Written and directed by Joseph McGee, Jake Finke a family man loses his family at a rest stop while on vacation. While police investigate, they link Doctor Elliot Shepard to be the family man’s mental institute caretaker. Starring: Martin Monasterski, Jeffrey M. Rossman, Mario Carneiro, Mark Wither, William Gannon, Joe Larsen, Ginger O’Toole, Kayla Kohla and Abigail Friend.
The crime, mystery, thriller combination is a difficult one to pull off, each year you maybe find only a handful that make a genuine impression. It’s the type of film that was hugely appreciated in classic cinema but eventually became a B-movie trope with the market becoming so saturated. A key contributing issue to that, which you find across countless films, is trying to add too many twists and turns, making stories convoluted and unsatisfying. The interesting thing about The Last Stop is that it feels fairly minimalist, the plot has a strong foundation and a couple of reveals but never attempts to add unnecessary layers.
While that is a good thing, what makes it interesting is that it’s one of the few occasions where it could have benefited from drawing itself out. Allowing the story to be patient, to build additional suspense and tension. It feels as though it has a solid idea but it hands the answers to viewers too quickly. It’s underselling itself, of course there’s the issue of time and budget but it feels like there was perhaps a trade off of scaling back on the characters involved to give the story more time to grow. As well as hitting the brakes sharper in the end, rather than having the characters overtly explain the resolution. There’s a rushing tone to the way it moves and that ends up undercutting the story.
Although while the concept is solid, the dialogue can be quite wooden, it lacks a natural patter or pacing. It also struggles to build an atmosphere fitting to the darkness of its story with an overly everyday palette. The lighting and colouring don’t quite strike the right note, along with a few errant shots which feel messily angled. It also uses an overwhelming score which can hit too harshly. As well as exploring a couple of issues, particularly sexual assault and rape, which the film doesn’t have the weight to handle, adding a feel of discomfort.
The performances can be a mixed bag, Martin Monasterski as Jake Finke makes for a good lead but the story doesn’t tend to stay focused on him, instead moving around from character to character. He adds a good emotional note whereas when the story leans into the criminal element, it can become stereotypical. It does a good job of adding that villainous edge but splitting it between different characters, rather than focusing all that energy in one definitive place, dampens its effect.
The Last Stop has a captivating premise, full of deceit, lies and sadistic desires but it plays out too much in a hurry. It doesn’t quite give itself the breathing room to let its mystery and suspense build organically. By quickstepping through the main section of the plot, then spending a lot of its ending over-explaining what really happened, it unfortunately prevents it from being satisfying. There are also a few missteps with shot choices and dipping its toes into subjects it can’t handle sensitively, as well as some wooden dialogue. It has potential but feels as though the story needed to be developed a bit further and level up the quality of the cinematography first, before it could fulfil that.
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