Last Stop In Yuma County (2023)
a review by Evan Landon
Do you remember when all of those Quentin Tarantino-esque style flicks were really popular in the mid-nineties, then kind of just disappeared? I admit, I was still in middle school, but I knew what I liked. The video rental walls were adorned with them, sporting such provocative titles as 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag, Truth or Consequences, N.M., 2 Days In The Valley, or Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead. I like that last one the most. It is just so categorically wrong.
I only bring that up because this definitely feels like a call back to those glory days. There is a way Tarantino makes films that almost everyone in Hollywood wanted to copy, at one point or another, but there was a shitload of them 30 years ago. Others say that this film reminds them of a Coen Brothers movie, which I can definitely see. It has to do with the overall tone and obscure juke box music that is why that is, I think. There are actually a bunch of things that are not even movies that brought the story together like real life experiences, doing the same ole bullshit, day after bloodsucking day... It gets monotonous.
This is the first feature-length film that writer/director/producer Francis Galluppi has made (so far), so I had to look up some of the behind-the-scenes action and it was fantastic. It took him 4 ½ years to make it and Galluppi ate, slept, and bled this movie. With passion like that, it is extremely difficult not get a little inspired.
The story follows a knife salesman who finds himself at a gas station in the middle of the Arizona desert on his way to visit his sister that has also ran out of gas. The upside is that there is a diner right next door that is just opening up while they wait for the gas truck that is very late. More and more characters are introduced as the time slowly drifts away, most notably, two bank robbers who are stuck there, a couple of teenagers that recognize the bank robbery escape car, the gas station attendant, the local sheriff's wife who runs the diner, the knife salesman, and some regulars who stop in just about every day.
In front of the camera is an all-star cast, made up of the knife salesman played by Jim Cummings (who made Wolf of Snow Hollow), Faizon Love as the gas station attendant, Jocelin Donahue (House of the Devil) as the waitress, and Richard Brake as one of the bank robbers, just to name a few. I swear, you can put that Richard Brake in anything and that shit will turn to gold. Now that I think about it, my last review of Dylan Dog had Sam Huntington in it too, but he had a much larger part in that one.
I cannot really continue to discuss this movie without giving away it's extremely simple set up until it's inevitable climax that just wins all around for me without giving away the ending. The only thing that disturbs me in how I rate it is how many times I was reminded of other movies, but it never feels like it is ripping anything off in particular.
On the plus side, the tone, the acting, the writing, right down to the setting is perfect for what Galluppi was going for here and it shows. Unfortunately, the audiences did not agree or they just were not to about it because it bombed out of the box office hard making only $94,344 against a $1 million budget.
Y'know, you rarely see it down to the very dollar on how much it made. I guess when the numbers are that low, every cent counts.
4 out of 5