Last Ferry

Start with an ending! If you don't know where your story's going to go, it might not be a tale worth telling. With that said, this is a generally very good thriller centering around a lonesome lawyer taking a trip to Fire Island and finding himself in one unfortunate altercation after another. What would have made this a nearly perfect film is a different ending. As in: an _actual_ ending and not the utter non-ending we were given. Even the post-credits snippet (can't call it a "scene") left me ultimately unsatisfied. But otherwise, by no means is this a bad film. Definitely worth your time.

Gay themed thrillers are a rarity in the film world. This modest effort starts out well enough. Joseph, a loner/lonely Gay man goes to Fire Island looking for escape from his unhappy job as a lawyer, fun and connection only to discover he's come off season, and doesn't have a clue of what he's going to do or where he'll stay. Warned about the meatrack by an older Gay man (played almost as a predator to the enormous discredit of the script/director), Joseph allows a stranger (but a young handsome stranger) to lure him into the meatrack. Joseph is drugged and mugged, stumbles with a cloudy head and senses of perception towards the beach and sees someone dragging a body to the edge of the water, he runs off and passes out.

When he comes to he is in the living room of a classic Fire Island modernist home where Cameron, apparently the man who found him passed out has brought him to recover. Is Cameron actually a savior, or is he part of the looming dangers of Fire Island?

The film introduces a cast of house guests and it's pretty obvious that Rafael, the hottest, sexiest and most fuckable of all the film's characters is trouble.

The film builds small tensions, but ends with an abrupt stop that left me completely unsatisfied.

The genre of "gay thriller" has definitely been evolving to the point that once in awhile, there are films that exceed expectations. "Last Ferry" is not one of them. While there are some decent performances (Sheldon Best stands out) the rest of the characters really aren't strong enough to "carry" the film (especially the lead, who just spends most of the film practicing his "clueless" expression). While I've never been to Fire Island, I find it a bit hard to believe that in the modern era of cel phones a serial predator who drugs/mugs victims wouldn't eventually be identified. So, from the beginning there is quite a bit of suspension of disbelief to overcome (maybe if this were set in the 70's? Maybe that's actually when it was written? I dunno, but in the present it really doesn't work). There's a little skin, a little eye-candy, a little romance...but all in all it just comes off as a very well-edited and filmed low budget effort with little substance.

I just watched this as it had high rating on IMDb. What the hell was that? I've seen far better movies rated 5 or less at IMDb. The acting was okay but the story sucked. Initially it was very interesting but as the movie progressed, became more and more boring. Wasted a lot of time for this piece of crap movie. I'm all for gay rights and all, but doesn't mean you've to rate it high if the movie actually sucked. Disappointed.

Last Ferry isn't the perfect thriller, but it has to be commended for the way it approaches queerness. The characters feel real and rounded without ever letting their sexuality define them entirely and this was SO refreshing to see in a genre film like this.