The Last Shot- Movie of the Day (1/28/10)

The Last Shot (2004)
-starring Alec Baldwin, Matthew Broderick, Toni Collette, Tony Shaloub, Ray Liotta, Calista Flockhart, and Joan Cusack
-directed by Jeff Nathanson

-For reasons that are more or less obvious, films reportedly based on true stories seem to be placed on a higher pedestal than most others. There's a slight feeling that a film based on actual events contains more credibility and in turn, deserves to be taken much more seriously than those which are purely works of fiction. Perhaps its the fact that reality is so much starker than fiction most of the time that makes moviegoers look at true life films with a much more sturdy eye. Although The Last Shot is based on true events, no audience member can ever actually take the proceedings seriously.

The Last Shot is the true story of how an FBI agent named Joe Devine (Baldwin) decided to go undercover as a film producer in order to catch the Rhode Island mob for racketeering. He decides to 'produce' aspiring director Steven Schat's (Broderick)unsold screenplay about a woman dying of cancer and convinces him that going into business with shady Tommy Sanz (Shaloub) is a good idea. Steven is uncomfortable with the number of compromises he is required to make but is so excited at the prospect of his film being made, that he makes them regardless. Things start to get murky though when Joe gets close to nabbing Tommy but also finds himself getting more and more into his role as producer.

What proves to be most enjoyable about The Last Shot is just how absurd and outrageous the story is given the fact that the events on screen actually transpired in real life. Indeed, the "true" aspect is perhaps the film's most unique quality; without it, there'd actually be very little to distinguish it from the standard Hollywood comedy format. Its highly amusing to watch scenes where Joe proposes the operation to his superiors only to receive a lackluster approval until later when the plan appears to be working at which point his superiors are advising him on what direction the film he is producing should take. On the flip side is Steven who finds himself in a dizzying wave of glee as his project comes to life, yet is perplexed by the number of strange comprimises he must make such as filming the Arizona-set film in Rhode Island. As the story progresses, situations collide, misunderstandings occur, and genuine laughs come rolling out one after the other.

Its a shame this title wasn't more well-known becuase it contains within it some of the best comic work most of these actors has ever done. While Baldwin delivers his usual deadpan delivery and Broderick has little else to do but act clueless and naive, its the supporting cast including Shaloub as the gangster kingpin, Collette as the film's leading lady, and Flockhart as Steven's frustrated girlfriend (so hell bent on securing a role in the film she even stabs herself with a fork to show she can demonstrate pain) who project a true flair for comedy that has rarely been tapped in this way. Yet its Cusack, who plays a Hollywood producer that deliver's the film's most side-splitting scenes. Although her role is only 2 scenes long, Cusack embodies the sort of burned out producer who has seen her share of the business and has been burned by it many times.

One of the most compelling true stories converted to film that I've seen recently was Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon (yes, its true). I enjoyed that film's exploration into a subject matter that had become part of television's history and was a landmark moment in both the medium as well as in politics. Although it rests on the opposite side of the spectrum, The Last Shot is almost just as compelling for its sheer lunacy. Indeed plots in a similar vein have probably been made at a bevy of bad studio pitch meetings and there's little doubt that a number of lesser ideas have made it onto the screen. It might be easy to dismiss The Last Shot as just another form of recycled Hollywood junk if it wasn't for the fact...that its all true.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gD-ofy5NuA