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Date: 9/28/2021
On DVD and streaming services: “Last Call”
As I was thinking about this new comedy/drama I realized why it seemed so familiar to me. I realized this film starring Jeremy Piven is really a re-use of the standard plot formula for a Hallmark Christmas movie.
Piven plays Seamus McDougal, the son of Irish-American immigrants who own a neighborhood bar in the hardscrabble community outside of Philadelphia. He is a successful real estate developer and he has come back to the old neighborhood because his mom has passed.
He is also there to try to convince his friends and former neighbors they should support a casino proposed for the area. Interestingly enough his boyhood crush is working to stop the casino project.
As he goes door-to-door getting signatures for a petition, McDougal begins to realize how much he has missed the neighborhood and how much work he has to do to maintain the family business, which his mother left to him.
So there are the basic conflicts: big city versus old neighborhood; evil big business against the little guy; and love with an old flame versus moving on with one’s life.
If that isn’t the format for many of the Hallmark movies I don’t know what is.
Piven is fine in the lead role and he has some great support from performers such as Bruce Dern, Jaimie Kennedy, Cathy Moriarty and Jack McGee. Taryn Manning is the female lead. I’m afraid there is little chemistry between Piven and Manning.
Director Paolo Pilladi seems to be in love with the blue collar aesthetics of the a urban neighborhood and its “wacky” residents but his film has many unexplained story points, such as how does McDougal’s crew of childhood friends make a living? How long has it been since he has seen them? And just what are they saying? The sound design in the film is quite frustrating.
All in all, this new indie drama is distressingly by the numbers.