4 out of 5

Director: Stephen Norrington

“The Last Minute” is pretentious.  But it’s aware of how pretentious it is, and, in fact, this seems to be part of the point, something it attempts to confront head on by some charming eff-you elements – an almost literal Maguffin, an inverted lesson about selling out being the solution, an unmentioned X-Factor that the film itself seems to lack…  It’s questionable how much of this director / writer Norrington intended, and unfortunately, as he’s disappeared from film directing for more than a decade now we haven’t gotten another chance to judge, but the struggle between big and low budget that percolated some energy into Stephen’s other film forays (even League of Gentlemen) is allowed to be blown out to both extremes here – this is an indie pic produced with the awareness of having worked on some huge pictures.  Unfortunately, the lacking X-Factor is what keeps the film from achieving the extra bump it needs to be stomach-churning or mind-number – Billy Byrne is the new it-boy, and we follow him for thirty minutes or so of fame until he’s shoved aside for the new it-boy… and then a slow crumble into drugs and thieving, before Billy can man up to a monologue about the value of time he delivers at film’s start.  The film slows down while Stephen tries to figure out how to bridge to his concluding portion, and it clumsily falls back on an action scene to propel us there, with a character who seems only included in the movie for this purpose.  Again – was this a meta thing, about how a flick requires blood and guts, punctuated, as it is, by that MacGuffin?  It’s hard to say.  And Stephen seems to like Billy a bit too much to really show putting him through the ringer, which adds a layer of remove to things…  Still, this is such a well composed film, and smart without being annoyingly smart, it’s just hard to say on what level we’re meant to receive it.  I’m sure it doesn’t matter, as it’s entertaining, but the lack of full-circle resolution nevertheless limits the impact.

Special nod to the DVD for having a pretty badass set of features and an appealingly wacky design that matches the film’s feel.  If only all DVDs could put such work into the package, maybe… more would be worth owning?  Maybe?  Probably not?  Consumerism?