PLOT: A former DEA agent (Stuart Martin) cuts a trail of vengeance across an unnamed South American country when his brother and sister-in-law are murdered and their children are trafficked. Bent on recovering the kids and taking revenge, he enlists the aid of a drug-addled combat photographer who took pictures of the slaughter.
REVIEW: The Last Photograph marks a major change of pace for Zack Snyder. No longer working on the large scale of his tentpole projects or in the genre space, this is a gritty passion project that he’s been toiling over for years, with him mentioning at the TIFF premiere that it was once set in Afghanistan before shifting to an unspecified South American country (it was mostly shot in Colombia). It’s an uncompromising, revenge-driven tale with taut action that, at times, feels more than a little like his riff on John Ford’s The Searchers. But it’s wildly inconsistent. At times, it’s great; at others, it’s obnoxious and pretentious.
I’d wager that there are about ninety great minutes in Snyder’s 135-minute epic. The first fifteen minutes of the film are quite bad, introducing us to Fra Fee’s former combat photographer as he hooks up at a sprawling birthday party but is too distracted by trying to capture a photo of a butterfly sitting in his ring light to impress his companion. This clumsy, pretentious moment introduces us to the film’s central motif—that of butterflies always being present before killings—and is cut short by a horrific massacre that is an excellent, uncompromising example of Snyder’s strengths. Once the movie gets going and introduces us to Stuart Martin (looking strikingly like Hugh Jackman) as the vengeful former DEA agent, Ethan, it clicks into gear. Sure, there are occasional clumsy moments that mar the film, but when the story is driven by action and vengeance, it’s top-notch.
Martin is excellent as the taciturn, vengeful Ethan, an unstoppable former soldier and expert in carnage. There’s a raid on a jungle compound that’s up there with the warehouse fight in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice as one of Snyder’s best action sequences. The other star of the film, Fra Fee’s photographer, isn’t as convincing as Martin. He’s supposed to be a junkie, but like every other Snyder character, he has the perfectly sculpted body of an action hero, with a rippling six-pack, despite never actually engaging in any action. It seems to be an example of a type of Snyder fetish that goes back to 300, but it’s equal opportunity, as almost every female character in the film also finds an occasion to disrobe, usually immediately after being introduced.
Yet, the excess doesn’t hurt the film, as Snyder is relishing going in a hard-R-rated direction and making the most of it. But the movie goes badly off the rails in its cerebral final half hour, with extended sequences of sadism (such as a woman having her teeth smashed out with a chisel) and clunky imagery, with some of Martin’s flashbacks being groan- or chuckle-worthy.
I’d wager there’s a superb 100-minute movie tucked away in this “Snyder Cut,” but we’re unlikely to see it, as Snyder made the movie for himself and even joked at the TIFF premiere that maybe this would be the only time he’d actually show it. It’s unfiltered Snyder, for better or worse. In my opinion, a lot of it is good, but too much of it is also bad. The good does slightly outweigh the bad, though, but this is a movie that certainly won’t win over Snyder skeptics. However, his fans will have a field day and find much to appreciate, including his arresting imagery and a strong musical score, which includes contributions by Hans Zimmer. More than anything, it’s a Snyder movie through and through.
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