This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
His Last Roundup
Plot Overview
The movie opens with mob enforcer Cuda
(Antonio Banderas,) bloody and wobbly on a Miami beach, facing the
sunset while wondering if his life he's about to depart was
worthwhile. His recent stint in prison got him to thinking
(“You wanna pray or something?”) The movie fills
in the gap between prison and this final reckoning.
Cuda has started
mentoring his protege Ricky “Stray” (Mojean Aria) an
Idaho-bred hick turned boatyard fighter. He needed him to get the
drop on hefty welterweight “Slugger” who's in arrears
to the mob. There's to be no mercy shown. Them's the rules.
Stray starts dating Lexus (Alexis Ren) a dancer at the club where he goes to get
paid for the hit. He is getting himself into treacherous waters.
Cuda drops by to see his fifteen-year-old
daughter Lola (Vivian Milkova) whom he's totally ignored until now.
Thinking he's in prison she's surprised to see him when she gets out
of school, but she brushes him off to catch her bus. He goes on to
intervene in a shoplifting incident at an Ocean Drive stand,
to get a fifteen-year-old, colored girl Billie (Zolee Griggs) off
the street where it's not safe for young girls to be. She'll later
get snatched away from a safe haven by a trafficking outfit looking
for diversity (“They're forced to stream on the internet
to creeps all over the world,”) but Cuda will spot her on his
collection rounds and break trust with his criminal organization to
rescue her. That puts them all in jeopardy.
Ideology
When Cuda and his ex-wife Medina (Kika Georgiou) meet up at an art gallery, they note a Camaron Gaskell painting on the wall. He's a little known hermetic artist who “could have rivaled the greats” but was too shy to display his work. His landscape looked good to me at any rate. It's similar to the saying, (Prov. 30:24) “There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise:” The unassuming role models in this picture could hold their own with the best.
(Prov. 30:25) “The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer.” It's recommended to start work early, in the summer of life. Stray's criminal boss Estelle (Kate Bosworth) puts it to him, “Do you find knocking out bums for pocket change is a sustainable way to make a living?” No, but it's a start. Stray broke a critical hold in an opening match by employing moves he honed by dancing the worm in his younger days, which dance he impressed his girlfriend with.
(Prov. 30:26) “The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks.” Location is ever so important. Billie ran away from a foster home in Atlanta for good reason, to hitch a ride to Miami for opportunity.
(Prov. 30:27) “The locusts have no
king, yet go they forth all of them by bands.” It's most important
to have an informal support network to watch one's back. Stray, Cuda,
Billie and Lexi will need to band together to thwart Estelle's hold,
who considers them shallow water fish, easy pickings.
(Prov. 30:28)
“The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings'
palaces.” A palace is a place that gets cleaned and swept regularly,
so that spider has to take initiative and weave new digs whenever
that happens. She can be contrasted with a prison spider in a Seymour
novel who is left alone:
A shared cell
in the south-west block of the Poggioreale. A spider, huge, whose
territory was the angles between the brickwork, the bars and
the grimy glass of the window. It had a web that extended nearly a
metre across and a half a metre high and the prisoners bet each evening,
in cigarettes, how many new flies would be trapped in the daylight
hours and eaten at night. The spider was esteemed and admired, its
body the size of a matchbook. (169)
The palace spider enjoys no such protection.
Ricky comes from a cold clime where “there are
more churches than restaurants.” When there's a sweep in Florida,
he should follow his mentor's advice and head north taking his friends
with him. Try his hand as a grease monkey or something.
Production Values
“” (2022) was directed by Richard Hughes. Its screenplay was by W. Peter Iliff. It stars Antonio Banderas, Mojean Aria and Kate Bosworth. Banderas anchors the film well struggling with his own demons. Bosworth makes one helluva bitch. The other actors are along for the ride.
MPAA rated it R for strong/bloody violence, language throughout, sexual content, nudity and drug use. There was excellent cinematography and set pieces; the soundtrack and score were primo; otherwise it was technically unmatured. It conveyed a dark mood with occasional action shots. Runtime is 1½ hours.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
If you can handle the dark side of criminality there are life lessons to be had from this one. We get to see weak people who need to be protected rise to the occasion. Its pace is like molasses, molasses heated in places.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Well done action flick. Suitability For Children: Not Suitable for Children of Any Age. Special effects: Well done special effects. Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day. Suspense: Keeps you on the edge of your seat. Overall movie rating: Three stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Print.
Seymour, Gerald. The Collaborator. Copyright © 2009 Gerald Seymour. New York: The Overlook Press, 2011. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org