Pleasantly entertaining comedy has an irresistible premise and brilliant cast but lacks big laughs. In fact, the most effective comedy comes in throwaway bits around the edges rather than from the main plot--Joan Cusack in her brief scenes as a foul-mouthed agent is a hoot as is a clip from a sleazy Cinemax B thriller featuring a not completely surprising cameo.
Calista Flockhart is underutilized but along with Toni Collette seems to be most aware that she is in a farce and both actresses bring welcome energy to their scenes. Alec Baldwin and Matthew Broderick are perfectly cast but the material doesn't exactly let them shine, which is a shame. Much of the comedy feels flat and muted, like the writer/director was afraid to really let loose in farcical Preston Sturges mode, opting for a lower-key approach that is certainly safer if your script isn't funny (what's more painful than a movie straining to be funny when it isn't?) but in this case leads to fatally diminishing returns since the material cries out for more energetic treatment.
The writer/director might want to watch Ruthless People to see where he went wrong. If that film had been directed like The Last Shot, even with the exact same cast and script, it would have been considerably less funny and would have undoubtedly flopped, like The Last Shot is inevitably going to.
That's not to say The Last Shot won't make a good rental or that people won't enjoy watching it on HBO, but it could and should have been much funnier and isn't really worth a trip to the theater--that is, of course, providing that you even get the chance to skip it in the theater. In Chicago it opened on a whopping 3 screens.
Calista Flockhart is underutilized but along with Toni Collette seems to be most aware that she is in a farce and both actresses bring welcome energy to their scenes. Alec Baldwin and Matthew Broderick are perfectly cast but the material doesn't exactly let them shine, which is a shame. Much of the comedy feels flat and muted, like the writer/director was afraid to really let loose in farcical Preston Sturges mode, opting for a lower-key approach that is certainly safer if your script isn't funny (what's more painful than a movie straining to be funny when it isn't?) but in this case leads to fatally diminishing returns since the material cries out for more energetic treatment.
The writer/director might want to watch Ruthless People to see where he went wrong. If that film had been directed like The Last Shot, even with the exact same cast and script, it would have been considerably less funny and would have undoubtedly flopped, like The Last Shot is inevitably going to.
That's not to say The Last Shot won't make a good rental or that people won't enjoy watching it on HBO, but it could and should have been much funnier and isn't really worth a trip to the theater--that is, of course, providing that you even get the chance to skip it in the theater. In Chicago it opened on a whopping 3 screens.