YARDS OF GRAPEVINE | Movies, TV, Oscars & S'more

The most savvy choice director Kim Jee-woon made when approaching The Last Stand was to relegate Arnold Schwarzenegger’s comeback to the edges of the story. From a classic perspective the weight of the inevitable finale falls a little flat, seeing as our attachment to the hero is predicated on preconceived notions of the star, but in a strangely connected way, the overall effect of the film manages to ascend expectations of these types of blockbusters. Like a Pixar film, The Last Stand employs a rag tag group of disparate young lawmen and women to take down the world’s most feared drug smuggler. The group is lead by a sheriff with a hazy past filled with violence in the big city. And, yes, the film follows the exact path you might expect, even down to a “discard your firearms and fight with knuckles” ending. But The Last Stand engages by being surprisingly brisk along the way.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s brand of charisma has always seemed to me rare and preternatural. Like James Dean or Marilyn Monroe, in his prime, Schwarzenegger, with his inflated jaw line unveiling full-faced grins and pulling off action hero jokiness, was born to be watched. After a decade of inactivity and bad off-screen press, Arnold has lost his muscles, his charm, and a great deal of his staying power. The Last Stand, dealing in metaphors about a culture at the precipice of breaking under an influx of gun debates, liberalism, and immigration pressures, plays Schwarzenegger’s withering presence to perfect effect. Rounded out by a surprisingly strong cast, that includes the underused Luis Guzman and Johnny Knoxville, there’s a whimsical compliment to Schwarzenegger’s weariness. Similarly, the simplified writing clearly defines its bad guy, a conveniently able drug smuggler; again a metaphor for the increasingly unstoppable antagonism of creeping drug cartels. As far as analogies go, The Last Stand can be quite ambitious.

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