Back Shelf Beauties
by Willie Waffle
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The Last
Shot
Everyone loves a movie, even the FBI.
Based on a true story (but not completely), Alec Baldwin stars as FBI agent
Joe Devine - an ambitious crime fighter who wants to move up to the big leagues
and catch New York Mafioso, but must do his duty in minor league Houston
(no offense to our friends in Texas, it's a plot point, not my opinion).
After capturing a local tough guy, Joe has a brilliant idea to help break
up the mafia, and make himself a star agent.
Devine decides to lure in the mafia by posing as a film producer on location
in Providence who needs help with the local union, therefore, inviting possible
racketeering charges when the mafia offers to fix the problem for a price.
Of course, Devine and the FBI don't know anything about making a movie, so
they hire a real writer/director, Steven Schats (Matthew Broderick), to make
his dream project. The problem? Steven, his friends, his girlfriend Valerie
(Calista Flockhart) and everyone in Hollywood think they are making a real
movie.
Will the FBI pull it off? Will Steven discover the truth?
The Last Shot is a funny movie that needs
some help. I enjoyed writer/director Jeff Nathanson's skewering of Hollywood
and how he uses the FBI agents acting like Hollywood players for great laughs,
however, the movie needs more jokes. He has a great team of actors who can
handle comedy with aplomb, but Nathanson resists the temptation to make
The Last Shot into a true farce. He tries
to make Steven into a sympathetic character, and even attempts to humanize
Devine, when laughs would have been better. The situation is ripe for rapid-fire
comedy, but the trigger is stuck on Nathanson's joke gun. What's here is
amusing, but more would have taken the film to another level.
For a smaller movie, The Last Shot has
an all star cast of talented performers, and one fun cameo. Baldwin is
wonderfully restrained as he plays the zealous FBI lawman (no hamming it
up in this one, thankfully), Ray Liotta makes an appearance as Devine's brother
and boss that is marked by his trademark intensity, and Broderick does what
he can, but suffers from the lack of jokes. His character needs to be more
manic and desperate when you consider this is his big chance and dream project,
one in the making for years and years.
In The Last Shot, it's the women who
steal the show. Surprisingly, Flockhart had the most comic performance as
an actress on the edge and ready to snap over her failed career. She gets
the best, most outrageous jokes, even if Nathanson goes to the well once
too often with one of them. You'll also enjoy Joan Cusack as a foul-mouthed
producer who serves as Devine's role model. She embodies the perfect Hollywood
producer stereotype and runs with it by bringing the kind of energy the rest
of the film needs. Meanwhile, Toni Collette swoops in at just the right moment
to help move the story along. As a formerly great actress who sees the movie
as a comeback opportunity, she goes along with the absurdity of the situation
as well as Cusack.
The Last Shot is worth checking out if
you are interested, but it makes for a better night at home on cable.
2 Waffles (Out Of
4)
Copyright 2004 - WaffleMovies.com
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