Last Stand
Arnold Schwarzenegger remains to this day the greatest of all action movie stars, a guy whom while he wasnât a driving creative force in the genre (like Stallone) was still someone who brought an unmistakable presence and air about him that nobody else could ever touch (including Stallone). A string of classics in the 80s and 90s eventually led to his running for and winning the seat as Governor Of California due mostly to his overwhelming popularity with the masses (although whether or not his political foray was sincere or rather an attempt to put his legend over more remains up for debate). Upon the end of his term (and the fact that his immigrant status prevented him from making a Presidential run), he would make a return to the acting ranks (barring his jokey extended cameos in Stalloneâs Expendables films) with this 2013 release, a success in almost every way possible except for a healthy box office take that nonetheless would be more than made up for with DVD and home video sales managing to net the whole thing a nice profit. The loving clichĂ©s that the genre is known for would be fulfilled of course, but the acknowledgement of the story taking place in a more modern setting would also be on hand with this being Arnoldâs first leading role in 10 years (after the ill advised Terminator 3) and most interestingly of all, leading Korean filmmaker Jee-Woon Kim in the directorâs chair, a guy who was said to have an understanding of English but could not actually speak it which required an interpreter between him and his actors and crew even as his visual and camera staging skills appeared to be second to none here. Schwarzenegger plays Ray Owens, a retired LAPD drug task force officer whom after deciding that he had seen enough bloodshed had walked away from the job to instead become a sheriff in a sleepy little Arizona border town where almost next to nothing happens and he likes it just fine that way. Meanwhile up in Las Vegas, The FBI is preparing to transfer a recently convicted drug lord into a maximum security facility for the rest of his life, but of course he gets busted out in a daring escape, made even more daring by the fact that his people seem to have seen their share of action movies depicting criminals being busted out and have come up with successful counters to seemingly everything that The FBI could possibly come up with to impede his escape (including having several decoys in orange correctional suits scattering all over downtown Vegas during the escape itself at 4 in the morning as the agents tackle and arrest one wrong man after another which is a clever and original idea), topped off with the drug lord himself (Eduardo Noriega), a young, slick and charismatic figure in his own right, taking off in a prototype race car capable of both speeding along at 200 mph and also using infra red to drive at night under cover of darkness without being detected (similar actually to Jackie Chanâs car in Cannonball Run) all while grabbing a cute female FBI agent (Genesis Rodriguez) as his hostage while making straight for the border which given the route, would take him right through Schwarzeneggerâs town where the drug lord already has a gang of armed criminals (led by Peter Stormare with a redneck accent) waiting for him, having even gone so far as to build a makeshift bridge across the canyon that separates the town from the Mexican border. When Schwarzeneggerâs deputies stumble across Stormareâs mercenaries, a firefight ensues that leaves one of the deputies dead, compelling Arnold (once he learns that the fugitive drug lord is heading his way) to decide that heâs going to make his stand for better or worse to stop the drug lord from coming through and using his town as a steppingstone for freedom. The drug lord is wily though, since we are told that he has experience as a professional race car driver and has the ability to use his âCannonball / Banditâ skills to get himself out of the tightest spots imaginable that he finds himself in (and if all else fails, he just sends in a team of armed mercenaries to take out any law enforcement with a roadblock set up to stop him before he actually gets there). Arnold decides that heâs going to need more deputies to pull off this task besides his reliable old hand (the legendary Luis Guzman) and his frightened female deputy (Jaimie Alexander), so he signs up her ex boyfriend who happens to be a Gulf War veteran and who also happens to be in the lockup at the moment on a drunk and disorderly beef (Rodrigo Santoro) along with someone who appears at first glance to just be the town weirdo (Johnny Knoxville) but who also happens to be a gun nut with a large personal warehouse loaded with all kinds of weaponry thatâs actually very useful if youâre going to be taking on a small army of highly trained mercenaries. The buildup to the showdown with Stormareâs goons is expertly handled with Arnold (whom it turns out relishes watching over this sleepy little town after growing weary of the atmosphere of violence that came with being an LA cop) accepting the fact that heâs going to have to strap it on one more time and shoot it out with the bad guys and it is either through this plot conceit or in Arnoldâs own storied history as an action legend that his performance here actually achieves some serious dramatic gravitas, definitely proving that he and only he could have pulled off this role and achieved the level of credibility that he does (Arnold was always an underrated actor even as his acting skills were a work in progress over the years). The real surprise in the supporting cast though is Noriega as the drug lord villain, being saddled with such clichĂ©s like âI have enough money to bribe anybodyâ and âI have no fear of death so I am not afraid to do anything that I have to do to surviveâ but yet still bringing a freshness to it especially when dealing with his exasperated female FBI hostage and The FBI themselves who seemingly have no answer for his various well thought out and successful schemes (although laying out spikes on the road that they know the supercar is driving down apparently never comes to mind). But what solidifies this as being a great action movie is when Arnold mounts up his motley crew of deputies for the final battle knowing full well that they are either scared shitless or (in the case of Knoxville) too stupid for their own good to know exactly what they are in for and they carry out their sheriffâs tactical strategies against Stormareâs mercenaries and more importantly, start picking them off one at a time (causing Stormareâs men to finally sustain casualities for the first time in the whole film), it comes to feel like it MEANS SOMETHING and that their so called âlast standâ wasnât so much a foolhardy gesture but rather a justified siege to stop those who are evil from just plowing through their small town on their way to freedom. But it is in the final one on one battle between Schwarzenegger and Noriega (a major star in Spain who is a virtual unknown here) that the generational crossrip is successfully achieved with Noriega even pulling out some Gracie style Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu moves on Arnold only whenever Arnold fights his way out of it the younger man just doubles his bribe offer for Arnold to look the other way on his escape and somehow spare himself more of the brutal beating that this Legend is laying on him. But Arnold IS playing the good guy here just as he has done many times before and his integrity cannot be bought even as he beats this pretty boy master criminal to a bloody pulp. As the Korean director Kim brings a definite kinetic energy to all of this that just makes it WORK, the only drawback it would seem is in the FBI Agent heading up the actual investigation itself as played by an undeniable acting great in Forest Whitaker who struggles to have a âbig momentâ of his own here but ultimately fails as he even disbelieves a phone call from Schwarzenegger telling him about Stormareâs mercenaries having murdered his deputy, only showing up at the very end to do some clean up work. In the old days, this type of obtuse authority figure character would have been played by a semi respectable character actor and NOT by a highly respected Oscar winner and watching Whitaker trying to make more out of this role than what it is can be painful to watch. Regardless, this remains Arnoldâs return to form and a fine modern reinterpretation of the action genre that deserves more respect than it has gottenâŠ
9/10