There’s something about a thriller that’s located under the harsh glare of the of an unforgining sun that has a particular bite to it. Obviously the Coen Brothers made the stinging sands their home with such unpredictable crime sprees as Blood Simple and No Country For Old, but props also have to given to Terrence Mallick’s Badlands, Christopher McQuarrie’s Way Of The Gun and who could forget the barely north of the border antics of Orson Welles’ Touch Of Evil. However, it’s obvious that first-time feature director Francis Galluppi, believes it too as his new, sun bleached offering, Last Stop In Yuma County, seems to be reaching for similar heights despite coming from a more limited budget.
An eccentric ensemble, bizarre quirks of fate and an awesomely twitchy trigger finger all combine to present quite possibly one of the most unpredictable movies I’ve seen in quite a while.
Sometimes during the 1970s, at a remote gas station/diner somewhere in Yuma County Arizona, a nervous looking man pulls up hoping to get some gas. He’s promptly told by the guy at the station that all the pumps are dryer than the desert around him and that the fuel truck that’s due to refill them is currently running late. The the next gas station around a hundred miles away, the man – who sells kitchen knives by trade – realises that it’s probably best if he waits it out in the diner next door, and after its opened by a waitress named Charlotte and it isn’t long after he’s joined by by two, rather rough looking gentlemen, who also are looking for gas.
It’s here that the story starts to buck and thrash like a snake bit mule as the plot thickens like curdled milk, you see, the two unsavory looking gentlemen are bank robbers who are on the run to the Mexican border after swiping $700,000 from their latest heist. However, thanks to hearing a news bulletin on the radio that accurately describes their green Pinto, the knife salesman realises what’s going on, but after alerting Charlotte, the crooks getvwise to what they’re doing, and a hostage situation arises.
Of course, this is no ordinary hostage situation, as more and more people turn up vainly looking for gas, so while the diner rapidly fills up with unwitting patrons, only the criminals, the waitress and the knife salesman actually know what’s truly going on. But will every new face, the tension grows and both Charlotte and the salesmen know that the moment someone turns up who does have fuel in their tank, the robbers will spring into action to claim their vehicle continue in their stalled getaway.
Talk about your regular dine and dash…
Near the top of the page, I name dropped the Coen Brothers, and if I had to compare Last Stop In Yuma County to anything, it’s a low budget, indie version of the spitefully humourous take on pulp crime that the brothers used to put out. Virtually all the ingredients needed to make a good Coen stew is all here: flawed characters put in vast moral conundrums, a pair of criminals with vastly differing IQs, a large amount for money up for grabs and a twisty plot that has the ability to shift on a dime – it’s literally all here and the best news is that director Galluppi certainly knows how to juggle them all. Attention to detail is the name of the game here, with telling chunks of micro plot hidden away in such places as a telling gesture, a sign in the background, or a repeated line of dialogue, but the truly impressive act here is that the director manages to pull all of this off, balancing the subtlety just right without slowing down the pace by getting too caught up in all the little bits and pieces.
Not to give too much away, Last Stop In Yuma County is at it’s best when it’s cranking up the tension to an extent that you’re giggling as the tenuous siege goes from bad to worse. Starting incredibly simply with a single guy marooned at a gas station in the middle of nowhere, Galluppi gradually adds more and more awful luck to the film’s frame like it’s some insidious game of Buckaroo and the more times shit happens, the more anticipation mounts for everything to kick the fuck off. On top of this, the movie has the unerring ability to drip feed legitimately gasp-inducing twists at genuinely furious rate, be it the addition of yet another visitor to the rapidly filling up diner or the worrying revelation that almost everyone in the place his carrying a gun.
The cast wisely avoids any big stars, which greatly aids the unpredictability that come only come from an unfamiliar ensemble. Serial wrong ‘un Richard Brake is arguably the most familiar face (to me, at least) and he adds yet another threatening thug to his extensive rogues gallery; but there’s also Jim Cummings’ timid knife salesman who proves the unlikely wild card in this pressure cooker scenario and Jocelin Donahue’s heroic waitress who’s desire for tips pales compared to her desire to live. However, the rest of the cast is similarly stuffed with eccentrics that range from a sleep-prone elderly couple, to a Badlands inspired couple whose desire to commit crimes suddenly sours when things get serious. But even with all this going for it, Last Stop In Yuma County true triumph comes from its insistence to go that little bit further.
Remember when the late great Tony Scott kept ending a bunch of his films with a climatic moment that saw all the cast bundled into one room only to sort out all the dangling plot threads with a desperate shootout? You should, because he ended True Romance, Enemy Of The State and Domino with one, but while you’re fully expecting Last Stop In Yuma County to do the same, Galluppi is expecting you to expect it, and dutifully delivers one – but once the smoke clears and the survivors peek their heads out, the director reveals that we’re nowhere close to being done yet. In a move reminiscent of the last ten minutes of Robert Eggers’ The VVitch, the film keeps going on past the moment you’d expect it to end, which gives the remaining thirty minutes of running time something of a wonderfully anything-goes feel.
In this day of plot leaks and audiences desperate to uncover a film’s secrets before they’ve even see it; the fact that Galluppi’s feature debut is so furiously unpredictable is something of a miracle.
Quite bluntly one of the best debuts I’m likely to see all year, it’s no surprise that Galluppi has been hovered up by Sam Raimi, Robert Tapert and Bruce Campbell to helm a future Evil Dead movie, and with the filmmaker’s attention to detail the results could be something amazing. However, for now, this bleakly humorous thriller is worth every penny of that stolen loot.
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