Few directors shoot action with as much flair as Kim Jee-Woon. In his first American venture, along with his regular DP Ji Yung Kim, he brings his talent to a modern-day western. Ageing small-town sheriff Arnie Schwarzenegger and his motley crew of deputies have to stop a drugs baron and his henchmen from crossing the border to Mexico. Great New Mexico desert locations, well-drawn minor characters and a fine line in humour add to the excitement.
This may be a genre film and a vehicle for Arnie, but Kim uses it to make visually striking cinema. During a prison break, for instance, he uses a crane shot so that we can join the baddies as they slide down a zipwire from the rooftop. And a car chase through sweetcorn fields is like nothing you’ve ever seen before. Exhilarating stuff. Fans of Kim’s Korean work will not be disappointed.
A leader of a drug cartel, on the brink of being put away for good, busts out of a court house and heads for the Mexican border; he doesn’t count on the sheriff of a small Arizona town being none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger however.
As you can imagine, with Arnie at the helm, this is an action packed shoot-fest, with lots of speeding cars and some surprisingly gory violence. The gross out humour elements of the film manage to make it appeal to those in the audience who might be fans of the now ancient American Pie films or the Jackass syndicate, the leader of which stars in this very piece.
There’s not a lot to say about the Last Stand the direction from Korean action film maker Kim Jee-Woon in his first Hollywood feature does give the film a certain edge over its American counterparts, although whether this makes it better or not is debateable. The extreme and rather excessive violence is counter balanced by rather cartoonish stunts and a frenzied pace and tone. Imagine Wile E Coyote and Road Runner but with more machine guns than anvils.
Personally I could not have been more bored by the Last Stand; its characters were meaningless caricatures and the narrative completely predictable whilst the comedy was less light relief and more bladder release. It takes a certain type of person to enjoy a movie like this and I for one am not one of them.