The only discernible purpose that the new comedy \The Last Shot"" serves is to emphasize how important stringently rewriting a script, like ""The Last Shot's,"" would have been. This is a virtually laughless, shamefully inane excuse for a farce, and its pointless existence is a testament to all that is wrong with Hollywood. How scribe-turned-auteur Jeff Nathanson was able to convince executives to greenlight this hackneyed drivel is questionable, but how he managed to assemble such a remarkable cast is utterly bewildering. Unwelcome and unfunny, ""The Last Shot"" is a haphazardly written, shoddily directed, shrilly acted debacle that emerges as the worst Hollywood-on-Hollywood satire since the Alan Smithee film ""Burn Hollywood Burn.""
Nathanson's scattershot film, which actually has a satisfactory premise, is loosely based upon a 1996 ""Details"" article about an FBI sting operation that involved moviemaking. Alec Baldwin, the ""greatest actor in the world"" according to ""Team America,"" stars as Jack Devine, a dogged FBI agent who is given the task of impersonating a Hollywood producer to set up an alliance and subsequently ensnare a John Gotti lackey (a woefully wasted Tony Shalhoub). Devine recruits aspiring screenwriter/director Steven Schats (Matthew Broderick) to direct a faux film in Rhode Island to attract the attention of Shalhoub and his illegal Teamster connections. While the plot may sound diverting, rest assured that Nathanson quickly bungles nearly every positive aspect with a screenplay so outrageously dreadful it paradoxically amazes.
It is tempting to divvy up the blame amongst the cast, but ultimately it must be squarely placed upon Nathanson. He started out writing universally panned turkeys like ""Speed 2: Cruise Control"" and ""Coyote Ugly,"" but after he inexplicably maintained a steady career, he eventually found himself working for Steven Spielberg on ""Catch Me If You Can"" and ""The Terminal."" Though these seemed to be a mark of substantial improvement, Nathanson has regressed to his basest instincts with ""The Last Shot,"" which relies on frequent outbursts of unimaginative profanity and political incorrectness to shroud its mediocrity. Typical of a screenwriter's directoral debut, this strangely vulgar yet sickeningly sentimental movie is packed with too many details and characters - lovingly doting on superfluous jokes (including a bizarre extended one about Baldwin's suicidal dog) while glossing over anything potentially interesting.
Most of the principal players are not responsible for their bad performances, since Nathanson's cartoonish script makes it perfectly clear that it's incessant mugging, not acting, that's required. There are, however, two glaring instances of miscasting in ""The Last Shot,"" those being Calista Flockhart as Broderick's psychotic girlfriend and Toni Collette as a lusty actress. Every scene with Flockhart is an excruciating display of terrible acting exacerbating terrible writing; it not only brings back agonizing memories of ""Ally McBeal,"" but it neuters any sustained goodwill early on. In contrast, Collette is tremendously miscast as the ravishing celebrity. While she may be a talented actress, Collette simply does not have the physicality to embody someone whose mere presence drops jaws.
A cinematic cesspool fraught with awful writing and undisciplined directing, ""The Last Shot"" is a banal, derivative waste of time and talent.
If you seek an entertaining, fact-based movie about filmmaking, avoid this catastrophe and rent Mario Van Peebles' ""Baadasssss!""-a lively, fantastic piece of work that succeeds in every way where Nathanson's disaster fails.
