The Last Stop in Yuma County

At an isolated rest stop in Yuma County, Arizona in the 1970s, several characters are forced to wait at the nearby diner after the resupply truck for the gas station is running late including two bank robbers who stole $700,000.

The Last Stop in Yuma County is the feature debut of writer director Francis Galluppi who began his career in music before transitioning to film with short films High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. A passion project for Galluppi, he spent years trying to get the film made with a larger studio only for disagreements between the financiers and Galluppi over the direction of the material to stonewall progress. After that point Galluppi accepted the offer of his executive producer, James Claeys, who sold his home in order to acquire the film's estimated $1 million budget. Using a roster of smaller names and character actors to fill out the cast, the film was a true independent project with the cast mainly coming together through goodwill and shared passion. The film has received a lot of considerable acclaim with director Sam Raimi so impressed with the film he personally hired Galluppi to direct a film in the Evil Dead series. The Last Stop in Yuma County is a solid showcase of Galluppi's strengths as a writer director who creates an engaging thriller with a limited location, talented cast, and guerilla ingenuity.

The Last Stop in Yuma County's premise is simple in that it takes a bunch of different characters with big personalities and builds tension in a small location using the old standard of the "money in a bag". Galluppi does a nice job of establishing his characters who range from overworked waitresses and hard luck traveling salesman to bank robbers on a hair trigger or youthful crooks who fancy themselves as romanticized versions of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate while ignoring what happened to them. The cast made up mostly of smaller character actors do well with the mateiral including Jim Cummings' unnamed knife salesman who's very much a wrong man at the wrong place at the wrong time or Richard Brake and Nicholas Logan as the bank robbing duo who start on simmer until building to an explosive release. The film stays great for 70 minutes but once it reaches its conclusion it does kind of feel like Galluppi struggled to wrap the film up in a way that was up to the level of its first two thirds. There's nothing really wrong with the film's ending as it's more or less the old ironic standard that's been the basis for this kind of story seen as far back as The Treasure of Sierra Madre, but it does feel like a case where it's kind of stretching itself in order to get to that point.

The Last Stop in Yuma County is an effective small scale thriller that uses its limited resources and location to strong effect using characters with strong personalities to create a tense thriller that works its way up from simmer to a boil. I personally wasn't a fan of the third act as I felt it paled in comparison to the first two thirds, but it's a strong and effective showcase of Galluppi's abilities as a writer and director.

With each new narrative development, the film's game of cat and mouse grows more complex... Some people lay on to the danger they're in, while others are blissfully unaware. The diner becomes a pressure cooker, and you never know who's going to make the move, either accidentally or on purpose, that sets the whole thing off...

You can feel Quentin Tarantino's artistic DNA coursing through this story... There are little moments of blackhearted comedy among the bloodshed, but through it all, The Last Stop in Yuma County makes sure that those gunshots resonate. It isn't about the violence overall as we're watching people die messy, unnecessary deaths that come about for no good reason. They just happened to run out of gas at the worst possible time...

Galluppi isn't afraid to kill any of his darlings. Who's left standing by the day's end becomes just as surprising as the insanely entertaining journey getting there... The single location setting is richly textured, with production designer Charlie Textor ensuring the rest stop has as much personality as the elite group stuck there. The vibrant color grading further enriches the production value. Despite the desolate setting...

Also the primary thing that stands tall is the camera work gorgeous enough that reflects the mood of the desert...Also the score combines with what's in the frame in such a way that it satisfies the haunting minds of the atmosphere...While the sound design helps to design or to establish the tension that the least or minute barren desert too contributes...

And finally what to say about the casting everybody did their job in perfection that you can't move the eyes off the screen & therefore keeping our adrenaline pumping until the last act...One can't forget "FARGO" or even " THE HATEFUL EIGHT" Where the director honors the G. O. A. T...

Overall it's everybody's cup of coffee to rejuvenate consuming the medium called Cinema...

...I was really surprised the movie was this good. Its premise is simple. Small diner in middle of nowhere. Where nothing really happens. Life is a cup of coffee and you live on.

The assemblance of character cast was interesting. No big names, just simple people that made it work. They are good at what they do. They entertain us, that made the difference. It gave the moments grit from all sides of life. Crooks, geeks, elderly, blue collars..etc.

Directer did great job, keeping us idling along just right. It never got boring. Kept us waiting for what could or would happen next.

Ambiance worked great. Dry, hot, desolate weather. How can anyone live here? But they do.

Very enjoyable, flick.

You've seen this movie before, this doesn't really do anything new that those haven't done. It's well acted, tightly and competently written, and rather predictable. They try to throw a wrench at the end, but eh, I've seen enough of these types of movies before. The "sweater unraveling movie".

You start out with a loose thread, and the initial pull on it; "No Gas at the Gas Station, since they're in a super remote area, and no gas for the next 100 Miles." Then more and more people come to pull on that loose thread speeding up the destruction of that sweater, 'til it's a pile of yarn. There's your movie.

Its strength is in the acting, and doing CRISP, CLEAN, BELIEVABLE DIALOG and ACTIONS. No one really behaves in a way that doesn't make sense, all actions taken in this movie makes sense and the results of those choices also makes sense. It's a tight and clean script. Which also what makes it mediocre. It's a little too by the books and safe. They realize that by the end and TRY, but fail, TRY to throw a slight curve ball, but you as a wise audience member calls it from a mile away.

You watch this once, and you're good. You won't feel like you were robbed of your time, but ONCE is more than enough. There aren't clever clues foreshadowing the next move in the series of events, hidden in the scenery. It bears everything out in the open.

While stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop, a traveling salesman is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.

It reminded me a little of Natural Born Killers, and From Dusk til Dawn. In that it's slightly offbeat, filmed in a very stylised manner, and every single person in the film carries out their role with skill and panache.

It's one of those crazy films where you simply don't know what's going to happen next, and when it does, you think nothing more crazy can happen, then it does!

It's never slow or dull, it's never silly, it's just excellent bloody adventure with tons of twist. I loved it and gave it a 7.