If there’s one genre staple of the British film industry over the past 25 years it’s the cockney geezer gangster that’s given us the comedy banter of Guy Ritchie’s Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch and The Gentleman to the all out swear fest & brutality of the Footsoldier franchise. The Last Heist very much falls into that latter category. Based on a play by Michael Head this has the under rated but always enjoyable to watch Perry Benson one of those faces that is well known but whose name less so. He’s the owner of a bar where four members of a gang meet up after their jewellery job went awry. So far, so Reservoir Dogs but The Last Heist out curses Tarantino’s debut with a liberal sparkling of c-bombs that immediately grants the film its 18 certificate status.
Reservoir Dogs – 4KUHD & DVD steelbook disc review
The four gang members, that include writer Michael Head as well as Terry Stone – a stalwart of these gritty Brit crime films, talk the talk and battle with the banter but the dialogue doesn’t sparkle like Tarantino’s and acts more as a set up to a series of flashbacks. The robbery (something that’s never seen in Reservoir Dogs) lacks a sense of urgency but provides a laugh with the gang wearing pound shop Donald Trump masks that look a toby jug made by an inmate in a secure unit. It’s something that the films poster gleefully capitalizes on with its tag line, ‘Make Bank Robberies Great Again’.
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Primarily centred on the one location, director Coz Greenop has a job to lift the slightly overlong script from its theatrical origins and is a little run of the mill for the first two acts but then there’s a cracking plot twist in the third act which lifts the film in a wholly unexpected direction. Terry Stone as the wily Waldorf is often the butt of the gangs jokes about his age but is the actor who does convince as a villain and his back catalogue in this type of role, notably in the Footsoldier franchise has held him in good stead though it must be a relief for him that he doesn’t have to wear THAT wig that he endures in those films. Terry Stone produces also and has successfully cornered the market with these lower budgeted geezer-with-a-gun thrillers and whilst it perhaps does not have the extreme brutality of the Footsoldier films it’s the plot twist that elevates The Last Heist.
We spoke to Terry Stone about the making of the film……
Here’s The Last Heist trailer….
I thought it was a well thought out film with a unexpected surprise plot twist. That I didn’t see coming. A good British film and I’d like to
See more. Daniel has done really well and getting the likes of Josh Myers and Terry Stone adds to the comedy value .