The Last Great Wilderness

THE LAST GREAT WILDERNESS is a different sort of movie. There's a gentle warmth about it that is jarringly interrupted by jolts of graphic sex and disturbing, sadistic violence. There's also a thick atmosphere of dread that's broken up by a cast of oddball characters and humorous bits.

Charlie (Alastair Mackenzie) is the driven, damaged center of the story, on a voyage of danger and discovery.

If you enjoy neo-gothic ghost stories or subtle, suddenly shocking thrillers, then give this film a go...

A good attempt to do something different. Has a weird, off-beat feel to it, and the community hidden away in the highlands is well drawn. The cast do well in fleshing out their characters, and there is a sense of foreboding and melancholy that slowly creeps up on you. At first I wasn't totally convinced by Charlie (Alistair McKenzie)'s journey as a character, until he's wondering through the woods and finds an old rusty trampoline. With nobody around, he's free to bounce up and down on it like a kid. This sounds a bit dumb, but it was really quite effective - you really got the sense of a guy finally being able to open up and enjoy himself. Good stuff all round, well directed, moody cinematography, deserves to be seen by a wider audience. .

"The Last Great Wilderness" was touted as both a horror movie and a thriller, especially with its poster and DVD cover featuring Alistair Mackenzie toting a shotgun. Suffice to say, Mackenzie's character is wearing a dress at the same time as carrying the shotgun, which is as good an indication as any of the film's rather insane trajectory.

It has an obviously improvisatory feel - when one character makes a confession about the nature of his fantasies, it's hard not to imagine that this really is the first time that the other actors have heard about it (which makes the scene work very well). Other reviewers have already nailed the wayward charm of this cracking movie - though it meanders through any number of genres, with signposts for a dozen other movies, what holds it together is its vicious sense of humour. Worth seeing for the overwhelmingly sinister atmosphere, some superb performances, and an entirely unexpected and shockingly tender love scene which instantly makes the usual Hollywood soft-focus look irredeemably artificial. It's not without flaws, but "The Last Great Wilderness" is nevertheless rivetting, and hopefully not the last great independent British movie.

I thought this movie was excellent in every way. I didn't find it a one-actor movie at all. Although it focused a bit on Charlie, Vince and all the characters in the lodge were just as important. I thought all the actors did a great job. (I've not seen Monarch of the Glen, but I want to now!) Wonderful movie...wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Hopefully at least a few people outside of Edinburgh will see it! :)

This starts out looking like a run of the mill road trip film then suddenly you realise it's tripped into Wicker man territory. Well worth seeing, especially if you're familiar with the atmosphere in the highlands of scotland as its full of subtle references to the attitudes of the location, which really ring true.

In a way it's a one actor movie but Alastair Mackenzie does well as Charlie, although for anyone who's seen Monarch of the Glen it's difficult to stop seeing him as Archie. That being said the supporting cast, the usual suspects from the scottish luvies, do well too.

Overall a delightful, well observed comedy on the nature of escapisim.