Last Orders
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Movie Reviews of Last Orders
Movie Review: An Emotional Pilgrimage into the Past
Summary: 3 Stars
LAST ORDERS is the story of one man's life as told through the lives and stories of those who knew him best. The cast in this film is absolutely terrific and the cinematography is gorgeous. The lighting alone makes LAST ORDERS pleasing to look at. Had I judged LAST ORDERS by the first hour, however, I would have been sadly disappointed. The film takes quite a long time to get going, but once it does, it becomes something rather touching and memorable.
The plotline is one that will be familiar to most audiences. Four gentlemen are brought together to carry out their friend's (Michael Caine) dying wish: to have his ashes scattered off the Margate Pier into the ocean. The first hour of the film is a bit disorienting, as the audience has not a clue who these characters are. But little by little, we begin to piece together the seemingly dead and anaesthetized present by examining the rich and vibrant past (aided by drastic color and lighting changes). Inevitably, these old friends begin taking side trips, delaying their task more and more. The time provides them not only a moment to reflect on their lost friend, but also on their lives, lives that have gone by so quickly with much left unsaid. In fact, one of their detours is to visit Canterbury, rendering the end of the film into a bit of a pilgrimage of its own.
As LAST ORDER continues on into its second hour, the emotional impact of the film heightens and several of the scenes are rather heart-wrenching. This is not the story of a perfect man gone before his time. It is the story about an ordinary man and those who loved him, their faults, their desires, and their collective journey along a small road in life. I highly recommend it for a rainy, Sunday afternoon.
Movie Review: Closing Time
Summary: 3 Stars
Fred Schepisi's film adaptation of Graham Swift's brisk novel about death and Britishness, or the death of Britishness, is a textbook case of how a bad script can stymie a brilliant cast.
The screen comes alive whenever Michael Caine's on it, even when he's in a hospital bed. But he's never on for more than a few minutes before a flashback sweeps you back to his disturbing younger double, or shifts to one of his four mates, all of whom have stories and flashbacks of their own that need to be crammed in. Despite all the cuts, the snippets themselves are amazingly static for a film--four men driving in a car, four men standing at a pub, a man and a woman sitting on a bench: that's about 80% of the screen time right there.
The characters seemed representative rather than real personalities: East Enders who fight in the War, bet on horses, run family butcher shops, go hopping of a summer, and mark their major life events down the local felt too pat, too pasteboard, to interest even the actors. London appears through a warm gauze of color and memory that doesn't really do justice to the personal histories the film sets out to tell. The cast is a Who's Who of the last 40 years of British cinema--I wish they'd been given more room to stretch out and pour their own histories into the characters.
Movie Review: A small gem
Summary: 3 Stars
An unassuming and unpretentious British movie about beer drinking mates who set on the last journey bringing one of their own to his last resting place. That deceased mate came in the form of Michael Caine. As the son of the deceased (or was he?) played splendidly by Ray Winstone, he drove all of them to the seaside called Margate but not before he took a few detour to various locations that stirred up "ghosts" of the past. The movie came in the reminiscence format and as a good slow movie would gradually unfolded itself, it left us with clues which got audience begging for more. In the end, the little clues became the total sum of the movie. It seemed that amid the peace and tranquility on the surface, there always seemed to be some "dirty laundry" or secrets that probably should remain as they were. As best of mates, whilst some saw what they didn't mean to see, they were non-judgmental and took their friends as who they were. A movie that would linger in your mind after you watched it and a movie that would have you reflected upon your relationships with your friends and family members. Quite poignant but a fair reflection of reality. Highly recommended. No extra features in DVD other than subtitles selectionsMovie Review: Interesting story--but multiple cast flashbacks just never work for me
Summary: 3 Stars
The novel was fascinating, but executing it on a big screen obviously was a huge challenge. Both my spouse and I got lost when the film flashed far enough back to change cast members. Much of the quips were wonderful, dry British humor--and if I just kept up with them, it was fine. It also helped to have read the book recently enough to make connections with the characters.Movie Review: Last rites?
Summary: 2 Stars
Viewers should beware of films which use flashbacks spanning so many years that two (or more) separate casts are required to portray one set of characters. This film is no exception. The actor representing the Michael Caine character (30 or so years earlier) was the only moderately credible such casting, there being a strong physical resemblance; though Field could also have played a similar role for Peter O'Toole. But disparities of the younger representations of Bob Hoskins (Anatol Yusef), Helen Mirren (Kelly Reilly), and several others were so severe that their initial appearances imparted a "Who-are-these-clowns-anyway?" air to the proceedings, until one finally makes the connection about an hour later.
Add the unremitting cockney accents in which this reviewer found it impossible to understand more than half of the dialogue (the remaining half requiring the utmost concentration); the incessant, minute-to-minute flipping back and forth between three different timeframes (present, near-present, and distant past); and that the entire film is basically a set of anecdotal reminiscences; and the film degenerates into a mish-mash of incoherence.
Not recommended.