"Let's have a toast!"
Added 9/7/2009
Director Stacy Title and screenwriter Dan Rosen--surely at both's finest hour--created with this film perhaps the ultimate cautionary tale of what dehumanization and rage labels like "liberal" and "conservatives" can create when accepted as absolute identity.
Rosen was at one time a stand up comic with a taste for dark humor, and "The Last Supper" provides that in spades (if you have the stomach for it).
The plot of the film is really only a skeleton for what the creators are trying to say. A group of liberal undergraduate college students invite vicious right-wing and well known Conservative pundits to for a pleasant dinner, and then perform a little "Arsenic and Lace" with a blue bottle of poison they mask as strong wine. One has to suspend one's disbelief a little to enjoy the movie: if these people are so famous, why the hell don't they tell anyone where they're having dinner or who invited them? People like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Ann Coulter make sure they are heavily guarded at all times. Though all five of them are involved, the leader (played with a perfect concentrated madness by a young Courtney B. Vance) Luke is the engine behind it all.
At the beginning of the film a young soldier (Zac) returning home from the Persian Gulf War ("Was that a war or a Republican TV commercial?" Luke unwisely asks) needs shelter from the rain. The five make a bad choice and let him in. Things go from unpleasant to bad to worse to homicidal as the anger builds between this maniac and the five students; he praises Hitler, deems liberals less than human beings, and puts a knife to the throat of Mark, a Jewish student. He then proceeds to break the arm of another member, lets him fall to the ground, and Mark stabs him in the back.
This is an important part in the film. It wasn't *exactly* self defense. While this guy was obviously sociopathic and may have hurt the rest of them, a second viewing shows Mark approach long after his friend has hit the ground and is no longer in danger. It's hard to feel sympathy for Zac, but this is really how it starts. Luke jumps right on the bandwagon, stating coldly: "We should just finish dessert and bury the cracker."
Later on, a local female sherrif shows up asking about Zac. He had, apparently, raped murdered a young girl in the community before arriving. This fuels the group's thoughts that if they kill these people before they live out a natural life, they may be saving the world from great harm. The ancient shoulda woulda coulda question is asked repeatedly, at the film's climax: "It's 1909. You find yourself in a bar with a young artist named Adolf Hitler. Do you kill him to save billions of people?"
Title and Rosen toy with the viewer, swaying from the wussy excesses of ultra liberals to the outright evil of the far right. Both become annoying. Still, though, when we encounter "Norman" (Ron Perlman), the group's main target, we see what they are driving at.
A hilarious masterpiece, more relevant today than ever.
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A Sinister Superiority Complex
Added 3/7/2009
Have you ever wondered what hardcore liberals dream of doing to their right-wing adversaries? In "The Last Supper," the audience gets to see just that. Cameron Diaz, Ron Eldard and Annabeth Gish head up a quintet of superior-minded liberals who quickly gain a taste for murder after helping out a right-wing nutjob (Bill Paxton).
When Paxton goes too far at the supper table, it costs him his life. This sets into motion a string of murders by the five like-minded friends. They invite right-wing enemies to their supper table and throw questions at them in order to determine whether the conservative lives or dies.
As the bodies pile up, the lust for blood grows stronger in some members of the group. The local sheriff (a solid Nora Dunn) is also growing suspicious of the group and the wonderful tomatoes that begin to grow in their back yard.
Soon enough, the group encounters the holy grail of all conservatism, a loudmouthed Rush Limbaugh-type character played to perfection by Ron Perlman. When he proves to be a strong adversary, the group unravels and begins to argue with itself about whether or not Perlman should live or die.
In the end, though, Perlman's fate is determined. Does he live or die? You'll have to watch this dark comedy to find out.
The strongest performances in "The Last Supper" come via Perlman and Courtney B. Vance, who plays one of the loftiest of the five murderers. Gish and Eldard are exceptionally over-the-top in their performances, actually weakening the film a bit.
Overall, this film takes no sides in the political arena. Sure leftist loonies appear to have the upper hand throughout, but conservatives get a few punches in too.
I recommend this film to liberals so that they can live out some of their wildest fantasies. Extreme right-wingers are given their just desserts. I also recommend this film to conservatives because it gives a hilarious look into the lives lefties who believe they know what's best for everyone but, when given a strong adversary, fall all to pieces and actually turn on one another.
0 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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Great movie
Added 2/14/2009
What an interesting movie. It's a dark comedy with attention to dialogue.
Well worth the purchase.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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Great tongue-in-cheek comdey
Added 1/30/2009
Wonderful film that awakems the liberal instinct in you. Only bad part is ending when killers die.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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Who is more dangerous?
Added 8/25/2008
If you could go back in time and kill Hitler before his rise to power, would you do it? A group of left-wing graduate students put this theory into practice, after a chance meeting with a right-wing truck driver leads them down the path of murder and to the realization that some people deserve to die.
"The Last Supper" is one of my all-time favourite movies and has maintained its place in my top 20 film list, ever since I saw it for the first time on late-night television about 5 years ago. Although, as far as I can ascertain, the script of this film was written specifically for the screen, it actually plays out more like a stage play than a movie. Normally that would bother me, but in this case it doesn't, as this whole film is essentially a philosophical debate between left-wing and right-wing extremists, and it is for the dialogue that this film is of interest, not the action. One of the best things about this film is that, ultimately, the writer, Dan Rosen (who also wrote the equally excellent "The Curve"), does not come down in favour of one side or the other in his debate. It is left to the audience to decide who they believe is right.
I can imagine that "The Last Supper" might not be to everyone's tastes. In my family, alone, my father and I love it (after out most recent viewing, we spent several days discussing whether Rosen himself was on the side of the left or the right), but my mother hates it (she considers it to be too dark). However, if you have a black sense of humour and are interested in an entertaining debate on the topics that I mentioned above, then you definitely give this film a go.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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"Let's have a toast!"
Added 9/7/2009
Director Stacy Title and screenwriter Dan Rosen--surely at both's finest hour--created with this film perhaps the ultimate cautionary tale of what dehumanization and rage labels like "liberal" and "conservatives" can create when accepted as absolute identity.
Rosen was at one time a stand up comic with a taste for dark humor, and "The Last Supper" provides that in spades (if you have the stomach for it).
The plot of the film is really only a skeleton for what the creators are trying to say. A group of liberal undergraduate college students invite vicious right-wing and well known Conservative pundits to for a pleasant dinner, and then perform a little "Arsenic and Lace" with a blue bottle of poison they mask as strong wine. One has to suspend one's disbelief a little to enjoy the movie: if these people are so famous, why the hell don't they tell anyone where they're having dinner or who invited them? People like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Ann Coulter make sure they are heavily guarded at all times. Though all five of them are involved, the leader (played with a perfect concentrated madness by a young Courtney B. Vance) Luke is the engine behind it all.
At the beginning of the film a young soldier (Zac) returning home from the Persian Gulf War ("Was that a war or a Republican TV commercial?" Luke unwisely asks) needs shelter from the rain. The five make a bad choice and let him in. Things go from unpleasant to bad to worse to homicidal as the anger builds between this maniac and the five students; he praises Hitler, deems liberals less than human beings, and puts a knife to the throat of Mark, a Jewish student. He then proceeds to break the arm of another member, lets him fall to the ground, and Mark stabs him in the back.
This is an important part in the film. It wasn't *exactly* self defense. While this guy was obviously sociopathic and may have hurt the rest of them, a second viewing shows Mark approach long after his friend has hit the ground and is no longer in danger. It's hard to feel sympathy for Zac, but this is really how it starts. Luke jumps right on the bandwagon, stating coldly: "We should just finish dessert and bury the cracker."
Later on, a local female sherrif shows up asking about Zac. He had, apparently, raped murdered a young girl in the community before arriving. This fuels the group's thoughts that if they kill these people before they live out a natural life, they may be saving the world from great harm. The ancient shoulda woulda coulda question is asked repeatedly, at the film's climax: "It's 1909. You find yourself in a bar with a young artist named Adolf Hitler. Do you kill him to save billions of people?"
Title and Rosen toy with the viewer, swaying from the wussy excesses of ultra liberals to the outright evil of the far right. Both become annoying. Still, though, when we encounter "Norman" (Ron Perlman), the group's main target, we see what they are driving at.
A hilarious masterpiece, more relevant today than ever.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
A Sinister Superiority Complex
Added 3/7/2009
Have you ever wondered what hardcore liberals dream of doing to their right-wing adversaries? In "The Last Supper," the audience gets to see just that. Cameron Diaz, Ron Eldard and Annabeth Gish head up a quintet of superior-minded liberals who quickly gain a taste for murder after helping out a right-wing nutjob (Bill Paxton).
When Paxton goes too far at the supper table, it costs him his life. This sets into motion a string of murders by the five like-minded friends. They invite right-wing enemies to their supper table and throw questions at them in order to determine whether the conservative lives or dies.
As the bodies pile up, the lust for blood grows stronger in some members of the group. The local sheriff (a solid Nora Dunn) is also growing suspicious of the group and the wonderful tomatoes that begin to grow in their back yard.
Soon enough, the group encounters the holy grail of all conservatism, a loudmouthed Rush Limbaugh-type character played to perfection by Ron Perlman. When he proves to be a strong adversary, the group unravels and begins to argue with itself about whether or not Perlman should live or die.
In the end, though, Perlman's fate is determined. Does he live or die? You'll have to watch this dark comedy to find out.
The strongest performances in "The Last Supper" come via Perlman and Courtney B. Vance, who plays one of the loftiest of the five murderers. Gish and Eldard are exceptionally over-the-top in their performances, actually weakening the film a bit.
Overall, this film takes no sides in the political arena. Sure leftist loonies appear to have the upper hand throughout, but conservatives get a few punches in too.
I recommend this film to liberals so that they can live out some of their wildest fantasies. Extreme right-wingers are given their just desserts. I also recommend this film to conservatives because it gives a hilarious look into the lives lefties who believe they know what's best for everyone but, when given a strong adversary, fall all to pieces and actually turn on one another.
0 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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Great movie
Added 2/14/2009
What an interesting movie. It's a dark comedy with attention to dialogue.
Well worth the purchase.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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