movie review last stand

Big-gun violence and one-liner laughs

When Arnold Schwarzenegger 's " True Lies " sidekick Tom Arnold guested on Howard Stern's radio show earlier this week, he told of attending Arnold's 65th birthday party, which featured exotic wild animals that Schwarzenegger had rescued from a circus.

According to Tom Arnold, kangaroos were hopping about, and there was even a 600-pound tiger in attendance.

"Poot the tiger in dah pool!" commanded Schwarzenegger, according to the story, and indeed, the tiger wound up in the pool.

So basically Arnold Schwarzenegger celebrated his 65th birthday with a true-life rendition of " Life of Pi ." Has anyone lived a larger, more cartoonishly voracious version of the immigrant American dream than this guy?

It stands to reason Schwarzenegger would return for his first starring role since 2003 with a BIG bang — in fact, an entire movie filled with one big bang after another. To call "The Last Stand" gratuitously violent is to pay the movie a compliment. It's sort of the whole point.

If you've got violent-movie fatigue, and you're too exhausted from real-life carnage on the news to enjoy an R-rated blood-fest in which a number of kills are executed as deliberately funny visual punchlines, you do not want to go anywhere near this film. But if you're a fan of stylish, relentlessly loud shootouts, questionable plot developments be damned, this is your ticket to weekend escapism.

Nearly 30 years after the original "Terminator" made him one of the most unlikely and most popular movie stars of our time, Schwarzenegger still has that thick Austrian accent, which somehow makes him more endearing, especially when he's playing a former highly decorated Los Angeles cop named Ray Owens. Really? He was given that name at birth?

At 65, Arnold in some ways resembles a cyborg more than ever. His skin is pulled back so tight, his eyes are mere slits; his shoulders are sloped with age but his arms are still huge. Schwarzenegger is still a formidable albeit self-deprecating presence onscreen. Responding to the deadpan question, "How are you?" after one violent dustup, Ray simply replies, "old." And in an exchange of insults and punches with a bad guy from Mexico, he says, "You give immigrants like us a bad name."

Ray is now in semi-retirement as the sheriff of the sleepy Arizona border town of Sommerton Junction, an outpost so small and inconsequential I'll bet even that the Google car hasn't driven through yet. Ray's three-person force of deputies includes human bowling ball Luis Guzman as Mike, ever ready with the comic relief; Jaimie Alexander as the tough and lovely Sarah, and Zach Gilford from " Friday Night Lights " as the earnest but bumbling Jerry.

With the high school football team playing a big game out of town, Sommerton Junction is conveniently deserted, save for a few stalwarts at the diner and maybe a farmer or two on the edge of town. Looks like a quiet weekend!

Yeah, right.

As we get to meet the town's likable cast of characters (including a zany gun enthusiast played by Johnny Knoxville ), there's a parallel story taking place in Las Vegas, as FBI agent John Bannister ( Forest Whitaker ) marshals a team of elite law enforcement personnel tasked with transporting Gabriel Cortez ( Eduardo Noriega ), who we're told is the most notorious drug lord since Pablo Escobar.

Those transport-the-dangerous-prisoner missions never work, do they? Soon Cortez is behind the wheel of a souped-up CORVETTE, and if you don't know it's a CORVETTE, you'll get constant reminders it's a CORVETTE. Boy, is that CORVETTE fast!

The title tells us "The Last Stand" is a modern-day Western, borrowing elements of " Rio Bravo " and a dozen other films. Of course, there are myriad ways in which the government should be able to stop the drug lord from making it across the border in his CORVETTE, but we get a few throwaway lines (and more than a few explosions and car crashes) that pave the way for the big showdown pitting Ray and his ragtag deputies against the drug lord's heavily armed battalion of thugs, led by Peter Stormare .

"The Last Stand" marks the American debut of the Korean director Jee-woon Kim , who delivers a half-dozen quality kills that will leave audiences squirming and then laughing at the sheer audacity of it all. With all the high-speed chases and ear-shattering explosions, perhaps the most exciting and tense scene features two high-powered cars playing a game of cat and mouse while slowly rolling through a cornfield. (There's an overhead shot during this sequence that's just hilarious.)

This is what Arnold does best: big-gun violence and one-liner laughs. He's still got it. I don't know why Johnny Knoxville gets equal billing on some of the film's posters, seeing as how he has a mercifully short role. (Knoxville's fine at playing Knoxville, but a little of that cackling lunatic shtick goes a long way.) Maybe the studio figured the original "Jackass" would help pull in a younger audience.

Like the FBI agents and the drug lord in this movie, they shouldn't underestimate Arnold's ability to get the job done on his own.

The Last Stand

Arnold Schwarzenegger as Ray Owens
Peter Stormare as Burrell
Luis Guzman as Mike
Johnny Knoxville as Lewis
Forest Whitaker as Bannister
Eduardo Noriega as Cortez
Andrew Knauer
Jeffrey Nachmanoff

Directed by

Jee-woon Kim

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The Last Stand Reviews

Hits, explosions, bullets, and catchphrases to celebrate the welcome return of the great action superhero. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Jul 5, 2023

A movie whose only purpose is to serve as Schwarzenegger’s comeback vehicle. After this, he’ll need another comeback.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Sep 20, 2022

“The Last Stand” has its share of cheesiness but intentionally so. And it’s certainly not stimulating, thought-provoking cinema, but it never pretends to be. It’s a simple, straightforward movie without an ounce of pretension and it.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 23, 2022

As usual, Arnold Schwarzenegger is mildly entertaining.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Dec 3, 2020

A far more entertaining film than anyone with a bit of sense likely expected.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4.0 | Sep 13, 2020

Schwarzenegger is as amazed at what is happening on screen as we are, as if he were saying 'Watch me get away with this.'

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Jul 28, 2020

If Arnold Schwarzenegger makes action acting his own "last stand" in the world, I'm all for it, as long as it remains the caliber of The Last Stand.

Full Review | Nov 27, 2019

This movie doesn't deserve your dollars.

Full Review | Jul 30, 2019

Serves as both an entertaining action film and a sort of exploration of tried and true values still operating in a modern world.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 8, 2019

This is a fun bit of winter fluff, with tongue firmly planted in cheek.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Apr 11, 2019

Serves as moderately diverting and totally undemanding old-school Arnie fun, with enough wise cracks and rampant destruction to satisfy audiences.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 8, 2019

It's a good movie for when you just want to turn your brain off and watch some stuff explode.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Nov 6, 2018

The Last Stand is loud, idiotic, violent trash...and bloody great fun!

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Nov 1, 2018

[It's] fun the whole way through. Whether all the laughs are intentional is debatable, but that doesn't mean it isn't.

Full Review | Oct 22, 2018

The refusal to make fun of these kind of Old West tropes is, oddly, what makes The Last Stand most relevant of all.

Full Review | Oct 17, 2018

An outsider's view of western action hero tropes would have been a welcome antidote to standard American product, but Kim's Hollywood debut is perhaps too enamored of American sources to inject much life into them.

Full Review | Aug 30, 2018

It's preposterous and brutal but shamelessly mirthful, stylish and audacious. And Ah-nold? He's still got it.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 1, 2017

The Last Stand is not a character study. It's not a dramatic masterpiece. It's a slam-bang action flick-and a good one.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 14, 2016

It's a film of mythic incompetence, the most uproariously ill-conceived studio picture since Nicolas Cage's "Wicker Man" remake.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Apr 15, 2016

Christmas morning. Tiny puppies licking my face. A plate of crispy bacon. The embrace of a loved one. The last forty-five minutes of The Last Stand.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Feb 6, 2014

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The last stand: film review.

Schwarzenegger is back in a paint-by-numbers Western from Korean director Kim Jee-woon.

By Todd McCarthy

Todd McCarthy

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Lionsgate has set a Jan. 18 release date.

The Governator is reduced to a border-town sheriff but still brandishes some big guns in The Last Stand , Arnold Schwarzenegger ‘s first starring vehicle in 10 years. The title is already a misnomer: The 65-year-old action icon has completed two additional films and has two or three more in the pipeline as he attempts to engineer a viable comeback after his detour through Sacramento. Preoccupied with the the caliber and firepower of its arsenal of artillery to an almost weirdly obsessive degree, this often jokey and sometimes abstract shoot-’em-up also, under present circumstances, makes conspicuously tasteless use of a school bus in one of its most violent scenes. At one point in what is not the worst but is very far from the best film the star has made in his career, customers clear out of a diner after the lawman enters it and a waitress quips, “You sure are bad for business.” Lionsgate can only hope that the same will not be said about their star after such a long layoff. It seems most likely that this formulaic concoction will connect with a decent number of longtime fans curious to see if their man can still deliver the goods, but with better results overseas than domestically.

There are moments when Schwarzenegger’s Sheriff Ray Owens, still in strong shape but undeniably easing into the late afternoon of his life, resembles characters Clint Eastwood played back in the 1990s, physically capable guys who can still rise to the occasion even if they have slowed a step and will feel the bangs and bruises longer after the action’s over. This is a direction the still-imposing former body builder could plausibly pursue for a few more years, but the extent of his big-screen return will depend in large measure upon whether or not his name still means much to younger audiences.

The Bottom Line Arnold ain't all he used to be but still has a little punch left in this just passable violent action potboiler.

VIDEO: ‘The Last Stand’ Trailer Marks Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Comeback

It’s pretty certain he won’t draw many newcomers to the cause on the basis of this contrivance, which is built around a car chase that mostly involves only one car, a Corvette ZR1 with more than 1000 horsepower and capable of speeds over 200 miles per hour. South Korean genre director Kim Jee-woon , who established his wild action credentials with the outlandish Korean Western The Good, the Bad, the Weird in 2008, launches his American debut in humorous fashion, but things quickly become serious when, in related incidents, malevolent baddie Burrell ( Peter Stormare ) guns down an old farmer (an unbilled Harry Dean Stanton ) atop his tractor, and the biggest and baddest Mexican cartel leader, Gabriel Cortez ( Eduardo Noriega ), escapes from an FBI caravan led by agent John Bannister ( Forest Whitaker ).

Getting behind the wheel of the ‘vette with a female FBI hostage ( Genesis Rodriguez ) in tow, Cortez zooms across the desert at night, busting blockades and going so fast that he’s gone before radar guns can track him, on his way to a secret border crossing near Sheriff Owens’ town, sleepy Summerton Junction, Ariz. Learning Cortez is heading his way, Owens enlarges his motley crew, initially consisting of the enthusiastic Figgie ( Luis Guzman ), the level-headed Sarah ( Jaimie Alexander ) and the inept Jerry ( Zach Gilford ), by reluctantly recruiting jailbird Frank ( Rodrigo Santoro ) and local nut job Lewis ( Johnny Knoxville ), who scampers around in a medieval helmet that makes him look like a refugee from Monty Python and who owns a 1939 Vickers repeating gun that’s called the “Nazi Killer” for a good reason.

In a prolonged gun battle, these down-home characters dispatch Burrell’s goons, but not before a big yellow school bus (empty of students, fortunately) becomes the focal point of much of the most intense shooting, which can’t help but bring to mind thoughts of the recent tragedy in Connecticut. As Agent Bannister’s crew lags far behind their escaped prey, all Owens has to do is wait and the arrogant handsome devil will come to him.

Kim’s visual approach conveys no tension, just straight action with an assortment of shots that don’t always cut together with natural grace or expressiveness but do sometimes grab the eye thanks to an inclination to move from the concrete to the abstract. Nowhere is this more true than in a climactic car chase that’s set, of all places, in a dried-up cornfield, where the drivers’ respective cars plow through stalks that make sweeping patterns, with their denseness preventing the adversaries from seeing one another. It’s a weird concept with no attachment to realism whatsoever and passably memorable just for that, even if it merely serves as a lead-in to a classic Western showdown on a bridge above the border.

Looking leaner and rather more drawn than before, Schwarzenegger still conveys the old self-confident, humorous I-dare-you attitude toward his adversaries. He remains sufficiently powerful-looking to convincingly prevail in combat, but comedy might prove the most profitable direction for him to pursue in a general way in the coming years, as his kidding, sometimes taunting nature provides a good means for him to make light of his various reputations.

Shot in New Mexico, the production, unlike the star, has something less than a full-bodied look and lacks any kind of real distinction. It sort of does the job, but just barely.

Opens: Jan. 18 (Lionsgate)

Production: Lionsgate, di Bonaventura Productions

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Forest Whitaker, Johnny Knoxville, Rodrigo Santoro, Jaimie Alexander, Luis Guzman, Eduardo Noriega, Peter Stormare, Zach Gilford, Genesis Rodriguez, Daniel Henney, John Patrick Amedori

Director: Kim Jee-woon

Screenwriter: Andrew Knauer

Producer: Lorenzo di Bonaventura

Executive producers: Guy Riedel, Miky Lee, Edward Fee, Michael Paseronek, John Sacchi

Director of photography: Ji Yong Kim

Production designer: Franco Carbone

Costume designer: Michele Michel

Editor: Steven Kemper

Music: Mowg

Rated R, 108 minutes

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