The LAST PATROL review

DOLPH LUNDGREN SHERRI ALEXANDER
DIR. SHELDON LETTICHSCI-FI ACTION 1999

I have a confession to make. I am a bit of a Dolph Lundgren fan. Yes, it’s true. Now, normally I would make this confession without any shame, guilt or trepidation. I mean, this is Dolph we’re talking about; the big Swede. One of the 80’s Action Movies Old Guard. Into his fifties now, and he’s still pumping out the tough guy roles with more on screen power than any of the young bucks today. I had never come across a Lundgren flick I couldn’t get into...until I came across The Last Patrol, that is. And it’s this old ’99 piece that is the source of my mild shame.
The story of a cluster of survivors after an apocalyptic earthquake (scarily apt at the moment) is a sound one. The premise has extensive potential for engaging story telling and action, the hostile, ravaged Earth concept always proves popular, just look at the Book of Eli, Omega Man or Mad Max. But sadly, unused potential is basically worthless. TLP’s script is an abomination. Collapsed civilisation and lawlessness do not make for good comedy, yet the story far too often meanders off into poor attempts at light humour and absurdity. Thus we cannot take any aspect of the film with any semblance of seriousness. The dialogue is weak and as for the characters themselves...well, you would get more depth from using a thimble as a diving pool.
Lundgren, of course the lead here, is ‘renegade’ Army Captain Nick Preston, and he does have the screen presence and, dare I utter it; charisma, to hold his own amongst one of the worst collections of no name ‘actors’ assembled. In fact, the acting is so poor that Dolph starts to look like De Niro. Still, the scenes that call for any emotional resonance, however, fail dismally, again because of amateurish delivery and a music score that is more insipid than that apricot pastel paint you had on the bedroom walls of your flat in the late ‘80s.
The voice over narrative doesn’t work, the desert locations of Israel are wasted, the apple pie patriotic American ending is just too much and you simply cannot engage with anything happening on screen. There are some good points still, and it’s only these that garner this ‘effort’ its single star rating; Dolph looks the part when he belts the bad guys, you believe he can really hit like that, and how he seems to be totally unaffected when the shovel thrown at him just bounces off. But that’s it.
So don’t bother. Unless you simply have to watch something, and your set top box is dead, you’re snowed in, your other DVDs have been kidnapped by Jean Claude Van Damme and your ankles are broken, then and only then, could The Last Patrol be viewed as a last resort...
*