“The Last Days of American Crime” is one of the most gruelling watching experiences of the year. It’s a cruel and unusual punishment that makes you want to walk out of isolation; a cruel joke. It took no less than four sittings, three of which put me out like a valium on a long haul flight, to conclude. This is a movie that features the dreamy Edgar Ramirez performing some steamy cunnilingus twice on the equally simmering Anna Brewster in the first hour and manages to be boring to the point of anger.
In the near future, the U.S government has developed a broadcast that will subdue a raging populace by restricting acts of crime and violence. Before the entire population surrenders to this manipulated pacification, a misfit crew plan a billion-dollar heist and an escape to Canada.
A reactionary government expands its powers to sedate and control its people – feels very “2020.” Unfortunately, French director Olivier Megaton (“Taken 3” and “Transporter 3”) and writer Karl Gajdusek (who adapts the work from the graphic novel by Rick Remender and Greg Tocchini) refuse to engage with the world they’ve built.
Essentially the regressed U.S deemed out of control by a now (one assumes) authoritarian government, is wholly a production consideration. The opening establishing scenes turn the cityscape into a live-action slice of a “Grand Theft Auto” online. Still, nothing about how America/the world arrived at this moment is required, or so the filmmakers think. “Last Days” conveys the apolitical ignorance of a sub-par spaghetti western.
Ramirez is squandered again. So few Hollywood films know what to do with this man. He’s cast purely for his look, his character the aptly “thick” Bricke has the personality of masonry. A mannequin for f–king and or wearing cool jackets. We’re told over and again that his crew is the best, we’re never graced with any demonstration of his mind for planning, his tactical aptitude or cat burglar like grace.
Aside from the moments where Anna Brewster’s Shelby Dupree and Mr Ramirez are fogging up the audience’s glasses and some keyboard hacker navigation, she is treated horrendously. Reduced to an object of affection and manipulation, she’s a damsel kidnapped, beaten, apprehended, beaten some more.
Sharlto Copley character is nonsensical. In a subplot as William Sawyer – a cop who volunteers for a digital upgrade to be a cop and help an investigation. When he fails, his insecurity turns violent. I actually can’t fathom the purpose of this story thread whatsoever.
Michael Pitt’s Kevin Cash is the one curiously appealing aspect. He’s rocking an Axel Rose “Use Your Illusion” aesthetic. He’s the troubled heir of a recently legitimised organised criminal syndicate who intends to tear down his father’s newfound legitimacy with the heist to end all heists. There’s even a tacked on inference to an incestuous relationship with his sister. Oh, and I didn’t also mention that he was in prison where he was exposed to early versions of this mind-control technology.
Pitt is possessed with that “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” Nicholas Cage energy. His unhinged choices in line readings, gestures, walking gate mean that in every scene in this corpse of a movie that he occupies there’s an electric current. He’s shackled to a fruitless arc; he’s required to bring authentic pain to infantile screeching matches, and yet makes you sit up straight when he’s on-screen.
There is a singular visual saving grace in “Last Days.” Bricke’s hideout is a kind of palatial trailer, which proudly features a flagpole and the billowing U.S flag. This trailer, something you’re likely to spot on a calendar gracing the walls of a “Tiger King” interviewee, is a kind of metaphor for contemporary America.
During one dispute with some competing crooks, the trailer is set ablaze. A cleansing fire engulfs America and the trailer as the country is consumed by political, social and moral upheaval; the COVID-19 pandemic and the series of generation-defining civil rights and police reform protests. There’s poetry in the ensuing explosive demise.
Apart from that “Last Days” is unwatchable.
