THE LAST THING HE WANTED (2020)

Rated:  R

STARS: Anne Hathaway, Ben Affleck, Willem Dafoe, Rosie Perez
DIRECTOR: Dee Rees
GENRE: Drama/Political Thriller


We open in 1982, and Elena McMahon (Anne Hathaway), a reporter for the Atlantic Post, and her colleague Alma (Rosie Perez) are in El Salvador during that country's civil war--doing what journalists often do. Poking their noses into dangerous situations for the sake of getting a story,

Later, McMahon gets reassigned to cover Ronald Reagan's 1984 reelection bid (funny...it's still 1984) and she's not happy. She cuts out on the campaign to be with her ailing and addled father, Dick (Willem Dafoe). Dick McMahon is involved in some illegal arms dealings to Central America, and he's on the hook for a half million bucks. He needs to get a load of weapons shipped down there and collect his payment. But he can't handle it himself. So he asks his daughter to fly down and facilitate the operation. By doing so, she's placing herself in a highly volatile and unpredictable situation. 

At what point would a normal person say, "No dad...that's crazy!" Apply a little tough love. But she agrees to do it, because as it eventually hit me...she's an adrenaline freak! (Despite the appearance that she's just a dedicated journalist ready to go where the action is.) Adrenalin junkies always need more, until one day...poof!--they've checked out of this world way too early.  

A little history refresher might be in order. In 1979, the left-wing Sandinistas overthrew the dictator in Nicaragua. Ronald Reagan was afraid it might trigger revolution throughout the region, and threaten U.S. security. The U.S. secretly funded the right-wing contras, who were fighting to overthrow the Sandinistas, even though such activity had been outlawed by congress. Much of the funding had come from Nicaragua's cocaine trade. Reagan continued to support the contras on the sly, and the resulting scandal threatened to take down his presidency. 

It is against this backdrop that the delusional Elena thinks she'll just go down there and complete her father's transaction, like an everyday trip to the bank.

Elena has pieced things together, and she wants to blow the lid off the whole she-bang. Ben Affleck is a high ranking government official who's trying to keep her from learning too much, which necessitates getting her into bed to gain her trust. (She's so sympatico!) She'll try to pump him for whatever information she can get. As she says, "I came for the money, I stay for the scoop."

The Last Thing He Wanted, adapted from Joan Didion's last novel, seems torn between wanting to be a personal or a political story. The political is settled history. We've been there, done that. It should provide a context to move Elena's story along, but not be constantly distracting us from it. We want to develop some empathy with Elena, but it's difficult when there are so many shadowy players to  keep track of. Whose side are each of them on? It keeps you guessing for sure, but it's like a crossword puzzle you will never finish because you've only figured out some of the answers.

The movie's strong points are its cinematography; its authentic sense of time and place; and the ratcheting up of tension with escalating dramatic music. And the heavyweights who play the heavies. Hathaway is in constant woman-running-from-bad-shit mode, but she looks good all sweaty and stuff. And a more mature Rosie Perez sans makeup is quite appealing as well. 

There's a twisty and twisted surprise ending. But how kind can you be to a film that will do any appalling thing for shock value? (When the dog appears, look away.)  

From Netflix studios.

Grade:  C

JILL'S TAKE

Thank god for Tim! Reading his review explained what this blankety-blank-blank movie was all about. I didn't have a clue. I kept muttering to my cat, "Is Ben Affleck a bad guy or a good guy? Is Willem DaFoe's character dead now or still alive? Did that actor who played the gay bon vivant also play Truman Capote?"(Toby Jones) But the question I kept on repeating to my furry friend was "When will this turkey ever end???!!

I've often wondered whether Netflix accepts films that the producers know will bomb in regular movie theaters. It would appear so if The Last Thing He Wanted is any example. Speaking of which, who is the "he" in that mysterious title? (Maybe it was a typo and they meant to call it The Last Thing She Wanted?)

If you have a secret desire to see Ann Hathaway's breast – at least one of them—then turn on this baffling and battle-weary film. My advice? Read the book instead. (Joan Didion had to have done a better job with the story-telling than African American female director Dee Rees.)

Grade: F

THE COMPANY YOU KEEP (2013)

Rated:  PG-13

Stars: Robert Redford,  Shia LaBeouf,  Susan Sarandon, Julie Christie

Director: Robert Redford

Genre: Mystery/Suspense, Political Thriller 


The Boston Marathon bombing has given The Company You Keep  a kind of relevance and topicality it might not otherwise have appeared to possess. The film pings upon historical events from the politically turbulent sixties and seventies to present a fictionalized story that bears the ring of authenticity.   

The Weather Underground, which came to be known as the Weathermen, grew out of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in the late sixties.  It was a revolutionary group that conducted bombings of U.S. government buildings, and other targets, primarily in protest of the Vietnam war. As the movie opens,  a  former member of the group, Sharon Solarz, (Susan Sarandon) who had been hiding out as a suburban housewife, is preparing to turn herself in for her part in a bank robbery that turned deadly back in the seventies.  (Look up Sara Jane Olsen, aka Kathleen Soliah!) 

The ensuing publicity results in one of her cohorts, lawyer Jim Grant, being ferreted out by  cub reporter Ben Shepard, (Shia LaBeouf) who is still cutting his teeth at an Albany, New York newspaper.  Grant (Robert Redford) is in reality Nick Sloan, and he may or may not be guilty of having participated in that same robbery. He goes on the run to attempt to prove his innocence, and in the process reunites with some of his old comrades, which gives Nick Nolte, Richard Jenkins, and Julie Christie a reason to be in this movie.  

Sloan is particularly anxious to hook up with his old flame, Mimi Lurie, (Julie Christie) who, unlike some of the others, hasn't developed a different perspective through the passage of time. (Christie, who is now in her early seventies, is eerily reminiscent of Katherine Hepburn here.)  Lurie is unapologetic for carrying the same ideals that galvanized her, and many of her contemporaries back in the day, to demonstrate what people power can actually accomplish by bringing an unjust war to an end.  When their clandestine meeting finally occurs,  Lurie still has fire in her eyes--still railing against a system that brought us Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and the loss of so many innocent lives on all sides. 

 I think it was Redford's intention, by taking on this project,  to give a little poke at a society that has grown complacent in many ways--and to say HEY, the questions raised in the Vietnam era haven't gone away--they are still here, as relevant today as they ever were. 

To those too young to have lived through these events, The Company You Keep may simply seem to be relating a tale of homegrown terrorism from another era.  Baby boomers are more likely to grasp the complexity of the issues that existed at the time. And while there is  no disputing that  their actions were tragically misguided, the difference between organizations like The Weathermen and the Boston bombers is that the former believed that they loved their country, whereas the latter apparently hated it. 

That said, The Company You Keep  does a good job of bringing some balanced perspective to an era that becomes ever more misunderstood as time passes and we grow farther and farther away from the fact. Efforts to try to rewrite history for the purpose of promoting a particular agenda are something that should be vigilantly guarded against.

There are some intriguing twists and turns, and a few loose ends don't get tied up at the conclusion, but beyond the nuts and bolts of the plot, The Company You Keep is a thoughtful attempt to examine still relevant questions about the use and misuse of government power.

Grade:  B +