Last Orders
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Movie Reviews of Last Orders
Movie Review: "Four geezers and a box."
Summary: 5 Stars
Three friends who have known Jack Dodds, a butcher, for almost fifty years, along with Jack's son Vince, meet at their local South London pub carrying a box containing Jack's ashes. Jack (Michael Caine) has died of heart failure, leaving a last request--that his ashes be cast off the Margate pier, several hours to the south of London. Ray (Bob Hoskins), a gambler; Vic (Tom Courtenay), an undertaker; Lenny (David Hemmings), a former prizefighter and heavy drinker; and Vince (Ray Winstone), Jack's son, a car dealer, set off for Margate in a Mercedes Benz that Vince has borrowed to honor the occasion.
As the men drive south, they reminisce about Jack, joke around, sing songs, irritate each other, and even threaten each other in the emotion of the moment. Director Fred Schepesi, who adapted the screenplay from the Booker Prize-winning novel by Graham Swift, alternates present scenes from the car with ironic scenes from Jack's life in the past, contrasting the deadness of the present trip to Margate with the liveliness of the past, showing the relationships among the various characters. Jack's wife Amy (Helen Mirren) has chosen not to come with them for the "ceremony." She is making her weekly visit to their mentally handicapped daughter June, now fifty, whom Jack has never accepted.
The nature of each man's relationship with Jack, with spouses and children, and with each other during World War II and after are all presented in flashback--from Vince's affair with Lenny's daughter, to Ray's relationship with Amy, and Jack's last minute bet with Ray to pay off a debt. As the men's relationships evolve onscreen, the viewer recognizes that these are the kinds of relationships that ordinary men spend their lives developing. The viewer comes to know not only Jack, but also the four men in the car heading south to scatter his ashes, and on a larger, universal scale, other men who have shared long friendships, jokes, and common experiences .
It is a tribute to the cinematography (Brian Trufano) that I didn't really notice it until the film was over--so apropos to the action and thematic development that it never called attention to itself. The original music (Paul Grabowsky) sets the scene at the beginning of the film but does not intrude on the character development or the interior action thoughout the film. The sensational cast in this wonderful ensemble drama, the sensitive directing, the fully developed themes, and the overwhelming feeling that these characters and situations are real make this one of the best films I've seen in ages. Mary Whipple
Movie Review: Fred Schepisi's "Canterbury Tales"
Summary: 5 Stars
"Last Orders" is an astonishingly beautiful poem of images on time, change and inevitable loss;it is also a meditation on death and the question of what if any meaning or overarching purpose may be snatched from lives uninformed by any particular philosophical or theological depth.To tell the story of a collection of South London chums on an eccentric "pilgrimage" to the seaside resort of Margate where they intend to scatter into the sea according to an idiosyncratic last request the ashes of a recently deceased fellow, Fred Schepisi has brought together a number of Britain's most talented current actors, among others Michael Caine, Helen Mirren and Bob Hoskins. All of them wonderfully enough have faces now ravaged by time and inevitable decay. Through flashback, the director shows us young actors as their earlier counterparts, beautiful to a person, even flowerlike. These very images are used to convey the age-old theme of life's brevity and the sadness of fleeting beauty.
Britain as well is in part the star of this film. The locations such as the quasi-Victorian-looking streets,the decayed seaside piers, and the still grand interior of Canterbury Cathedral suggest that the characters are walking through the remains of a once more weighty, structured and purposive civilization. In contrast, their lives resemble those of lightweight if affecting flies of a summer. Unlike Chaucer's rascally pilgrims whom they are in some ways like, these modern characters have no living relationship to Thomas a Becket, just as that saint, though his shrine appears, is not the reason for their visit to Canterbury Cathedral. They're on their way to the bustling middle-class resort of Margate to honor a special request. Surely, the director, like Jim Jarmusch in "Mystery Train," intends us to see the meaningful allusive power of this Canterbury comparison, with its revelation of a certain "lightness" at the core of modern being. The film suggests that meaning in life for its characters, if there is any, is to be sought in whatever comforts may be found in love and friendship.
Movie Review: Excellent film from an ensemble cast of UK movie legends
Summary: 5 Stars
"Last Orders" stars some great British film stars of the last forty years. Michael Caine stars as Jack, a family butcher who is dealing with the onset of cancer, and his desire to provide for his wife, Amy, played by Helen Mirren. He hopes that his horse-playing friend and ex-Army buddy, Ray(Bob Hoskins), can pick a big winner to secure some future for Amy. He also has asked Ray, his foster son Vince(Ray Winstone), and longtime friends Lenny & Vic(David Hemmings and Tom Courtenay) for one last favor, to toss his ashes off of Margate pier once he's gone, as he'd always wanted to buy Amy a little house there to retire to.
"Last Orders" progresses back and forth, looking at the youth of the men. American actor JJ Field plays Jack in his 20's, and really resembles Michael Caine in his younger years. Kelly Reilly stars as the young Amy, when she and Jack meet while picking hops in Kent before the outbreak of WWII.
The friendship, love, and hidden anger is really well brought out by the cast. Every week, Mirren's character, Amy, faithfully visits her and Jack's daughter, who is retarded and has been in a home since infancy, while Jack has never visited her. (Interestingly, Michael Caine's life paralleled "Last Orders": until 1989, he was unaware he had a half-brother, who was confined to a home near London. This brother, who suffered from epilepsy, caused brain damage to himself, and Caine's mother visited this brother every week until her death in 1989.)
Vince(Winstone) was adopted by Ray and Amy after his family was killed during the Biltz, and has become estranged from Ray, but grudgingly agrees to bankroll Jack's attempt to win a nestegg for Amy. Vince and Lenny(Hemmings) have issues due to his getting Lenny's daughter pregnant, while Vic(Courtenay), an undertaker, attempts to modulate the conflicts between his friends.
Movie Review: Life, death, and what it all means.
Summary: 5 Stars
Prime British actors, Michael Caine, Helen Mirren, and Bob Hoskins, give us utterly believable characters in this intricate story about the mourners of Jack Dodds, a butcher from Bermondsey, London.Jacks last orders come as a surprise to his family and friends, but nevertheless they respect his request and do him proud. The lifelong drinking partners of Jack set out from their local pub to the seaside resort of Margate to carry out his final wishes that his ashes be scattered from the end of the pier.
The friends, an ex-boxer, a car salesman, an undertaker, and a betting man, take his ashes on a day trip to Margate to do the honors, using a showroom Mercedes to send Jack off in style. Along the way, they stop off at places significant in Jacks history and their own heritage, plus a few pubs, and reflect on their relationships with Jack and his family, and on their own decisions in life.
Meanwhile, back in London, his wife dwells with her own compromises and choices as she visits their severely disabled daughter, a girl Jack never could accept.
Last Orders is a poignant and mostly gentle story of the people who have surrounded Jack Dodds during his adult life. The film is laced with flashbacks to earlier times and the long-ago causes of how their lives are inextricably tied together now. The complexity of these interwoven lives highlights the humor, tolerance, and interdependence necessary for successful life long bonds of family and friends.
This movie deals with universal human questions regarding life, death, personal faults and strengths, and what it all means, all wrapped up in a package of superb acting and a wholly satisfying story.
Movie Review: A marvelous ensemble cast
Summary: 5 Stars
What a beautiful film, with a marvelous ensemble cast. Michael Caine (as "Jack") is brilliant and in a class by himself; and his love of acting is evident in each role he plays, always superbly. And the addition of Helen Mirren (as his wife "Amy") brings together two of the world's finest actors, and worldwide treasures. Bob Hoskins is always terrific, as is David Hemmings, and of course Ray Winstone (as Jack and Amy's son, "Vince"). It is so nice to see Tom Courtenay (first acclaimed in "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" and "Doctor Zhivago"), as well as the lovely Kelly Reilly (as young Amy).
For those who love British films at their best, in contrast to crass American special-effects movies, this is well worth viewing. The four men set out on a journey to honor Jack's final wishes; and it is moving in ways that are soft and tender, and beautiful. Amy adds that special touch, both in her youth and the winter of her life. Ah, to be a fly on the wall watching these great talents bring their magic to the silver screen--after waiting two and a half years for the money to make the film.
"Last Orders" is also about a father and son, who pretend that they do not need each other, but who need and love one another very much, which is true of most fathers and their daughters too. Also, right at the height of something--as director Fred Schepisi reminds us in the "Special Features" that are included on the disk--something goes wrong. Or as John Lennon reminded us in prophetic words from his last album: "[L]ife is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."