The Last Boy

Official selection at the prestigous 44th Boston Sci Fi Film Festival. I found it a very powerful film with a beautiful message so aptly illustrated via the poetry of Rumi. The cast were very good especially two youngsters Matilda Freeman and Flynn Allen, the Priest Peter Guiness and of course Luke Goss, whose performance was superb. The film builds to ending that is original and unexpected and will move you to tears. It's bold, uncompromising and spiritual. People will love it, people will hate it. Those that love it, like me, will because it touches your heart. Those that hate it will do because they're lost. Films like this are why I love independent cinema.

A bit theatrical sci fi movie, but it has cool parts and nice drama. It definitely could've been much better if some more details were given in the story. Anyways, it's cool and I liked it.

Apocalyptic end-of-the-world movies, that's normally a genre that I always like, even the ones that score below average. I just like those kind of stories. So my hopes for The Last Boy were high, certainly since it had a couple good reviews. But the truth is that this movie is a piece of garbage. There was no budget for this movie, that's obvious when you watch the special effects, but that's not the problem as there are a lot of low budget movies that are actually good, but The Last Boy isn't one of them. The story is amazingly boring and so is the acting. There are not much actors in this movie but the ones that play in it should just not give up their daily jobs. Well I assume they have another job than acting, otherwise it doesn't look good for them. The kids played by Matilda Freeman and Flynn Allen are terrible in acting. Someone should warn them so that they still can make something else out of their lives. I really wished this movie would be good but unfortunately it is one of the worst apocalyptic movies I ever saw.

'to a place that grants wishes'...reading that made me think of one of my favourite films Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker. Watching The Last Boy there were some similarities with Stalker but also Shamalayans's The Happening and the recent Birdbox. Anyone expecting a blood and guts filled post apocalyptic gorefest will be disappointed but it's obvious from the tagline that it was never the writer or directors intention to make that kind of film and it certainly wasn't what I was expecting to see. The Last Boy has a hopefulness and an innocence that the above films don't have (beautifully conveyed by the words of Rumi) , but that's not to say the dangers aren't real they are - both people and the lethal entity - in this case a wind that is visible and looks like a kind of wall of energy. In Stalker the entity never appeared - always at the periphery of the audience's consciousnes. In the happening it's the movement that belies the wind moving through the grass and trees. In Birdbox, well it's kind of visible sometimes and other times not. Each has its merits - personally I thought the wind in The Last Boy was very well done. I enjoyed the film immensely. I can switch on netflix and find any number of bloody and violent post apocalyptic stories - not really my scene - but I can't do the same and find movies like this. The film was very well cast with good performances. Luke as the sniper was very charismatic and really made the film his own, seems he works well with the director. Read the words in the movies description and enter the world the director has created with that in mind and you won't be disappointed. 7/10

Caught this at the Boston Sci fi fest last week. I liked the poster and intrigued by the premise. Had heard of Luke Goss and kind of associated him with below par action movies and wondered what he was doing in this. Later discovered he'd collaborated with the same director on interview with a hitman a film I'd heard of but not seen but more on that later. Anyway settled in not knowing what to expect and was well very pleasantly surprised. First of all Goss. I mean who knew he was such a class act, I mean top drawer stuff. He's definitely easy on the eye and it's not too hard to see how easy it would have been to get to A list status if he'd chosen his past movies better. As for the rest of the cast I loved their performances, esp Peter Guiness and the little girl Matilda. I've read some of the short sharp critiques by some on here and whilst not usually one to comment it kinda sucks and I think anyone reading this should just ignore most of that trash talk. The story's been compared to other other recent narratives but it stands on its own. The whole set up is fresh simple and believable. Religion plays a big part, focused mainly on christianity - the priest and the Goss. I thought that contrasted nicely with the Rumi mysticism I was very impressed with the 'wind' effects.. The ending is what makes or breaks a movie and the director goes all out and pulls it off in my opinion. Felt a tug on my heart strings. I wanted to watch Interview with a Hitman before commenting to see if this was fluke of some kind. Surprise surprise that was pretty damn good too. Not sure what Bhandal's up to next but if he can pull off two films which are so wildly different then he's got my attention. A well deserved 9//10