Review: Last Knights

Clive Owen plays Raiden, loyal soldier to Lord Bartok (Morgan Freeman), who has tired of the corruption he sees before him and decides to make his beliefs known. This earns him the ire of scheming, corrupt official Gezza Mott (Aksel Hennie), a subordinate of the Emperor (Peyman Moaadi). A disagreement between Lord Bartok and Gezza Mott sees the former put on trial, and the result of that trial is not good and places a very, very heavy burden on Raiden who is put in the role of having to administer punishment. Left completely distraught, guilt-ridden, and disillusioned Raiden (who has a wife, played by Ayelet Zurer) takes to drinking and whores to a heavy degree. He is a broken man, and now that he and his fellow soldiers (Cliff Curtis among them) have been disbanded, no real code to live by. All the while, Gezza Mott lives in fear of retaliation for his part in what happened to Raiden’s master. But if Raiden is such a mess that even his fellow soldiers no longer enjoy his company, surely he’s no longer a threat? Tsuyoshi Ihara plays Ito, Gezza Mott’s bodyguard, bound by duty but obviously having no great love for the task he is assigned. Shoreh Aghdashloo has a mere cameo as Lord Bartok’s wife.

 

Kind of a faux-Medieval fantasy version of “47 Ronin”, this 2015 flick from “Casshern” director Kaz I. Kiriya almost comes off. Scripted by Michael Konyves (“Barney’s Version”) and debutant Dove Sussman, it only works in fits and starts, and you wish it were better because of those moments where it really does work.

 

I thought Clive Owen made for a ridiculous working class-sounding “King Arthur” (or as I called it at the time “Arfa, King of the Boofheads”), but here playing a dutiful but brooding knight/warrior he works. He has a truly intimidating stare and it’s a perfect brooding role for him. The character goes to some very, very dark places here without quite losing your sympathy, and that’s in large part due to Owen’s performance and charisma. He has clearly brought his A-game, so it’s a shame no one else really has. Although this film is a fantasy film and not a film set in Medieval times, when you hear Morgan Freeman’s narration in this, one feels it’s the one time where you kinda wish Morgan Freeman wasn’t narrating a film. “Game of Thrones” isn’t set in Medieval times, either, but do you hear American accents on that show? Nope (though Peter Dinklage threatens to waver from time to time). That’s as it should be, silly nit-picking or not. Having said that, Freeman’s actual performance is fine enough. His acting ability and presence get him over the line, despite some ridiculous facial hair. It’s another of his Elder statesman authority figure roles who reluctantly stand up to corruption, the kind of thing that he could play in his sleep. Cliff Curtis and Tsuyoshi Ihara are just OK as Owens’ comrade-in-arms and the henchman to chief villain Aksel Hennie, respectively. The former isn’t in the film nearly enough to really resonate, I’m really not sure why he hasn’t been afforded good roles of late as he’s clearly talented. The latter doesn’t have the greatest command of the English language, but he effectively portrays a warrior who believes in honour but is stuck on the wrong team, where honour isn’t very highly sought after. In another film, he and Owens’ character could’ve been friends or comrades, but in this one, they are probably destined for a showdown.

 

Less effective are Aksel Hennie and Peyman Moaadi. It’s a shame that callow, Tom Hiddleston-ish Hennie isn’t much chop, because his lead villain character is a total arsehole somewhere in the vicinity of Joffrey or Ramsey from “Game of Thrones”. He’s a repugnant little shit, but Hennie’s just not a very good actor. As for Peyman Moaadi, he speaks English as though he has learned his lines phonetically, and it brings his performance down quite considerably. It’s a good-looking film, but I felt like something was missing from the action scenes. It felt as though the film had been cut down to get a softer rating, as even a decapitation towards the end is not shown from a terribly clear angle which tells you a lot. On the plus side, there’s a twist towards the end of the film that at least for me was genuinely surprising. You might pick it, but I certainly didn’t and it was very clever. The film really does pick up at that point, it’s a shame it didn’t do so earlier.

 

Clive Owen is terrific, but this direct-to-DVD fantasy-drama lacks effective villains and seems neutered in the violence department, which does hurt the film quite a bit. Also, for at least the first half of the film, the plot just didn’t grab me the way I wanted it to, though there’s a twist towards the end that was terrifically well-hidden from me. I was impressed that the film didn’t really show any signs of cheapness or anything less than A-grade production values (then again, it has 37 credited producers so perhaps it really did have an A-budget), but overall this one can’t help but feel a tad underwhelming.

 

Rating: C+