THE LAST SHOT
Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Touchstone Pictures
Grade: B
Directed by: Jeff Nathanson
Written by: Jeff Nathanson, article by Steve Fishman
Cast: Matthew Broderick, Alec Baldwin, Toni Collette, Tony
Shalhoub, Calista Flockhart, Tim Black
Nelson, Buck Henry, Ray Liotta
Screened at: Loews Ewalk, NYC, 9/24/04
When an online critic writes a negative review for a film that
some members of the audience like, you can bet that someone
who has access to the critic's website will argue, "Hey, Mr.
Know-It-All; if you know so much about (fill in: screenwriting,
directing, acting, cinematography) why don't you make a movie
and show us how it's done?" The best response to that was
made by theater reviewer John Simon who said that critics have
more in common with plumbers than with screenwriters. Just
consider how few movie critics have had a role aside from a
marginal one in the creation of a film! Jeff Nathason's work,
"The Last Shot," takes someone up on just that kind of dare
when he places as Steven Schats (Matthew Broderick) as his
central character.
Schats (what a name!) has a dead-end job as ticket-taker at
Mann's Theatre in Hollywood and, like everyone else in the L.A.
area, he has a screenplay. He runs into the usual trouble by
being unable to get close enough to a producer to make his
pitch, particularly considering the morbid nature of his plot. One
day his dream is answered when Joe Devine (Alec Baldwin), a
would-be producer, greenlights Steven's script and, not only
that, hires him as a director. As illustrates in "The Last Shot," a
director is close to a deity in that when he strides onto the floor,
people all around here the announcement as if on high,
"Director on the set!" Little does anyone know that Joe Devine,
who uses two pseudonyms, is actually a low-level member of
the FBI stationed in Providence, Rhode Island who dreams of
making it to New York or Washington as much as Steven
fantasizes about being the helmsman for his own movie. The
FBI wants to use a phony movie as a way to entrap organized
crime figures like Tommy Sanz (Tony Shalhoub), since Sanz's
people control what goes down with the Teamsters Union trucks
used by the film industry.
Nathanson utilizes the intermittently comic story by Steve
Fishman about an actual event that occurred at the time that two
organized crime figures were gunned down outside Sparks'
steakhouse. The screenplay is called Arizona, despite the fact
that the film, for FBI purposes, must be made in Providence with
cactuses and sand driven in from out West. The aim of the film
is only partially to poke fun of the FBI–many of whose members
get so caught up in the "film" being made that they want it to be
shot for real–but is mainly a mild satire of Hollywood. The
writing and performances hardly come up to the level of Robert
Atlman's classic, "The Player" (about a paranoid young movie
exec who is threatened by a disgruntled screenwriter). Nor
does it have the edge of that picture's biting examination of
Hollywood greed and power. But "The Last Shot" is easy-to-
take, amusing, and sometimes hilarious, particularly when the
uncredited Joan Cusack, a Hollywood executive, at one point
says, "Bring me my back brace and my banjo!" Toni Collette
turns in a comic performances as a prima donna who takes the
role of a cancer-riddled woman who goes to the Arizona desert
to seek salvation from the Hopi Indians.
Best of all is the chemistry between Alec Baldwin and Matthew
Broderick, the latter still looking like a kid despite his thick
beard. We watch as Baldwin's character, Joe Devine, does a
great job putting on the aspiring film-maker–until Broderick's
Steven Schats, without realizing it, one-ups the FBI.
Rated R. 93 Minutes © Harvey Karten at harveycritic@cs.com
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