The final shot of The Last Stop in Yuma County gives way to the director's credit with the same sting that William Holden's line - "If they move... kill 'em" - announces Directed by Sam Peckinpah in The Wild Bunch. And if that isn't high praise enough, there's this: Last Stop is a crisp widescreen waltz and the devil is definitely playing the tune. Each character or pair of characters peel off the hot road and into what they think is a diner, but is really a pressure cooker, perfectly tended by the writer/director Galluppi. A one room crucible that his ceaselessly prowling camera explores with grace and guile until every inch of the geography is understood... yet miraculously allowing both everything and nothing that happens to be anticipated. Compare the clarity of the film's key incident to the mess Scorsese made of the final conflagration in The Departed or the stalking in Cape Fear. Galluppi wins hands down.
This is the best film of the year so far. A perfect choreography of characters, camera, and cunning. Amazing performances across the board. Cummings, Brake, Logan, Donahue, Abbott Jr., Paolo - sly, steely, antic, moving, scary, funny. All the needle drops are spot on, virtually becoming another character in the diner. But the slo-mo montage to Roy Orbison's "Crying" is the standout -- an absolutely stellar, chill inducing 2:48 seconds.
This is the best film of the year so far. A perfect choreography of characters, camera, and cunning. Amazing performances across the board. Cummings, Brake, Logan, Donahue, Abbott Jr., Paolo - sly, steely, antic, moving, scary, funny. All the needle drops are spot on, virtually becoming another character in the diner. But the slo-mo montage to Roy Orbison's "Crying" is the standout -- an absolutely stellar, chill inducing 2:48 seconds.