The Last Run (2004) Reviews

• Unbalanced and Miswritten

  intelearts2007-06-09

  This was one of the most confused films I have seen in a long time. The Long Run starts looking and feeling like a romantic comedy - and for the first 15 minutes it is good - girl dumps boy, boy is convinced by friend to go on a "run" - a sexual quest to bed as many women as possible - but then from nowhere turns into a "ooh I'm so miserable" drama about sex addiction - it is horribly unbalanced piece of writing - and it is the script's fault. It is trying to be too much, and cannot pull off a very difficult and complicated arc of a storyline so instead opts for absurdity and the theatrical instead - and I don't mean that in a fun or funny way - there just are no laughs to be found here - or the luaghs are extremely cheap. Strangely, all the performances are basically sound - but I didn't for one minute buy any of the premises put forward here, So here's the problem: the script plots and turns seems to have develop as the story was written - it lacks a sense of clear direction - the redemption and resolution are disappointing, unrealistic, and frankly maudlin, and hugely depressing - but not even in a "well we all learnt something here" kind of way. I could not really get to the heart of this - a moral tale? the broken heart? the 20s male? I felt no sympathy for either of the male leads - they are both moral vacuums - and seem unable to establish any meaning in their lives - and perhaps this is the point - the ennui of the sexual male cannot be met or matched so he has as many casual sexual relationships to fill the void - while I got it I found the style of the film highly bizarre and unsatisfactory - it looks, feels, and is shot like a light romantic comedy - but contains a lot of pretty nasty drama type situations. And in the middle a lot of absolutely gratuitous sex. Arguing that we need a film about sex addiciton needs as much as nudity as possible is justified - it just ain't right - and comes across as an attempt to titillate the viewer - strangely boring - the direction is sloppy. Hugely disappointing and unsatisfactory - the arc of the main characters fall from from grace is implausible and unsatisfactory - and it is not tragic or fun, or even pathetic, it is bathos - an incongruous mix of high and low - and that is never a good thing. Definitely not a date movie that's for sure. A failure.

• off the charts funny

  xanadu0072006-04-18

  I saw a screening of this in Baltimore a few months ago mainly because I'm a huge Wonder Years fan. This movie is absolutely hilarious. The basic premise is Fred Savage finds out his girlfriend of several years is cheating on him so his best friend tells him to go have sex with as many women as he can to get over her. This movie is very funny, but not stupid humor, there are some really smart moments in it. Plus there are tons of really hot women in it, which is always a good thing. I really hope this movie comes out soon. Every guy in the audience will find themselves nodding as Steve (Savage) goes through many of the same situations that you have also whether it be being dumped, shutdown by a girl at a bar, or just hate your job and your boss. I rarely write movie reviews on here because so many people do but this movie might get missed and I think its an instant classic in the making.

• May just be the ultimate break up movie!!!

  mjaffe-62007-06-21

  I love this movie!  It's like Sideways crossed with Wedding Crashers and sprinkled with a dash of AWESOME. And it gets better every time you watch it, which is the sign of a truly great movie!!! My girlfriend and I rented it on vacation in Greece (where it came out earlier on DVD) and couldn't stop talking about it. And now its thankfully available in the states. Fred Savage is Giamatti, only younger and with twice the issues. Its his best acting job yet because he's more that just a vulnerable little spud. He brings out the many sides of someone going through a (early) mid life crisis, making it not just a fun comedy. The themes reach deep!  It's a cautionary dating tale for the modern age, which is why, as I stated above, it just may be the ultimate break up movie. One last thought... I hope they come out with a "The Last Run" calendar!!! You'll understand why after you've seen the movie...

• Is there anything to spoil?

  newcombe-rob2007-07-03

  To say giving away plot details might spoil this film is to say that one ruins a dog turd when he steps in it. So grossly and thoroughly detestable are every single one of the major characters that the viewer is left wondering whether the film's writer-director despises them as much as we do, or, rather more disturbingly, expects us to sympathise with them and the perverse self-constructed yuppie purgatory they inhabit. Rather than being developed or employed in the service of thematic exploration, the characters are a series of stonewashed stereotypes who don't so much bounce off each other as float around in the same narrative effluent. A creeping sense of impending dreadfulness immediately sets in when The Last Run opens with that most reviled bit of cinematic narrative shorthand, the photo-montage-with-first-person-voice-over. We are reluctantly introduced to Steven (Fred Savage), a 28 year old accountant who has been dating Chloe, an allegedly gorgeous model, for the last three years and is as... Screw it, this film isn't worth the time. Suffice to say, it is as mirthless, irritating and interminable as a conversation with one of its main characters might be. Never before did 97 minutes seem so long, when it finished my watch was running four hours fast. The best that can be said for this film is that it is the first to have apparently punctured the space-time continuum.

• Laugh out loud Hilarious... Great Movie

  tenhighguy2007-12-05

  I was never a huge fan of Fred Savage. However, Savage really did a spectacular job in this film and I was impressed. The comedic timing of several moments in the movie were impeccable... whether it was the acting, directing, editing, or all of the above, it as overall great. As the movie progresses it becomes very dark and you feel for what the protagonist (antagonist) is going through. Savage makes you empathize for him. Relationships with all characters were organic and developed. The director Segal did an amazing job at showing the human as an onion showing all layers of who we are and at the same time adding an element of humor to lighten the darkness of what lies deep within all of us as humans. Humor in Honesty... Many props to Segal. A Definite must see!!