The Last Movie

1971 movie

Rating: 11/20

Plot: A stunt coordinator decides to leave the movie business behind and stay in South America with a lady friend, but he finds himself sucked back into the business when the locals decide to make a film of their own.

1971 brought us The Last Picture Show and The Last Movie. Also released in 1971: The Last Rebel, The Last of the Powerseekers, The Last Valley, The Last Run, The Last Traitor, The Last Child, and The Last Generation. And The Omega Man. This isn't information that you asked for, but I'm here for you anyway.

It would also be the last time a studio gave a lot of money to Dennis Hopper to direct a movie.

Really wanted to like this mess of a movie. In a lot of ways, it's my type of movie, and there's probably a really good movie in there somewhere, the kind of idea that would have been something in the hands of a Jodorowsky or a Herzog. There are ideas about the film industry and its effects on the rest of the world and the creative spirit in there that, along with the exotic locale, should have been fleshed out into something great. But in that hands of a coked-up Dennis Hopper? Not so much.

The biggest issue is easily the disjointed editing, and interestingly enough, that might be Jodorowsky's fault since he saw an earlier cut of Hopper's film and made fun of him for being linear and telling a story that makes sense. So it seems like Hopper took that criticism and, wanting to be one of the cool kids, took a hatchet to his movie and pieced it back together into the mess that it is. It's an easy enough story to piece together again, but it seemed like a lot of work. It was really more work than I was willing to put into the thing.

Hopper's acting is also a concern here. There's a goofiness to what he's doing that makes it impossible to figure out what's going on in his character's mind. He's still Dennis Hopper and therefore impossible to ignore and almost impossible to not like, but he apparently lost interest in creating a character.

I know this has its fans, but it was hard for me to watch this and not see it as a gigantic missed opportunity. Blame the drugs, I guess.