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Last Shot, The
Buena Vista Pictures


7.2

based on 22 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 5 votes
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MPAA RATING: R for language and some sexual content

Starring Matthew Broderick, Alec Baldwin, Toni Collette, Tony Shalhoub, Calista Flockhart, Tim Blake Nelson, Buck Henry, and Ray Liotta

Based on the hilarious true story of the greatest motion picture never made, The Last Shot shows how everybody - even the FBI - can get caught up in the allure, glamour and glitz of Hollywood. (Touchstone Pictures)

GENRE(S):	Comedy \| Crime
WRITTEN BY:	Jeff Nathanson Steve Fishman (article)
DIRECTED BY:	Jeff Nathanson
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: May 10, 2005 Theatrical: September 24, 2004
RUNNING TIME:	93 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Not a well-oiled enterprise but more of a series of laughs separated by waits for more laughs. It has a kind of earnest, eager quality, and it's so screwy you feel affection for it.

San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer

The film doesn't always work, but it captures the buzz of moviemaking, and that's infectious.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

Despite its generic title and flat ending, tickles most of the way through.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

It's deftly done with an off-the-wall sense of humor joined to a real insider's sense of how the business operates.

Entertainment Weekly Scott Brown

Teetering on an abyss of meta-wackiness, The Last Shot -- a movie about movie fakery, based on a true story about a fake movie -- succeeds modestly where, by all rights, it should fail miserably.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Wildly uneven, but contains moments that are right up there with "The Player."

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Any movie that would think Calista Flockhart to be the sort of high-strung basket case who'd hurl obscenities down at a dog kennel outside her apartment is worth sitting through.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Given an irresistible premise, Nathanson doesn't trust his material enough to follow through without excessive mugging, but his sense of the absurd leads to amusing digressions along the way.

Variety Robert Koehler

Contains most of the elements of a "Get Shorty"-type romp without the character depth and wit.

Chicago Tribune Allison Benedikt

Flockhart, as an actress desperate to show the world her talent but lethally unsure if she has any, embodies the obsessively driven personality it must take to make it, or to try to make it, in pictures. She's the personification of what The Last Shot could have been.

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

An often funny if slight satire that's never as edgy as it thinks it is or as sharply focused as it needs to be.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Baldwin and Broderick each click in their roles and consistently rise above their material in every scene. But the movie around them falls flat and can't begin to sustain its premise.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

But there's no affection in this mean-spirited sendup of "the business" and nothing to mitigate its sour taste.

LA Weekly Tim Appelo

Appealingly cheesy, a tribute to the hope that springs eternal in the hopelessly inept.

Dallas Observer Jean Oppenheimer

Most of it is decidedly lame. The actors, however, are ingratiating.

Village Voice Laura Sinagra

Planned inanity never gets mad mad mad mad enough.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Nathanson processes this pungent stew of greed, ambition and self-delusion into pablum so sweet and bland it wouldn't shock a convent-raised idealist.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Unfunny and instantly forgettable comedy.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Laborious and logy when it should be madcap and effervescent.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

There are some very funny passing lines, but the movie's too uneven to enjoy.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Cross "Get Shorty" with "State and Main" - Hollywood hustlers, colorful crooks, crafty poseurs, and a production crew on location - and you have the stuff of The Last Shot. One other thing: eliminate anything funny.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Never achieves liftoff.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.2 (out of 10) based on 5 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

jody p/ gave it a9:
Yes the ending was flat but. the laughs were there.You feel for matthew character and alex.Being just an average person watching the people in the FBI.

Levis O. gave it a5:
It's quite good but should have much MUCH better than this.

Jeff L. gave it a 7:
Fast-paced, extremely likeable, periodically hilarious farce about an eager FBI agent (Alec Baldwin) who sets up a sting operation against mobster Tony Shalhoub by setting up a phony movie production. Of course, the would-be film's naive first-time writer/director (Matthew Broderick), his sexy ditz of a star (delicious Toni Collette), and the rest of the principals have no idea that their movie isn't really being made. Perhaps the fact that the screenplay is called "Arizona" and they're forced to shoot the thing in chilly Providence, Rhode Island, should have been their first clue, but Hollywood self-delusion is certainly one of the film's main targets. Furthermore, Baldwin and his FBI cohorts become so seduced by the idea of making a movie they nearly lose sight of their "real" jobs. The plot is sort of Get Shorty meets The Producers, with one of the best supporting casts of the year, including memorable turns by Joan Cusack, Calista Flockhart, Ray Liotta, Tim Blake Nelson, and Buck Henry, among others (also a few cameos I won't spoil by giving away.) A treat for film buffs and anyone who enjoys well-oiled farce.

Mike R. gave it a 10:
Thought it was hilarious - so many great little jokes injected throughout the film. Broderick and Baldwin are great together too - and Cusack's supporting role almost made me pee my pants.

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Last Shot, The Buena Vista Pictures

Last Shot, The
Buena Vista Pictures