended, I found myself asking what just happened and it can't be over - as the story never really materialized. It was semi-entertaining at times and had a few laughs, but wasn't really ever engaged with it.

Stereotypes are true but to be avoided because they do not offer fresh perspectives, rather they present fixed views that coddle our expectations. Using the familiar return story, this movie exploits every stereotype it in almost every degree.

We have the cranky father, the old band of friends, the various women (this is mostly a male tale told from the male angle); economic hardship, career and ambition disappointments and many passing shots of houses and streets that would not grace a glossy lifestyle magazine.

Along with those tired contextual clichés we have the representation of working class men as horny, hard-drinking and unlikely to reach any form of maturity. They have scant lives besides benders and laughing drunkenly in their endless pursuit of male bonding. Such fixed and narrow representations of other social groups usually cause anger but perhaps this cohort are phlegmatic about such things.

To use a phrase, It is what it is, and if this story with its good intentions and able cast of actors seems worth the time, then so be it. Don't look for much above the prosaic.

An insipid, uninteresting, disappointing movie lacking in almost every department. The writing is absolutely useless, there is no development whatsoever for any of the characters. Love line (or what it really meant to be) is highly implausible, Piven and Manning have below zero chemistry together. Honestly, it's so bad, it's ridiculous. The weird condition, which was for some unimaginable reason assigned to the protagonist, kept to be reiterated in several scenes for no reason at all. Lots of drunk people talking rubbish, and that's it. No wonder the actors looked like they were bored to even be on set.

I give it four stars just because I like stories of saved neighborhoods, and "Last Call" could have been so much better had the makers put a little more effort in it. I say, re-watch "Two-Weeks Notice" instead, don't waste your time and money on this one.

A totally useless film. The actors are blameless, especially since they have to play despite the absence of a script. It's a real waste of time and a deep boredom.