THE STORY – Stranded at an Arizona rest stop, a traveling knife salesman gets thrust into a high-stakes hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers who will stop at nothing to protect their ill-begotten fortune.
THE CAST – Jim Cummings, Jocelin Donahue, Sierra McCormick, Nicholas Logan, Michael Abbott Jr., Connor Paolo, Alexandra Essoe, Robin Bartlett, Jon Proudstar, Sam Huntington, Ryan Masson, Barbara Crampton, Gene Jones, Faizon Love & Richard Brake
THE TEAM – Francis Galluppi (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 91 Minutes
For first-time feature directors, it’s wise to make a film on a relatively small scale. It’s been a tradition that even the greatest auteurs followed in their early days, from Martin Scorsese’s “Who’s That Knocking at My Door” to Christopher Nolan’s “Following.” Francis Galluppi has smartly used this tactic with his feature debut, “The Last Stop in Yuma County.” It’s a contained neo-Western that mostly takes place in one location and uses minimal tools and tactics that would inflate a budget, relying instead on its screenplay and the talents of the actors. While Galluppi displays inherent talents, especially in his ability to establish tone, the plot feels expected and unsurprising, with ever-increasing dark energy that eventually morphs into pointless misery by the film’s end.
Featuring an array of familiar character actors, “The Last Stop in Yuma County” centers around the patrons of a desert diner who become inadvertent hostages to a pair of bank robbers (Richard Brake and Nicholas Logan) awaiting fuel for their getaway vehicle. The trapped victims include a traveling knife salesman (“The Beta Test” and “The Wolf Of Snow Hollow” star, Jim Cummings) and a waitress named Charlotte (Jocelin Donahue), both of whom lead simple lives and never foresaw themselves being in such a potentially violent predicament. Once the criminals establish themselves and their evil intentions to this pair of innocents, it becomes a waiting game where it’s unclear which will come first: the fuel truck or bloodshed.
Galluppi immediately shows an obvious adeptness at being able to establish mood. From the beginning, the film is quietly menacing, like a long deserted desert road with no end in sight. The characters speak in a down-to-earth, no-nonsense manner, calling film noirs to mind (this comparison is aided by Matthew Compton’s excellent, relentless pressure cooker of a musical score). The movie plays out at different speeds, constantly toying with the audience by winding up the tension. And even though the plot details are inherently upsetting, the film maintains a grim comic energy throughout. This is further accentuated by the editing (the film’s greatest technical achievement), which often acts as the non-obvious punchline to a situation (One moment involving a character dropping the film’s title and a clever cut is laugh-out-loud hilarious).
The talented ensemble of pros is perfectly locked into the film’s tone. Cummings, as always, is excellent at playing a man in way over his head, using his trademark sense of frantic desperation. Donahue makes for a sympathetic central character that the audience naturally wants to see get out of harm’s way. She’s both spunky and pitiable, with a grounded charm that makes her believable as a waitress at a quiet diner. And Brake is terrifying as the heartless criminal leader, with an intimidating voice that barely rises above a mumble.
Unfortunately, once the scene is set and the plot kicks into motion, the proceedings become harrowing in a way that’s simply difficult to watch. It’s one thing to use senseless violence as a point of commentary, as is often done by the Coen Brothers, but “The Last Stop in Yuma County” explodes into carnage in a way that’s just off-putting. There is no profound lesson to be learned or wisdom to be extracted from these events. Instead, the film seems to revel in merely upsetting the audience, which only makes the whole thing feel hollow.
While the vibes are excellent, the substance is not. It’s tough to talk about the mean, brutal specifics of “The Last Stop in Yuma County” without giving anything away, but let’s hope that Francis Galluppi finds more purpose to power the events of his next film.
