A retired getaway driver comes out of retirement to pull off one last run- one that could send him to an early grave instead. A former getaway driver from Chicago (George C. Scott) has retired to a peaceful life in a Portuguese fishing village. He is asked to pull off one last job, involving driving a dangerous crook and his girl-friend to France. However, the job turns out to be a double-cross and the trio are pursued back to Portugal where they make one last stand on the coast while the enemy assassins attempt to gun them down. ****SPOILERS**** Grossly underrated film by George C. Scott as professional getaway driver Harry Games who, as we see at the beginning of the film, is retired in a Portuguese fishing village who gets a job by the mob, the first in 9 years, to get convicted hit-man Paul Rickard,Tony Musante, out of a Spanish jail and back to safety across the border into France. With a staged break-out Rickard is picked up by Harry in his souped up BMW and to his surprise Rickard instead of wanting to flee to freedom he wants a confused and angry Harry to go out of his way and pick up his American girlfriend Claudine, Trish Van Dever, thus screwing up his time-table.<br/><br/>Still determined to get the job done Harry not only risks his life in getting now both Rickard & Claudine to safety from the police but the very gangsters who hired him to free Rickard in order, it comes as a big surprise to Harry, to murder him! In some of the most stirring car chase scenes in movie history Harry finally gets Rickard and his girlfriend to the Spanish coast only to have the mob waiting for them. Harry who at first was only an innocent bystander in all this is shot by the mobsters who were holding his main squeeze Monique, Colleen Dewhurst, hostage whom he dropped in to say good-by. Realizing that a trap is set for Rickard and Caudine by the mobsters who shot and wounded him Harry tries to warn them but finds out that his friend fisherman Miguel, Aldo Sanbrell, who's supposed to pick them up on his fishing boat has also been murdered and shoots it out with his killers only, after putting them down, is himself killed! Now with the coast cleared both Rickard & Claudine sail to safety in Miguel's dinky fishing boat to far off to North Africa, some 500 miles away, and to safety.<br/><br/>Not really an action movie as it was promoted to be that caused it to flop with the critics and public "The Last Run" was really a film of rediscovery for Harry Games who at first had no reason for living, after his son died at childbirth and wife left him,but found one in getting back behind the wheel and doing what he does or did best as a getaway driver for the mob back in Chicago. It gave Harry a final thrill that he lacked, in being out of the business, since he retired from the mob as well as knowing that he still, in being the top mob getaway driver,got it! P.S The movie "The Last Run" also had George C.Scott not only change professions, from a fisherman to getaway driver, but wives as well leaving his then wife Colleen Dewhurst, who he was married to twice, for the far younger by some 15 years Trish Van Devere who he stayed married to for 27 years until his death in 1999. Certainly not awful, but with a title like this, one would expect a whole lot more action. George C. Scott is a getaway driver out for one last score, helping to break low-life creep Tony Musante out of a Portugese prison. Musante hooks them up with his dishy (and decidedly sane) girlfriend (Trish Van Devere). The three flee the law as well as a number of gangsters. It's all rather dull for a film that promises fast paced thrills. Director Richard Fleischer does his standard journeyman's work and despite stunning cinematography by Sven Nykvist(!) and a suitably rousing score by Jerry Goldsmith, the film is shockingly inert. Scott growls a lot, Musante is annoying and Van Devere is pretty fetching. Colleen Dewhurst has a small, and very unlikely role. Started by director John Huston, who walked off the project after one too many arguments with the famously temperamental Scott.
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364 weeks ago