As an action-thriller, Last Resort is utterly unremarkable, with the possible exception of its acting ensemble, not a single member of which gives anything resembling even a passable performance. It seems harsh and generally impossible to single out any one actor from the said ensemble to highlight, but in a strange twist, the worst offender may be its lead performer, Jonathan Patrick Foo, who plays the stoic hero who saves the day (but, more importantly, his family) when terrorists attack. It has been a good, long while since a lead actor seemed more depressed and less invested than Foo does here as Michael Reed, a former military man who now spends his days as a disinterested drunk, watching cartoons while his wife and child are active participants in a life around him.
Perhaps, as a performer, Foo felt in the moment that he might be channeling a man haunted by his time overseas. In practice, though, it is impossible to warm up to the man when his personality instead comes across as bored, irritable, and barely even bothered by the fracas that is eventually cooked up by Cooper (Clayton Norcross), an old brother-in-arms of Michael’s who has decided to rob a bank today.
Coincidentally, to an annoying degree, it just so happens that Michael’s estranged wife Kim (Julaluck Ismalone) and their daughter Anna (Angelina Ismalone, playing her actual mother’s daughter far too imprecisely to make sense of the familial connection) are visiting the bank in question, too, when Cooper takes hostages.
The villain’s motives are barely of any importance to writer/director Jean-Marc Minéo, who uses the entire set-up as an excuse for violence from the bad guys and violent retribution from the one good guy actually willing to do anything about the threat. The local police force is predictably unable to quell that threat, and so it’s up to the preternaturally able Michael to infiltrate the bank (somehow, without tipping off anyone on the police force, let alone Cooper’s crew, which reflects pretty poorly on both sides) and dispatch henchmen with absurd ease. This is exactly the kind of movie everyone expects it to be, up to and including the triumphal action climax. The supposed “revelation” of Michael and Cooper’s knowledge of each other’s capabilities and their shared history is the definition of an anticlimax, even as it is predicated upon a fairly unbelievable coincidence.
Aside from having a dull and annoying presence as its protagonist, the problems with Last Resort are still many and varied. The sequences of hand-to-hand combat are, at best, pedestrian and often chopped up to become incomprehensible, at worst. Since the motives of the villains are so nondescript, urgency is in short supply, to say the least, and Norcross’s wild gesticulating in the role of villain (reminding of Stephen Lang, without the gruffly villainous charisma of that great character actor’s best roles) certainly don’t help. This is all simply a waste of time, especially at a protracted length of nearly two hours, and the energy to pay much attention to any of it.
Photo courtesy of Saban Films
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