Amongst the worst thrillers to have appeared recently
Although actor Gerard Butler has some skill, throughout the years he has made some really poor professional decisions. His worst works are Geostorm, London Has Gone down, and The Bounty Hunter, while there are many more subpar to mediocre ones that might be cited. But none are as bad as Last Seen Alive, a thriller that offers little more thrills than a trip to the post office, in terms of quality.
It’s safe to say that Butler’s latest film, Last Seen Alive, is one of his worst works to date. Considering that he previously acted in the notoriously awful “comedy,” Movie 43, this is really saying something.
Despite being rather cliche, the idea of Last Seen Alive isn’t a bad one. It describes Will Spann’s wife Lisa’s (Jamie Alexander) inexplicable disappearance at a petrol station. What did she do there? Although there isn’t much of a mystery around her disappearance because this film is so unoriginal, that would be revealing.
Will phones the police after searching around in vain for his wife. He becomes involved in the local town’s criminal underworld after becoming impatient with their inaction and deciding to enforce the law on his own.The truth behind his wife’s abduction is revealed as he applies his own distinct brand of vigilante justice. Is she deceased? Exists she still? Jamie Alexander could have left the movie early to find a stronger screenplay.
Watch a better “missing people movie” instead, like Breakdown, Frantic, or Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners, if you want to find out what happens. Unlike Last Seen Alive, which has little to recommend it, these are all superb examples of the genre with compelling plots.
And there was no suspense
Despite the possibility of some intriguing twists and turns, this one lacks tension and has nothing that will astonish or amaze you. The biggest wonder of all is why Butler and his co-stars decided to participate in this disaster, since nobody benefits from the very subpar script, which has some of the worst dialogue I have ever heard in a movie.
What Doesn’t Kill You director Brian Goodman also helmed the 2008 critically lauded criminal drama that featured Ethan Hawke and Mark Ruffalo, thus it comes as a surprise that the directing is subpar.
It’s true that he didn’t have a strong screenplay to work with this time, but it doesn’t justify his amateurish direction or his futile attempts to build any tension. He wastes the abilities of talented performers by doing little to get any of them to do respectable performances. It almost seems as though he opted to cruise by without making any serious effort after realising he had a dud on his hands.
With a few good action moments to break up the mediocrity of the formulaic storyline, the movie may have been saved. Sadly, Goodman prefers to include flashbacks about Will’s unhappy marriage above anything else that would be deemed fascinating. This is unfortunate since not only are these sequences in this stupid movie done in an unconvincing manner, but they also serve little purpose.
They add nothing to the story and just lengthen the movie’s running time, so if you’re impatiently waiting for the credits to roll, you can feel deeply annoyed every time the plot shifts to accommodate scenes of Will and Lisa’s deteriorating relationship.
In the end, this is more about the lack of story logic, originality, and innovation than it is about Lisa’s disappearance. It shares a lot of similarities with the recent slate of B-movies that Nicolas Cage and Bruce Willis have appeared in, and as a result, it merits being thrown away and never to be seen again. Even if you walk into this one with reduced expectations, you will still be let down.
In a fruitless effort to counteract my criticism, I frantically searched for something to like about this film. Unfortunately, I was unable to suggest this movie, even if you like the lead actor, since it is among the worst movies I have watched recently.
There are many better movies out there that are more worthy of your time, therefore because the folks who created Last Seen Alive didn’t put much work into making it, you shouldn’t put any effort into viewing it.