The Last Stop in Yuma County is a reminder of the sort of film there used to be a lot of in the late 1990s. In that first post-Tarantino wave, low-budget film-makers would head to the desert, find a diner somewhere, load it up with gonzos and dimwits, add guns and fruity dialogue and then let the chips fall where they might.
A lot were disappointing and eventually they became a chore to watch, but here’s a reminder of how good they could be when done properly. Just a few characters, not too much horsing around, tongue kept for the most part out of the cheek, a minimal situation with a sense of threat, some nice camerawork, a few shocks and plenty of sunshine.
It’s the 1970s and a lone driver pulls in at a diner and gas station in the middle of nowhere. We’re out of fuel, says the guy manning the pumps, or not (since there’s no fuel), but he tells the driver he’s welcome to wait at the diner until the fuel truck turns up. It’s 100 miles to the next gas station and he hasn’t got much in the tank so he has no choice.
Settling down with a coffee, the knife salesman (he is never named) is making smalltalk with Charlotte, the diner’s owner/sole waitress, when another car pulls in. Same story – short on fuel, won’t make it the 100 miles to the next place etc. Except these guys are fugitives on the run. After everyone has become acquainted – some waving of guns, some demonstrations that the bad guys mean business, the phone line cut – another couple turn up. An old guy and his missus. Same story – no gas. They sit down, these newcomers, unaware of what they’ve walked into. And then a greenhorn cop, who’s been sent down by the local sheriff, who’s the husband of the diner owner, to something something something. And then another couple, who fancy themselves as a romantic bandito duo. Bonnie and Clyde, one of them boasts. Kit and Holly from Badlands, says the other.
But then thus far everyone has felt like they’re out of some movie or other. They all have guns. Except Knife Salesman, who has knives. It will all, eventually and obviously, have to kick off, but until it does writer/director Francis Galluppi raises and lowers the heat, bringing things from a blip to a simmer and then back again, expertly teasing us and his characters.
Jim Cummings plays the knife salesman, and is an executive producer, and this has the hallmarks of something he’d be involved with – lowish-budget genre tweaking is his specialty (see The Beta Test, Wolf of Snow Hollow and Thunder Road). The knife salesman is also a familiar Cummings character: the diffident beta male slightly out of his depth and trying not to edge even further into the spotlight than he’s already accidentally wandered.
Good cast, many of whom you’ll recognise, like Gene Jones, who turns up in Coen movies now and again. Many you won’t, though Jocelin Donahue (waitress/owner), Faizon Love (gas guy), Nicholas Logan and Richard Brake (the desperados) hit their marks and don’t knock over the furniture. It’s not an acting-acting film per se – the characters are all far too broad.
In all honesty the setup is better than the payoff, but the moment of explosive revelation – when the dog finally sees the rabbit – is brilliantly handled. But once Galluppi has delivered his money shot, you might be surprised to see that there’s still the best part of half an hour of movie left. Galluppi has slightly hung himself out to dry, though there are still a couple of surprises left, not least the lack of the unseen hand of natural justice that tends to preside over even the badassest of badass movies.
A thriller, say all the blurbs. A comedy, I’d suggest, though a very dry, very wry one.
The Last Stop in Yuma County – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2024