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The Last Rifleman (2024) [PG13] ****

A film review by Brian Orndorf for blu-ray.com on Nov. 6, 2024.

The Last Rifleman shares the same story as 2023’s The Great Escaper. In that picture, Michael Caine portrayed an elderly World War II veteran sneaking out of senior home captivity to participate in a ceremony recognizing the 70th anniversary of D-Day. The new film puts Pierce Brosnan in the role, handling old age makeup and general physical stiffness to portray the determined man, who’s bringing plenty of emotional baggage with him on the journey. The tales aren’t completely identical, but there’s enough similarity to inspect, yet The Last Rifleman is the more poignant endeavor, offering less time with travel experiences and more moments of guilt and pain hitting the main character as he embarks on an ambitious quest to reach France on his own.

Artie (Pierce Brosnan) is a 92-year-old man living in a senior care center, trying to remain attentive to his wife, Maggie (Stella McCusker), who’s fighting dementia. When Maggie passes away, Artie faces a host of memories, including time with his wife and Charlie, a dear friend from long ago. Discovering special letters in Maggie’s belongings, Artie decides to participate in an upcoming D-Day memorial service, requiring some quick thinking to get past the staff. Now out in the open world, Artie has to find his way to France, embarking on a series of travel adventures where he meets various people looking to help the military veteran reach his final destination. Juliette (Clemence Posey) is part of this support chain, as the French mother is also dealing with troubles, responding to the older man’s quest to confront his past.

Artie can’t escape the horrors of war. It invades his dreams, returning to a time of confusion and tremendous fear in the British Army, surrounded by elements of violence as a new soldier. He’s no longer a young man, snapped back to his reality as a senior citizen facing an extensive list of medical needs, including management of his diabetes. Artie tries to be there for Maggie, comforting his wife of 68 years, but she remains in a fog, calling for Charlie when her husband hopes to reach some part of her mind. Maggie’s death inspires Artie’s actions in The Last Rifleman, left on his own to face issues rooted in his past, using the D-Day gathering to confront mistakes that aren’t immediately understood in the screenplay by Kevin Fitzpatrick. In fact, it takes a long time to reach a confrontation, with most of The Last Rifleman devoted to the journey to Normandy.

Travel isn’t easy for Artie, who’s frail but determined to reach his destination. Setbacks are common, as the character manages time on a train, a bus, and a truck, gradually making his way into France. The Last Rifleman details interactions along the way, including a young man who bonds with Artie over a shared love for composer Ennio Morricone. A truck driver is attentive to Artie’s diabetic behavior, and a longer stretch of screen time is devoted to Juliette, a Frenchwoman traveling home with her children. She helps Artie get past an expired passport and enter France, and the pair use their day together for confessional purposes, as the mother is processing medical issues. The Last Rifleman also explores life at the senior care center, where resident Tom (Ian McElhinney) contacts journalist Tony (Desmond Eastwood), informing the writer about Artie’s amazing mission, which soon becomes news across the country.

The Great Escaper was interested in comedic experiences. The Last Rifleman remains a softer, melancholy film, following Artie as he gets closer to the source of his anguish, also meeting an American soldier (the late John Amos, in his final role) who puts their shared service into perspective. There are more encounters to come for Artie, who eventually hitches a ride alongside ex-Nazis also trying to find sense in the war, making the philosophical line, living with ghosts, the dominant mood of the picture. The feature isn’t a tear-jerker, but something deeper when handling the true costs of combat and the stain of horrible mistakes. Brosnan gives a fine performance to help director Terry Loane, playing the strain of aging and the slow leak of communication as Artie starts to discuss his past with others. It’s the best work he’s done in some time, getting The Last Rifleman to a place of mournful reflection befitting an unusual (and partially true) story of closure. [Orndorfer's rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars]


Labels: drama, war, WWII 
IMDb 66/100 
MetaScore (critics=tbd, viewers=tbd) 
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=62, viewers=86) 
Brian Orndorfer review 

What Happens Later (2023) [R] ***

A film review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net on Nov. 4, 2023.

What Happens Later represents Meg Ryan’s minimal-fanfare return to the genre that made her a star and that resulted in one of the most fertile female/female writer/actor partnerships in the history of filmmaking. With Nora Ephron providing the words, Ryan made her three classic rom-coms – When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail – during a 10-year period toward the end of the last century. Then, weary of typecasting, she opted for a starring role in the racy In the Cut, effectively ending her reign as America’s Sweetheart. It has been eight years since she last made a movie and double that since she was a regular fixture on the big screen. What Happens Later is an attempt not to reignite the rom-com, which has become a moribund genre trapped on streaming TV, but to argue that Ryan can still be a player some 25 years after she turned her back on it.

Although What Happens Later has fun gently referencing Ryan’s past filmography, it doesn’t overdo it. For example, her age-appropriate co-star (he’s 63, she’s on the cusp of 62 at the time of the movie’s release) is David Duchovny not Tom Hanks or Billy Crystal. Dour Duchovny, the ex-X Files star who spent an awful lot of time wallowing in the debauchery of Californication, is a nice counterpoint to the bubbly Ryan, who remains chipper as she transitions out of middle age. There is some chemistry between them but it comes in fits and starts and doesn’t start giving off any heat until late in the proceedings. There’s a lot of magic realism (notably in the form of an omniscient airport announcer who functions as a Greek Chorus) and Ryan’s character embraces it while Duchovny is skeptical (a flip from The X-Files where he was the believer).

The narrative unspools in the emptiest regional airport in the world during the height of a snowstorm that grounds most of the planes and chases all the passengers away. Past lovers Willa (Ryan) and Bill (Duchovny) haven’t seen each other in 25 years, when he walked out on her, but they are destined not only to reconnect but to work through a lot of ugly stuff as the storm rages outside. Now, they’re going in different directions – he’s a stockbroker headed to Austin and she’s a “wellness practitioner” en route to Boston. For him, it’s a trip. For her, it’s a journey. This is a Before Sunrise sojourn with a Before Midnight tone.

Although Ryan (who directed and co-wrote the screenplay) maintains a superficial rom-com veneer, there are darker issues at play. This isn’t all hearts and flowers, although it ends with one of the former. Most lighthearted romances are forward-looking, with the characters gazing into the future as the end credits arrive. What Happens Later, as the title implies, is more about looking to the past and confronting regrets. Life and love have a different taste when there are more years behind than ahead.

The film’s origins as a stage play (“Shooting Star” by Steven Dietz) are evident. There are no flashbacks, much of the action transpires in real time, there is only a single setting (the airport), and 85% of the film is dialogue. We learn the characters’ backstory through their conversations and come to understand that their breakup was in large part due to miscommunications. What Happens Later neither offers nor promises a “happily ever after” ending. And, although there are instances when the writing crackles and pops, it lacks the zing that Nora Ephron brought to Ryan’s best-known rom-coms. (The movie is dedicated to her.)

There are things that don’t work. The magical realism aspect is overdone. Having the airport announcer (voice provided by “Hal Liggett,” a pseudonym for an actor who is thus far uncredited) interfering in the action is an annoying contrivance and there are times when Willa’s hippie persona borders on a caricature. As if believing the material to be too dry, Ryan tries too hard to make it quirky and those instances, in contrast to the more grounded, believable moments, are when What Happens Later sputters.

Although nostalgia will undoubtedly be a reason for many viewers to give this movie a try, it’s only passingly similar to Ryan’s previous ventures into the genre. This is a more mature project, designed almost exclusively for a slice of older viewers. Like most rom-coms, it is comfort food although it lacks the fantasy element associated with characters who are less seasoned. [Berardinelli's rating: 3 stars out of 4]

Labels: comedy, romance

IMDb 48/100 

MetaScore (critics=59, viewers=42) 

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=59, viewers=44) 

Blu-ray

Berardinelli's original review 

Here (2024) [PG-13] ***

 A film review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net on Nov. 1, 2024.

For a movie like Here, which eschews the norms of narrative filmmaking in favor of something experimental, the first question to ask is whether the story, stripped bare of the director’s approach, is worth telling. The second question is whether the decision to approach the movie in a nontraditional fashion adds anything to the production. Providing an answer to the first question is more difficult than the second. At its heart, Here is a fairly straightforward melodrama and its strength comes from the accessibility and relatability of the characters and their circumstances. Most of us will have known (or been) these people at various times during our lives. Certain moments have a poignancy that comes from the connections formed between on-screen characters and those watching in the audience. But the biggest problems with Here are the extraneous plot elements that bog down the basic story (in order to advance a theme about impermanence), the ill-advised chronological dysfunction favored by director Robert Zemeckis, and the awkward, distracting use of frames to provide transitions. Although these things don’t destroy the film, they reduce its overall impact and emotional resonance. It’s difficult (if not impossible) to become immersed in a movie when the director is constantly reminding us that it is a movie.

Berardinelli's full film review (2.5 stars out of 4)

Labels: drama, Tom Hanks
IMDb 63/100 
MetaScore (critics=39, viewers=48) 
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=44, viewers=68)