“It also isn’t good that you can literally feel yourself becoming more and more stupid as the film progresses.”
by Martin Hafer
In recent years, there has been a huge trend to make comedies about a group of stupid jerks. With the success of Hot Tub Time Machine and The Hangover (which has spawned several hellish sequels), it seems that everyone is jumping on the bandwagon and the number of stupid jerk films is becoming alarming. Now I am not saying one or two stupid jerk films couldn’t be decent mindless entertainment when you are in the mood for something non-taxing (my favorite of these is Talladega Nights). But when that’s almost ALL that Hollywood is giving us these days, it makes you wonder just who is watching all these movies and will the trend ever stop? My guess is that we’ve got these sort of films for a while longer, as it doesn’t exactly require William Shakespeare, Robert Frost, Willam F. Buckley or John Updike to write a film such as Last Call! Nah…all you need is a very simple plot, lots of stupid dialog and stupid situations.
- Last Call
- Directed by
Greg Garthe - Cast
Travis Van Winkle, Ryan Hansen, Tara Reid - Release Date
Out Now - Martin’s Grade: D-
When the film began, I was surprised by two things. First, that Christopher Lloyd would agree to be in such a lousy film. Second, that he and the other characters would be even nastier and unlikable than the usual stupid jerks in these sorts of movies. Lloyd plays Pete–a raging alcoholic (wow..now that’s funny) who is about to lose his bar because he’s a raging alcoholic. Instead of engendering any sympathy, he screams at his boy to make the bar successful or else. In fact, EVERYTHING he says to him is cruel and hateful. Charming. The problem is that the young man and his friends are jerks…irresponsible and annoying jerks. And, now that I think about it, the friend is a SUPER-jerk. Why is it in so many of these films that the friend is a super-jerk?! And why would anyone want to help such a nasty drunk?!
*****
Regardless that none of it makes sense, the son and his super-stupid friend try to make a go of the bar. So how do they drum up more business? First, they decide to serve ANYONE who is underage. Second; they turn the place into a strip club. Not surprisingly, this lands them in jail. And, not surprisingly, at the end, there is a miracle that occurs that bails them all out and leaves them happily ever after. What a great object lesson.
Even for a dumb jerk film, Last Call is really bad. A major problem is that you hate the characters and the women in the film simply makes no sense. What woman would stay with such obnoxious losers?! It also isn’t good that you can literally feel yourself becoming more and more stupid as the film progresses. But the worst part is the hellishly bad dialog. Much of it I cannot reprint here at Influx! But seeing the sort of stuff they say in the movie is more damaging than anything I could say about Last Call. Here are a few examples of the terrifically clever dialog that the screenwriter wrote for this film:
‘I thought I felt my b***s tightening up…’
MANY anti-Semitic remarks made by Tom Arnold, who plays a bit part as (according to the film) the ‘Jew Lawyer’
friend yelling out ‘d***** Phil, you forgot to flush the toilet again’ when Phil is with his date
‘want me to cut your f****** nuts off?!’
‘Who wants to f***?!’
‘what a dip****’
‘…so I’m on top of her, right…the midget’s on my f****** back and I’m trying to hit it off…and her mom walks in….’
bartender yells ‘take it outside retard’–and the guy runs out and you see a close-up of him puking
So will this film make money? Probably. After all, many films make little in the box office but do well with DVD rentals and purchases. And, there apparently are a lot of folks who are willing to watch this mind-rot. Well, if you personally don’t want to see moronic films that were written by horny chimps, then my advice is DON’T GIVE THEM YOUR MONEY. Spend it on a movie worthy of your time. And it doesn’t need to be a foreign film or something from the Criterion Collection. Just about ANYTHING would be better than Last Call!
