THE LAST STAND

*minor spoilers ahead* I just saw an advance screening of Arnold's first return to the silver screen as leading man since 2003's TERMINATOR III. That's a full decade he's been missing despite his brief appearances in the Expendables movies. Let me just come straight to the point. THE LAST STAND delivers on all counts, the theater was packed and you could feel the excitement. Right from the beginning the movie slips under the viewer's skin with a speeding Chevrolet Corvette C6 ZR1 clocked at 197 mph by a (groan) donut-eating cop. I'm going to go ahead and say it but that donut was the sole cringe-worthy moment in the entire movie, pretty much. Cuz from that moment on things just begin gelling in a way I haven't enjoyed since the original DIE HARD. Forest Whitaker is excellent as FBI agent John Bannister, hell-bent on tracking down this Mexican mafia criminal who happens to be quite adept at race car driving, played very well by Eduardo Noriega. THE LAST STAND is directed by Kim Ji-Woon, the guy who brought us the extremely intense violent horror movie I SAW THE DEVIL. Yes he also directed the not-so-great THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE WEIRD, but this movie here is his first major Hollywood motion picture and let me guarantee you 80's action movie fans it delivers one-hundred percent. Even Johnny Knoxville earns his presence by the end of it all and there is an early cameo from none other than Harry Dean Stanton. In my opinion one of the best things about THE LAST STAND is that it hews as close to "realism" as possible--with a few spectacular stunt scenes bordering on the preposterous of course--but actually the car chases, the fire-fights, the physical altercations--everything is really well-handled in the sense that it's not cheesy. Don't believe me? Go see this thing . . . I'm telling you, Arnold is back and it's a nice relief for me because I too grew up with him since seeing CONAN THE BARBARIAN at the tender age of 16. By the time I was 80% of the way through this movie the word symphonic came to mind: that's right, this director is on top of his game here, orchestrating multiple character threads through a solid and simple plot line to the point that all I can think to blurb about it is something along the lines of "a symphony of violence and action" -- high praise indeed coming from me.  One of the reasons the movie works is because the writer Andrew Knauer has wisely chosen to avoid cliched one-liners...for the most part. You read that right; most of the one-liners in THE LAST STAND come off non-ironic and that's a blessed relief. A perfect example is when one of the bad guys asks Sheriff Ray Owens (Arnold's memorable character) "Who are you-?" and Schwarzenegger deadpans "The Sheriff." See the whole point is Arnold was never a good actor, in fact he was quite abysmal, in particular his really early couple of films before CONAN. Yet even when he reached his peak we all know the man cannot really act his way out of a wet paper bag. But here's the thing. In my view, Arnold Schwarzenegger is worth 10 Oscar-worthy actors easily. The man is an icon carved out of granite. I'm sure the best directors have him keep his mouth shut most of the time and tell him to "just squint," and he carries off most scenes perfectly just by being himself. And in THE LAST STAND my observation about his presence onscreen can best be summed up with one word: Rusty. But only barely so. He manages to pull the character off with spades by the end of this monumental thriller. THE LAST STAND is so much fun and directed with such finesse that I foresee the decade ahead as one where Arnold Schwarzenegger slowly reclaims his place among the usual suspects of leading action men. His portrayal of Sheriff Ray Owens certainly won the hearts of last night's advance screening audience I can reassure you all of that much. So there you have it. Just when I expected to leave the theater disappointed, and waving off Arnie as an old tired has been, it turns out nothing could be further from the case. Like I mentioned at the beginning of this review, Arnold is back. And there is no doubt in my mind he could easily handle another Terminator movie. Let the new movie season begin!