The Last Man Blu-ray Review

THE MOVIE — 2.75/5

Plot Synopsis: Kurt (HAYDEN CHRISTENSEN) is a war veteran suffering from PTSD — where he sees his deceased best friend (JUSTIN KELLY) killed in action — coming home to an unholy, unruly land. The world is bad, but local street prophet Noe (HARVEY KEITEL) says it will get even worse when a catastrophic storm strikes. As Kurt heeds Noe’s advice and readies for the apocalypse building a bunker inside his apartment, he meets sultry Jessica (LIZ SOLARI), his new boss’s daughter. Yet even as the planet falls apart, Kurt finds his life finally coming together.

Review: I recently watched The Favourite and whereas that movie I went in with high expectations and left being underwhelmed, I went into The Last Man, considering the history behind Grindstone Entertainment, with pretty low expectations and left actually rather frustrated because there was plenty of potential which never was fully utilized thanks to a mish-mash of genres that never gelled very well together: dystopia future, end-of-the-world apocalypse, film noir and war veteran drama. I’d say take out the whole end of the world aspect, including Harvey Keitel’s part, this might’ve made for an entertaining enough flick.

As it is, The Last Man is a mess of a film and considering Grindstone’s track record (see Dying of the Light and Exposed), it wouldn’t surprise me if the film underwent some changes; the editing on this one was choppy. It seems like Rodrigo H. Vila, assuming little or no studio interference, wrote and directed, didn’t quite know what his film wanted to be. Is it an intimate drama about a PTSD-inflicted war veteran? On that, there were some heart-wrenching scenes as Kurt interacts with his friend, dealing with his guilt. Then there’s the end of the world with an over-the-top Harvey Keitel which, as I mentioned earlier, was easily the weak link. Or how about film noir aspect with money going missing? That part was more of a hindsight inclusion into the plot, never really seeing the theft, though this part did lead into an almost horror like turn when Kurt is admitted into a mental ward. There were parts in each that I truly enjoyed, unfortunately the sum of all these parts led to a pretty poor movie.

On the plus side, outside of Keitel, the acting wasn’t bad. Hayden Christensen has proven himself to be a solid enough actor (which solidifies the issues with the Star Wars prequels wasn’t with him) and he worked well, even in only a couple of scenes, opposite Liz Solari, a Columbian born actress with a limited resume, and marked her American debut. While Solari is hardly phenomenal, I wouldn’t mind seeing more of her with a better script.

The Last Man in the end actually had some potential that, with a re-write or two to streamline the plot and mashing up of the genres, wasn’t actually terrible, especially when compared to some of the bland material that Grindstone normally releases, with few exceptions.

SPECIAL FEATURES – 0.5/5

This release comes in a super-glossy slip cover and inside is a redemption code for the Digital HD copy. The only feature is the Trailer (1:59; HD).

VIDEO – 4.75/5

AUDIO – 4.75/5

OVERALL – 2.75/5

Overall, I so wanted to love The Last Mani but unfortunately due to a needlessly overstuffed plot spreading across different sub-genres, it never quite meshed very well but with some work, this could have been a solid enough dystopian set film noir. This Blu-ray release offers up excellent video and audio transfers but a lackluster set of features.