Last Run (2001)

Frank Banner used to specialize in helping Soviet spies defect safely to the West. Banner's wife was shot to death aiding such an escape. Now, with the Cold War over, Banner is called upon ... See full summary »

Director:

Anthony Hickox

Writers:

Robert Syd Hopkins (screenplay), Anthony Hickox (screenplay)

Stars:

Armand Assante, Corey Johnson, Barna Illyés

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Armand Assante	...	Frank Banner
Corey Johnson	...	Jon Neely
Barna Illyés	...	Georgi Kaminski
Anthony Hickox	...	Riley Chapin
Annabel Brooks	...	Tina
Viki Kiss	...	Kerlov
Edit Illés	...	Kerlov
Sándor Téri	...	Yuri (as Sándor Tery)
Martin McDougall	...	Junior
Niki Barabás	...	Number Two
Norman Austin	...	Number One
David Foxxe	...	Leo Schiff
Ralph Brown	...	Simon
Ornella Muti	...	Danny
Jürgen Prochnow	...	Andrus Bukarin

Storyline

Frank Banner used to specialize in helping Soviet spies defect safely to the West. Banner's wife was shot to death aiding such an escape. Now, with the Cold War over, Banner is called upon to safely escort an ex-K.G.B. man who is wanted dead by both the CIA and the Russian Mafia.

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Plot Keywords:

spy | cold war | ukraine | speedboat | shot in the back | 

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Genres:

Action | Crime | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for violence and language

Details

Country:

UK Hungary

Language:

English

Release Date:

8 September 2001 (South Korea)

Also Known As:

Hot Zone

Filming Locations:

Budapest, Hungary

Box Office

Budget:

$6,500,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Technical Specs

Runtime:

98 min (DVD)

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Goofs

In the opening scene, Tina pulls out a revolver with a silencer on it. The way a revolver is built means that most revolvers cannot be silenced.

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Connections

References Doctor Zhivago (1965)

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Soundtracks

Last Run
Music and Performance by Amir Pahlavi-Alam
Lyrics by Tony Hickox
Vocals by Dipa Joshi

User Reviews

By Neil.

I rented a DVD of Last Run and I would like to comment. I have watched the film one time and part-way a second time. The photography is very attractive with European Landscapes and some urban subjects. The movie must be watched more than one time to get the plot. The politics of the plot are suppressed. There is a dialogue line about "I do not know which side won the cold war". The movie could go either of two ways. One is more of the action movie comic book plot. I go to a lot of movies for the simple plotting. The other way and I think maybe a follow-up movie like Last Run is something like the alienated existential intelligence man. The lead role is smoother than "Frank Banner" (I am using the IMDB credits page for my information here) but the art direction and production would be similar to what I watched last night. Last Run is pretty good. I can give the movie three stars out of five. But I want to write some more.

The woman in the movie are all mature, adult and over eighteen years of age. I must write that I wonder if they rent or own. They all die in the movie and Frank gets upset and yells the word NO and tries to revive one of the women. (The cast link does not work on the IMDB credits page to get the names. What do you know?) The women are attractive and European. Since I had problems following the politics of the plot story line I wonder how much the locations, which are in Hungary and Austria, are important. One scene shows a map in color and I want to use the stop button on my remote to look at the map a little more closely. There are weapons in the movie. The audio seems to be subdued and filtered which is a good thing because I do not need to pay for volume that it too loud and would damage my equipment or my friendship with my neighbors. The music is recorded, interesting and orchestral. There is little Rock music in this film. I do not remember indigenous music in the native languages. But the weapons could need to be identified by a specialist in arms. I do not know. I just wondered if identifying the arms and the locations would help in the plotting.

The end of the movie is a scene from a open space of land with statues and monuments from the communist era. One statue of Lenin is photographed on the screen. The end of the story is the digging up of dirt on one of the Eastern intelligence bosses from a safebox that has been hidden near the statues. And that is it. Kind of anti-climactic! I have gone through critiquing and letting people read my thoughts. Thanks. But what makes my review important? Why not enjoy the film and let it ride? Let the show go on. Well the answer is technical really and not aesthetic. The beginning of the movie reminds me of the computer game Myst and also Sim-Isle. The point in the game where the statuary is around the fountain. And just a little of the soundtrack of Last Run seems to be from Sim-Isle. I have both games and returned my warranties. The main part of the movie does not continue this. Just briefly in the beginning. Then the last scene with the communist statuary resembles the earlier scene and Myst also. The open space of land with the statuary appears to be a real place. But the games are hard to play. I mean for the audience and the market for computers, PCs and DVDs a lot of people might not be able to figure out the solution to puzzle games or to work to successfully development an island's economy like in Sim-Isle. I know that I can't. I just play for fun. Why sell game software to this market? You see some customers would never be writing a program script. It is just not something they will learn. But the PCs and DVD drives have enough processor power to enable these scripts and integrated programming environments.

I cleansed my DVD disk wiping from inside to outside with glass cleaner. The photography which is excellent in Last Run sometimes is washy looking and I wondered if this had something to do with the suppressed plot or the movie business because there is rain in some of the scenes and raindrops appear on the automobile glass and resemble the problems with the disk. I do not think it was the cleanser because the washy look was always cut with the scene and the lighting. Like a dark scene with a washy fault on my disk and cut to a brilliant outdoor landscape shot that was very attractive and had no technical faults. Maybe I am not washing the disk correctly?

Finally when rewatching the film the second time I turned on the Spanish subtitles to see if I could follow the plot-line by reading and including the Latin. But except for the characters names, no deal. But I enjoyed the disk more with the subtitles on. I watch the subtitles all the time on other disks.