The Last Shot (2004)

The Last Shot (2004)

Directed by: Jeff Nathanson

Starring: Matthew Broderick, Alec Baldwin, Toni Collette

You know, one downside of watching so many movies is that you start to realize that there really AREN’T any ideas left. Not that this is a bottom-of-the-barrell or really strange movie or anything, it just happens to have a very similar plot to an idea I had for a movie back in high school that I finally landed on after thinking it hadn’t been done yet. Though, I guess that was a couple years before this was made… (also I just remembered that it was just a slightly different version of The Producers, but that’s neither here nor there. Let’s just forget I said anything, shall we?)

Anyway, The Last Shot is about Alec Baldwin, who is an FBI agent on the trail of a mob boss (played by Tony Shalhoub), who decides to pretend to produce a movie so he can get this mob to invest in it and this somehow ends up with them catching the mob. Not really sure how that was again, it was kinda fuzzy. He brings in Matthew Broderick, who is a failed writer/director, and he starts losing focus of the mob boss thing and starts just getting wrapped up in actually making the movie. Of course, in the end it all falls apart and he quits and goes into movies, etc. As an added bonus, you get to see the sort of stuff Calista Flockhart has to do now that her 15 minutes are up!

This is a very predictable movie, but I do give it some credit for doing the sometimes-annoying movie-within-a-movie thing pretty well. You don’t get too bogged down in actual “behind-the-scenes” stuff that the average person couldn’t possibly care about, but you still get enough of it that you believe these people are making a movie. A really stupid movie, actually, and that’s pretty much where all the comedy comes from. There are a lot of serious dramatic moments between Broderick and Baldwin, about their hopes and dreams and… well, it really grinds what is otherwise a decent comedy film to a stop.

Overall, I wouldn’t see this movie again, but it wasn’t the worst use of two hours I’ve ever had.