By George Bate
Few filmmakers working today have as passionate of a following as Zach Snyder. The director known for striking and highly stylized visuals, dark and gritty tones, and heavy use of slow-motion action has faced both adoration and degradation in the past 20 years, although even his strongest detractors will probably agree that there is always something of interest to speak about or reflect on after watching a Snyder movie. After a duo of woeful misfires with Netflix’s Rebel Moon movies, Snyder returns to the director’s chair with The Last Photograph, his most intimate, grounded, and brutal, yet unintentionally funny and overly serious outing to date.
Making its world premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, The Last Photograph follows former DEA agent Ethan Black (Stuart Martin) as he travels to South America in search of his missing niece and nephew and in pursuit of revenge for the deaths of his brother and sister-in-law, the latter of whom he once had an extramarital affair with. Joining him on his quest is Joe Wallace (Fra Fee), a substance-using photographer who is the sole surviving witness of the murders and kidnapping.
Leave it to Zack Snyder to kick off his latest film with a naked woman performing oral sex on a man in a closet and on-screen depictions of children being shot and killed. It’s a jolting beginning that orients (or perhaps disorients) the audience to a Snyder flick hilariously and blissfully unaware of just how humorous it is.
Stilted dialogue no human being on the face of Earth would ever say and comically excessive and unnecessary nudity of women’s bodies are indicative of a painfully self-serious film. Snyder has always been one for somber, brooding movies, but that worked to his benefit in the likes of Watchmen and the Snyder Cut of Justice League. Here, however, Snyder plays his hand too heavily. He clearly aims to make the kind of stirring, awards-worthy prestige film that runs through the festival circuit and generates widespread critical acclaim. Instead, he ends up masterminding a film that far more closely resembles a melodramatic soap opera. There’s a man who had an affair with his brother’s wife, comical yearning of an old (and nude) picture of her, and misguided attempts at deep conversations, all of which render The Last Photograph an egregious tonal miscalculation.
But with the unintentional humor consistently and baked into Snyder’s film comes a decent, albeit overly long, revenge thriller and journey movie. The film saunters through a snooze-inducing first act before finally picking up the pace in a middle act, which represents the film at its strongest and most compelling. Much of this act follows Ethan and Wallace as they navigate the gritty streets and treacherous jungles of Columbia in search for clues about Ethan’s kidnapped niece and nephew. Ethan leans on his military expertise to effortlessly kill a bunch of bad guys, while Ethan goes through an odyssey of substance use and moral reckoning as he deliberates the ethics of his chosen profession as a war photographer. None of it is brilliant by any stretch, although it just about manages to capture and maintain one’s interest.
All of this interest falls apart, however, in a disastrous third act. Any intrigue surrounding the criminals who kidnapped Ethan’s niece and nephew and murdered his brother and the woman he loved dissipates upon a series of non-reveals. It’s akin to a whodunnit that teases some broader conspiracy at play, only to eventually and resoundingly fumble the resolution in the most underwhelming of ways.
As a fervent fan of much of Snyder’s work (I will champion Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – Ultimate Edition all day long), it pains to label The Last Photograph as such a decisive disappointment. Even the Rebel Moon movies had a unique visual style and the nostalgic feel of great space operas to conjure a modicum of interest, but his latest film distinctly lacks in this regard. Overly violent and crude to performatively demonstrate just how gritty and mature it is, excessively long in a manner that makes the Snyder Cut feel like a 22-minute episode of a television show, and hilarious in just how seriously it takes itself, The Last Photograph promises much but delivers very little.
VERDICT: 4/10
Making its world premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, The Last Photograph is a decisive disappointment from Zach Snyder, an overly long and painfully self-serious revenge thriller that repeatedly mistakes brutality, nudity, and grimness for depth. While the film eventually finds some momentum in its middle act, its promising journey through the streets and jungles of Colombia ultimately gives way to a disastrous third act filled with underwhelming reveals and squandered intrigue. Even as a fervent fan of Snyder’s work, it’s difficult to overlook how badly his latest outing miscalculates its tone. The Last Photograph promises a gritty, emotionally resonant thriller, but delivers very little beyond unintentional laughs and excessive violence.