The Last Stand

It seems like celebrities and athletes live by a different set of rules in life than the rest of us. If they get caught driving  drunk ,busted with pot,  or shoplifting it’s kind of laughed off as “oh, those crazy kids” and they get at a slap on the wrist. And I honestly I have come to accept this for what it is but what I can’t accept is rewarding stupidity and cheating on your wife with Consuela the grandma housekeeper with millions of dollars! I will give you the fact that Maria Shriver was starting to look like Arnold and it would be kind of weird to have sex with yourself all of the time but how can this guy not be clowned on for the rest of his life? I mean, I hook up with a moose ONCE and I still hear about it on holidays and at large gatherings. But not Arnold, he gets rewarded with a multi million dollar paycheck and a major studio release directed by South Korea’s Jee-woon Kim! So what do I along with at least 50 other idiots do on a Saturday afternoon? We run to catch this stupid matinee in hopes of some awesome one liners and the occasional head exploding. 

Well with a few scenes this movie actually delivers just that but overall there simply wasn’t enough freshness to quite justify the $7.00 spent. It’s a rather simple story in that head FBI agent Forrest Whitaker and his team lose a dangerous and ruthless Mexican drug lord in Gabriel Cortez in an attempt to transfer him from a holding facility. Through a number of daring maneuvers, Cortez’s military trained gang is able to not only outsmart the FBI but are also able to get him in an exclusive, not on the market Chevrolet race care to help him escape. Yes, I think you know where this is headed. Meanwhile in the peaceful town of Sommerton, Sheriff Arnold Schwarzenegger and his deputies are investigating the mysterious murder of one of the local farmers and are led to believe that it is linked to the recent arrival of these random truckers led by the always solid Peter Stormare (he was the cooky doctor in Minority Report). Well as Cortez continues to evade the FBI, they are left with no choice but to depend on this small town’s cop force to stop him before he crosses the US border into Mexico in what will essentially be THE LAST STAND! !! (in Ahnuld voice)

This movie basically plays out like a made for Showtime or TNT movie; and honestly had it had a competent young actor as the lead sheriff it might have worked. Instead we get stuck with Ahnuld who’s English has somehow gotten worse as well as his already non existent acting skills. It was such a chore for him to deliver any of his lines, including his one liners. The rest of the actors actually do a halfway decent job and the directing makes it feel like a real movie but ultimately you keep coming back to the leathery, creepy, and smiling face of Ahnuld. 

Kim does what he can to keep you entertained but he was burdened by not only Ahnuld’s acting but also by the fact that this movie is one long Chevy commercial. They really should have just had Toby Keith come in and sing during each of the car chase scenes, which were actually pretty fresh. But before each chase they always put in a stupid and pointless 2 minute description of the car and its capabilities or they just included an elongated shot of the latest Camaro that is sure to hit your nearest showroom floor. I kept waiting for Megan Fox to be draped over the hood.

He also throws in some pretty sweet night vision gun battles for gaming geeks to go crazy over. But the crowning moment of this movie is when Stormare and his gang come to Sommerton to take out the small town cops.  This by far had the most engaging action, coolest shootouts, and some of the movie’s best comic relief, most of which was provided by Johnny Knoxville (who looks like the years of MTV stunts and groupies has aged him). But sadly this 20 minutes doesn’t quite make up for the 60 minutes that preceded it or that 20 minutes of a stupid car chase in a corn field that followed. I wont even begin to talk about the “American” they had locked up who’s accent kept slipping for no reason and sounded like a Colombian at times.

Overall this movie is WEAK but I was entertained so it’s not like it’s awful. I would just recommend waiting for Netflix. What might have elevated this movie to freshness would have been if during the opening scene, Ahnuld came in from the sky via a lightning bolt, killed the local sheriff, threw on some shades, and said “I’m Back!!!”.