Last Call

At a time where movies are so predictable, this movie breaks that barrier with this amazing continuous shot with a split screen. Your eyes can't stay off the screen because it's so gripping and poignant. Sarah Booth brings an emotional intensity that is so raw it's beautiful (but also painful) because she makes you feel every moment and every word she says. What a refreshing take on filming with a very real message that doesn't placate to the audience but just lays out a real and authentic story.

From the art style and the lack of fanfare (I had to put the year in to even find the right movie on IMDb) I was expecting the typical low budget, high concept offering with a bit of promise, using amateurish actors to create an ok movie, that's ultimately instantly forgettable. THIS MOVIE IS NOT THAT.

The one take aesthetic and split screen cinematography works just perfectly to convey the urgency of a serendipitous conversation between a woman in the right/wrong place and a man with nowhere left to turn. The acting from Sarah Booth in particular is astonishing (never seen her in anything before this), the dialogue is realistic and the soundtrack fits the mood just right.

I've never seen anything like it, the closest I can think of right now is Locke with Tom Hardy, but this movie is so much better and more heartfelt than that. I'll be recommending it to everyone I know. 9/10. (And no I'm not a paid reviewer or have anything to do with the production, look at my other reviews!)

There are many things to admire about this movie: it looks good, the actors are believable in their roles, its limited locations are interesting, and the premise is intriguing. That the movie was filmed in one take, simultaneously in two locations, following two actors, is certainly an impressive technical feat.

Split screen movies can work. This one, often, does not. At times, the viewer struggles to get a sense of each character's setting or movements, and does not quite because the screen is, literally, cut off.

The fact that the movie was filmed in a single take is impressive, but it leaves the audience watching a lot of moments that would have been better edited out. Realism is not achieved by watching characters putter about. For instance, near the beginning, we get to watch Scott walk home from a bar and Beth go out to her car to search for a cell phone charger -- in real time. Whole minutes roll by, taking up valuable time in this 75-minute movie, where the story could be underway.

The actors' performances have some good moments, but overall, there is an ocean of pathos, pushed by voices that border on simpering. We get it, Scott is in crisis, Beth is "thrown in the deep end", trying to help him with limited skills, and heavy emotions arise during their collision. But the watery, bordering-on-crying voices go on so long, they are so one-note, they begin to grate and actually hamper the impact of the scene.

The music is well done. Particularly at the beginning, doing a great job of setting the tone for what we are about to see. As the movie progresses, the music suffers from the same abundance of pathos that weighs down the performances -- a little of the emotional music would go a long way. Here, it's wall-to-wall.

In the end, the actors and music director are wedging themselves into the workable spaces left by the filmmaker's central gimmick: filming in real-time, split screen, no cuts. It would have been very interesting to see what this film might have looked like without the gimmick, which would have provided the space needed by the actors and music.

Filmed in 2 simultaneous one-shot takes, Last Call tells the story of a depressed drunk man who, on the anniversary of his son's death, mistakenly calls a community college when trying to talk to someone from the suicide hotline. The call is picked up by the night cleaner, who is a single mother who is awaiting a call to make sure her child is ok.

The film shows both people simultaneously, in real-time as this life-changing phonecall unfolds.

This film is a beautiful piece of work that really shows that people can make a difference and that sometimes if you show you care, just for a moment, you could change a life...maybe even save it.

I thought this was quite emotional, and the message stays with you. It's nice to be nice, it really is.

I enjoyed the performances by the two actors. They both created believable characters. Unfortunately that was not enough to compensate for the pace of the film.

I got a little bored and lost interest after about an hour. Maybe if this was a short film, 15 minutes less than it's running time, It would have maintained my interest.

Perhaps I lost interest because the man is not a very sympathetic character, so I had a hard time really investing in the outcome. Yeah, I didn't really care what happened to him one way or another. The script didn't give me a reason to root for him to change. I suppose I don't have a lot of patience for a certain type of person with certain kids of behaviors.