Last Orders (2001)

Funerals/memorial services are probably the last place you want to be after a friend's died. The places you hung out at together seem better monuments than a cemetery or a headstone. And maybe that's where the spirit really rests.

LAST ORDERS is a soft-spoken and beautifully poignant film about the drive to scatter the ashes of a departed friend. Detours to pubs, a war memorial, and the field where he and his wife met stirr the memories of the son and three friends left to carry on. Enduring friendship, fidelity, laughter, and support become the themes of their lives together.

And whereas, in an americain film, this could all turn into a sappy series of flashbacks - Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren, Micheal Caine, and Ray Winstone perform with all the subtle grace of traditional British cinema.

LAST ORDERS is well worth seeing for anyone.

Fmovies: It would be hard to imagine a finer troupe of actors than those assembled for the very believable "Last Orders." An ensemble that meshes so well that I was drawn into the screen barely conscious of their real identities and filmography, the story of the long ride of a man's cremated ashes to his selected disposal site, Margate (of all places - garish, timeworn, solidly tired) is gripping.

Through flashbacks to events both recent and as far back as combat in the North African desert in World War II the story of three close friends, the wife of one and their son (and peripherally but not insignificantly their catastrophically mentally retarded daughter) reflects the daily small joys and not great setbacks of very average English people. All the characters here could well be neighbors of the folks in "The Full Monty," people whose days are locally if unspectacularly productive and whose pleasures center in daily convivial meetings at the local pub.

Jack (Michael Caine) faces death more bravely and honestly than he ever did his total rejection of his and his wife's (Helen Mirren) daughter. His disappointment at his son's refusal to join him in the butcher business has been the lot of many. An American version of this tragic rejection would have the son spurn the family business for acting or law or medicine or the Presidency. Jack's son is quite happy to sell cars. A nice touch of English class reality.

Jack's ashes make a number of detours enroute to Margate while his widow pursues her own very necessary and moving journey to personal closure and the prospect of future happiness. At each stop the relations between the four men in the borrowed Mercedes become more interwoven, detailed and - ultimately - important for each as their mission nears accomplishment.

The direction is superb as is the muted, sometimes hazy cinematography. Unfortunately, as is so often the case with even the best cast portraying non-Oxbridge types, some speech is indecipherable. Ray Winstone is the chief malefactor in the mumbles competition but his acting is convincing - a fine actor from whom much can be expected. An elderly woman leaving the theater near me remarked, "This wasn't about a Gosford Park - the film needed subtitles." Yes, we have our class consciousness on the Upper West Side too.

This is a very special film that deserves the widest distribution. It won't get it though, not here. If you can't see it in a theater, rent it when it becomes available.

Last orders is a very simple movie. It is based upon one of cinema's simplest genres: The Road Movie. It is about simple people who lead simple lives wherein very little happens very often. But behind this simplicity lies the dreams and desires and mistakes and wasted opportunities of these simple people. Small things (relatively speaking) which would seem to have little consequence on the outside world; but then, we all live in a much smaller world - don't we - and even the tiniest broken dream can sometimes leave us empty - if only for a moment.

This is a film then about people. About how people view each other. About how people can harbour the most powerful emotions or secrets - or both - without even those closest to them having the faintest idea. About the importance of friendship and the universality of loss: innocence as well as bereavement.

So four simple folk take the ashes of their old mate to be scattered into the sea at faded old, lost innocence Margate. While the deceased's wife - avoiding this trip - visits their estranged, handicapped daughter for the final time. We see how they relate (and related) to their old, dead friend and to each other. We see that great tragedy need not be about 'great' people. We see that pure love need not derive from 'pure' people. We see that life and living and loving are as difficult (and as inspirational) for the simplest of folk. And we celebrate this empathy.

Last Orders is a slow burning film with an occasionally awkward script and a potentially confusing narrative. But for all that, it is a fine, frequently moving, honest piece of cinema. The photography is consistently evocative; the acting is impeccable (Winstone impresses as the stoic son; Hemmings crackles as the bludgeoning, second rate pugilist) and several set pieces are profoundly sincere (the scene in the field is electric); but this is not a film that exists to shine incandescently - only to burn, quietly and slowly, until it says what it has to and the fuse runs out. It's worth staying with because, as simple as these people are, if they can't tell you a little something about the sadness and joy and - above all - the wonderful uncertainty of life... then you're probably already dead.

Last Orders fmovies. Upon reaching a certain age, especially when a proper catalyst is provided, one may become wont to consider and reflect upon the life one has lived-- to take stock, as it were. And, without question, the death of a long-time, close friend or associate can effect such a catalysis, which is precisely what happens in `Last Orders,' directed by Fred Schepisi, a drama that suggests that perhaps the end of a life can offer a valuable and renewed perspective to those who go on to write yet another chapter of their own in this great book we fondly know as the Human Comedy. Finally, it's about individual resolve and beginnings that can be found in endings, and the life therein reserved for those who may yet count themselves among the living.

Jack (Michael Caine), a working class butcher in London, planned one day to retire with his lovely wife, Amy (Helen Mirren), to the seaside hamlet of Margate. As often happens in life, however, Jack was denied the realization of his dream by the unbidden intervention of Fate, in the form of it's eternal emissary, The Grim Reaper. But Jack enters his everlasting sleep even as he lived his life, one step ahead of the other guy; and the attainment of his final wish begins with the consigning of his ashes to his three closest, life-long friends and his son, Vince (Ray Winstone), along with a request he adjures them as a group to honor. And so it is that Vince, Vic (Tom Courtenay), Lenny (David Hemmings), and Jack's best friend, Ray (Bob Hoskins), set out on a journey to effect the `Last orders' of their good friend, Jack; a journey that will take them into the future by way of the past, as they reflect upon what has gone before, and the possibilities that now lay ahead.

With this film, Schepisi has crafted and delivered what is essentially a moment in time; a moment he examines through a sentimental journey rife with all of the hard knocks and stoic truths that made up Jack's life, and which he presents just as Jack lived it. And a sentimental journey though it may be, don't expect to be seeing it through rose colored glasses. As the story unfolds, what emerges is a portrait of a complex individual made up of the myriad and many facets of the human condition. And each flashback, combined with an episode from the present, reveals another piece of the puzzle that was Jack; and by the end, the picture we have of him is complete. We see him for who and what he really was, good, bad or indifferent, with all the flaws and foibles that were part and parcel of the ebb and flow of his life-- everything that defined him as a human being. Also, inasmuch as the story is told through the eyes of his friends and loved ones, it necessarily follows that they are revealed, as well, especially Amy and Ray. We do get to know Vince, Vic and Lenny, of course, but to something of a lesser degree. In the final analysis, then, what Schepisi has created here is nothing less than an intimate and incisive character study through which Jack, his friends and their story comes vividly to life. Schepisi does the material proud, but then he was, of course, afforded the talents of an extraordinarily gifted ensemble cast, from which he extracts a number of memorable performances.

As Lawrence Jamieson in 1988's `Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,' he was the most suave and sophisticated gentleman (albeit con man) the screen has seen since Niven or Grant, but without question, since his portrayal of `Alfie,' in 1966, Michael Caine has been everyones favorite cockney, and no

It's funny to read the reviews of those who haven't understood this perfectly balanced film - but then it is clever and subtle and, apart from being sad and touching is extremely funny.

I've seldom seen characters, situations, attitudes and emotions more perfectly balanced than in this shining gem of a film. It took me right back to Pom and, in particular, the best, most understated delights of the place.

There were so many sensitively treated sub-plots and topics that it is difficult to select one for particular praise. I think that it would have to be the adultery.

This is a wonderfully warm and human film, perhaps a "guy's movie" as opposed to the many "girls' movies." How can you miss with such a great cast? Helen Mirren. Bob Hoskins. Michael Caine. They do a wonderful job on the story of old friends devastated by the loss of one of their group. If I have one criticism it is the overuse of flashbacks. There even are flashbacks within flashbacks. It's followed easily enough yet the total effect is one of choppiness. But the story is warm, the performances solid and a bonus is the many scenes in and around London. The Brits, unlike Hollywood, do not demand that everything be pretty and that the sun always shine. Helen Mirren is excellent again as a woman past the prime of life. Hollywood would have tarted her up. And there are plenty of grey skies and rainshowers. (Hey, this is England after all} A very fine film that obviously was a labour of love.