The Last Shot Review
by David N. Butterworth (dnb AT dca DOT net)October 11th, 2004
THE LAST SHOT
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 2004 David N. Butterworth
** (out of ****)
The premise behind Jeff Nathanson's "The Last Shot" isn't all bad: an FBI agent (Alec Baldwin) poses as a Hollywood movie producer in order to set up a sting operation to trap a New York crime boss, finding a more than willing screenwriter (Matthew Broderick) to direct. What *is* bad is that the film commits the cardinal sin of comedies: it isn't funny. Not by a long shot. Oh, there are two funny lines, one involving said crime boss' throwaway response
to a question about gun-to-the-head motivation and said FBI agent's solution for cramming 30 Native Americans into a storage garage, but otherwise this one's
a clunker, surprisingly so considering all that potential going in (not to mention
the cast, which includes Toni Collette as a diva, Tony Shalhoub as a mobster, Joan Cusack as a promoter, Buck Henry as an agent, and Calista Flockhart as the director's girlfriend). Truth is the script just isn't that good--it's hard to write comedy, after all--and most of the one-liners fall belly up. Steven Schats (Broderick) can't believe his luck when Joe Devine (Baldwin) options
his script "Arizona," a labor of love co-written by Steven's brother Marshal Paris (Tim Blake Nelson in a cowboy hat) about their cancer-riddled sister, including granting casting approval, final cut, and 10% of the gross! The shoot
is quickly transmogrified to Rhode Island, the first of many supposedly funny impediments to this picture in the non-making. It's rare for Collette and Cusack
to turn in embarrassing performances and it's even rarer to witness them doing it in the same movie! But they do here. Baldwin's character starts out soft and kinda schmucky, atypical for him, but quickly segues into tough-as-nails, and Broderick can only play puppy dog, apparently. The opening titles, with performers' names inexplicably appearing on popular theater concessions, should
have tipped us off early: cute idea, lousy execution.
--
David N. Butterworth
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