The Last Supper
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Movie Reviews of The Last Supper
Movie Review: "Let's have a toast!"
Summary: 5 Stars
Director Stacy Title and screenwriter Dan Rosen--surely at both's finest hour--created with this film perhaps the ultimate cautionary tale of what dehumanization and rage labels like "liberal" and "conservatives" can create when accepted as absolute identity.
Rosen was at one time a stand up comic with a taste for dark humor, and "The Last Supper" provides that in spades (if you have the stomach for it).
The plot of the film is really only a skeleton for what the creators are trying to say. A group of liberal undergraduate college students invite vicious right-wing and well known Conservative pundits to for a pleasant dinner, and then perform a little "Arsenic and Lace" with a blue bottle of poison they mask as strong wine. One has to suspend one's disbelief a little to enjoy the movie: if these people are so famous, why the hell don't they tell anyone where they're having dinner or who invited them? People like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Ann Coulter make sure they are heavily guarded at all times. Though all five of them are involved, the leader (played with a perfect concentrated madness by a young Courtney B. Vance) Luke is the engine behind it all.
At the beginning of the film a young soldier (Zac) returning home from the Persian Gulf War ("Was that a war or a Republican TV commercial?" Luke unwisely asks) needs shelter from the rain. The five make a bad choice and let him in. Things go from unpleasant to bad to worse to homicidal as the anger builds between this maniac and the five students; he praises Hitler, deems liberals less than human beings, and puts a knife to the throat of Mark, a Jewish student. He then proceeds to break the arm of another member, lets him fall to the ground, and Mark stabs him in the back.
This is an important part in the film. It wasn't *exactly* self defense. While this guy was obviously sociopathic and may have hurt the rest of them, a second viewing shows Mark approach long after his friend has hit the ground and is no longer in danger. It's hard to feel sympathy for Zac, but this is really how it starts. Luke jumps right on the bandwagon, stating coldly: "We should just finish dessert and bury the cracker."
Later on, a local female sherrif shows up asking about Zac. He had, apparently, raped murdered a young girl in the community before arriving. This fuels the group's thoughts that if they kill these people before they live out a natural life, they may be saving the world from great harm. The ancient shoulda woulda coulda question is asked repeatedly, at the film's climax: "It's 1909. You find yourself in a bar with a young artist named Adolf Hitler. Do you kill him to save billions of people?"
Title and Rosen toy with the viewer, swaying from the wussy excesses of ultra liberals to the outright evil of the far right. Both become annoying. Still, though, when we encounter "Norman" (Ron Perlman), the group's main target, we see what they are driving at.
A hilarious masterpiece, more relevant today than ever.
Movie Review: A Serious Exploration of the Grounds of Evil
Summary: 5 Stars
Were we to examine history's roster of spectacular evil (holocausts, genocides, revolutions, inquisitions, witch burnings, etc., etc., etc.) we would find that they are almost never executed mainly by sadists, psychopaths, or maniacs. That's because real sadists, psychopaths, and maniacs are too few in number to achieve these large outcomes by themselves. (For example, the DSM IV estimates that, in our nation of three hundred million, the number of serial killers is only a few dozen.) The large scale of such evil requires the active agency of large numbers of perpetrators, most of whom are ordinary and ordinarily "normal" people.
The merit of this film is that it depicts the underlying foundations of most spectacular evil: Decisions by "normal" persons with a vision of the "good" to achieve their understanding of the greater good by morally compromised means: beginning with small scale acts of evil in the name of the greater good. The classic assertion that, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" is excellently depicted. The first step is the most difficult. Those which follow come ever more easily.
This film does an excellent job of depicting this process, and the existential corrosion that follows from it. This depiction is embroidered by its biblical ties (the protagonists bearing such names as Luke, Mark, John, Paul, Jude), allegorical depictions, (i.e., the ever more bountiful evil fruit of their works), the almost Dorian Grey character of their descent into caricatures of the seven deadly sins), the eventual triumph of an antichrist).
At base, The Last Supper provides an excellent critique of the fallacies of Devil Theory. A serious film cloaked in unserious garb.
Movie Review: Who is more dangerous?
Summary: 5 Stars
If you could go back in time and kill Hitler before his rise to power, would you do it? A group of left-wing graduate students put this theory into practice, after a chance meeting with a right-wing truck driver leads them down the path of murder and to the realization that some people deserve to die.
"The Last Supper" is one of my all-time favourite movies and has maintained its place in my top 20 film list, ever since I saw it for the first time on late-night television about 5 years ago. Although, as far as I can ascertain, the script of this film was written specifically for the screen, it actually plays out more like a stage play than a movie. Normally that would bother me, but in this case it doesn't, as this whole film is essentially a philosophical debate between left-wing and right-wing extremists, and it is for the dialogue that this film is of interest, not the action. One of the best things about this film is that, ultimately, the writer, Dan Rosen (who also wrote the equally excellent "The Curve"), does not come down in favour of one side or the other in his debate. It is left to the audience to decide who they believe is right.
I can imagine that "The Last Supper" might not be to everyone's tastes. In my family, alone, my father and I love it (after out most recent viewing, we spent several days discussing whether Rosen himself was on the side of the left or the right), but my mother hates it (she considers it to be too dark). However, if you have a black sense of humour and are interested in an entertaining debate on the topics that I mentioned above, then you definitely give this film a go.
Movie Review: Dark Humor at its best / original script
Summary: 5 Stars
This is black comedy at its best. Stacy Title wrote an incredibly original script. The acting is amazing with a very young Cameron Diaz which Im not a huge fan of but this may be her best performance. Courtney Vance is great as usual & 1 of my favorite female actresses Annabeth Gish. Also Jason Alexander (Seinfeld) gives an hilarious performance as an extreme conservative right winger. The story 5 left wing liberal grad students in Iowa share a house together & every Sunday they have supper together discussing left wing politics /socialism & ways they can change the world. In short they come across a drifter truck driver (Bill Paxton) who comes to their door. They invite him in for the ritual supper & he turns out to be a fascist,mysoginistic hitler loving ex marine. In an argument with one of the hosts he breaks their arm. They stab him in the back killing him then they hide the body in their garden. Deciding this is the only way to make a difference they come up with an idea to start inviting known conservative right wingers for last suppers allowing them to plead their choice of political & social views. Like judge & jury if not up to agreement with the hosts a little poison goes in the right wingers wine. A very dark original indie film & script. One of my favorite dark satirical comedies.Movie Review: It's murder for dinner...with impeccable table manners.
Summary: 5 Stars
A group of upper class liberal college students decide to kill people who disagree with their political beliefs via arsenic laced wine at their weekly Sunday dinners. Power drunkenness and guilty consciences rifle through the group and come to a head when they get their political "Hitler" seated at the head of their table.
This is an intelligent black comedy with a unique style, exceptionally well written dialogue, strong performances and very eclectic music choices. A gem.
Ron Perlman has a small but pivotal role as a loud conservative tv personality. He has some great small moments throughout the movie but really gets to shine at the end when he puts the students in their place.
Favorite line(spoken by Ron Perlman's character): "This was in the paper today. They want to do another Gay Pride Parade. I mean do you really think a bunch of Gays and Lesbians strutting through town constitutes a parade? Does anybody remember what it was like when we were kids and we had parades that meant something, that were about real wonderfully festive events with people dressed in wonderfully inventive costumes like kings and queens...you know, actually now that I think about it, that does sound a little bit like a Gay Pride March."