Let this be The Last Shot

There's something about Alec Baldwin that brings me to the theatre. The same can be said--though far less often--of Tony Shaloub. When these two human beings share a screen, then, it's a foregone conclusion that I'll go sit in front of that screen and give it my undivided attention until their projected images cease flickering and their dissembodied voices are silenced.

Tonight I set myself in front of a screen that projected a series of images with accompanying sound that, taken together, created a film called The Last Shot. The movie lasted about an hour and a half. I spent the hour and twenty minutes Tony Shaloub wasn't onscreen wishing he was. I spent a similar amount of time wishing a similar thing of Joan Cusack. I spent pretty much the entire hour and a half wishing Matthew Broderick would just start cashing those Sex in the City syndication royalty checks and leave me alone (Matt, you'll be remembered fondly for Ferris, War Games and Glory--now . . . just . . . stop). It resonated with me deeply, but not because it was an excellent movie. It wasn't even a good movie. It resonated because the film's--and filmmaker's--numerous shortcomings and mistakes seemed immediately familiar.

You see lots of people on screen, but very few discernable characters. The main ones are so flat as to be interchangeable. Joe Divine (Alec Baldwin) really likes his dog, who commits suicide as the film opens. Without this, he and Steven Shatz (Broderick) might as well be the same person. Shatz is a director. He has a script. Why? Well, as Joan Cusack points out, it's Hollywood, everyone has a script. His entire motive amounts to this, "But we've worked so hard." He says that to his brother, who co-wrote the script, but got disillusioned and now gets shot three times a day reenacting climactic scenes from Bonanza.

Sound funny? That part is. So are Shaloub and Cusack. Alec Baldwin, bless his brilliant heart, tries really hard to be. But he filmmakers spent so much time crafting a place and filling it with wacky supporting characters, they completely forgot about Steve and Joe--and most of the plot. Even that is generous I think. If I read the script, I doubt I would laugh. Whatever humor there is in The Last Shot is the result of superhuman efforts on the part of the cast to breath life into their parts.

There's a part near the end where Toni Collette squints into the sand-swept distance, says, "An American eagle?" and walks off screen. The camera cuts to Baldwin. Off screen a motorcycle revs up and drives away. This is the payoff of a running gag that works brilliantly and makes the movie all the more disappointing. There are probably another half dozen other gags that also work well. Sadly, the movie has nothing to care about, absolutely no conflict, and no third act. It just spends a little while getting things rolling, immediately begins losing momentum and, just when everyone stops caring, it ends.

The Last Shot is crafted with painstaking care of the little things and criminal disregard for everything else.

It does prove, though, that you can somehow manage to have a denouement without having a climax. That's something.