New-to-DVD review: The Last Ride

The Last Ride is a movie that defies easy definition.  It's sort of a buddy movie,  with two disparate personalities gradually growing to befriend each other despite their differences . . . except it doesn't go for laughs and mostly steers clear of the action scenes we'd suspect from such a film.  It's most certainly a road movie, as the story follows the two main characters as they journey from a small town outside Montgomery to Charleston, West Virginia . . . except the movie avoids nearly* every single cliche associated with road movies.  (*One reliable staple of the road movie, a honky-tonk bar fight, is featured.)  Most defiantly, it's a musical biographical film in which the celebrity being profiled is never once mentioned by name until the closing credits -- nor, for that matter, are any of his songs either mentioned or heard on the soundtrack (although covers by other artists do appear).

The Last Ride tells a highly fictionalized version of the road trip that served as the last adventure for Hank Williams, perhaps the most famous and influential country singer /songwriter of all time.  Here, he goes by his "travel alias," Luke Wells, and there's a running gag about how the young man hired to drive him to his destination has no idea that his employer is famous.  Because the movie's only concern is the interaction between "Mr. Wells" and his driver, the two actors and characters become the whole show.

Henry Thomas has the showier role as Hank Williams/ Luke Wells.  Luke is, as contradictory as it may sound, both dying and full of life, both a thrill-seeker and a world-weary traveler.  So, fittingly, I will make a pair of highly contradictory observations about Thomas in this role:  He does an excellent job.  He's also all wrong for the part.  I'm sorry, but he just is.  Because for one thing, Henry Thomas does not in any way, shape, or form embody the rebel's attitude that Williams is supposed to exhibit.  Furthermore, even if Thomas's actual age is considerably older than Williams was when he died, Thomas just looks too young to be so world weary and close to death.  The filmmakers take so many other artistic licenses with the facts of Williams's last days, that they might as well have cast an older actor -- Dennis Quaid, for example, would have been excellent -- in the role.    Now I must emphasize that none of this is to say that there is anything wrong with Thomas's performance.  He, in fact, does an excellent job.  But even when he's coughing up a storm and pale as a sheet, Thomas's youthful appearance shines through even when it's not supposed to.  Characters have to keep saying "he doesn't look so good" for the viewer to understand that the character is supposed to be sick, because, honestly, we otherwise wouldn't be able to tell.

As I watched this movie, it occurred to me fairly early on (and once it did occur to me, I couldn't shake the idea) that, ten years earlier, Thomas would have played the role of Williams's naive young driver, Silas.  Heck, actual age of the actor aside, he still would have been great in the part.  Instead, however, the filmmakers cast a young actor with the unlikely name of Jesse James (no, not the motorcycle guy).  Despite an impressive resume of high-profile blockbuster movies and prime time television series, James is still pretty much an unknown.  That's almost a necessity for this role, since the writers go out of their way to make the character to be, on the surface at least, extraordinarily devoid of personality.  He's certainly not based on Charles Carr, the man who in real life drove Williams on his last ride.  No, as "Luke" tries to pass the time with conversation, he finds, to his despair, that getting to know his driver is an exercise in futility, as Silas has no ambition, no dreams, no love life, nor even any opinions, save for an ambivalent notion that he doesn't much like music, although he doesn't know or care to know why he doesn't like music.  He doesn't hate it, see, he just doesn't seem to understand the appeal.  On paper, the character pretty much sounds like a robot.  The only hint of any emotion (other than an unexplained, unexplored, desperation to please his employers) on Silas's part is when Luke tries to ask about Silas's family.  Silas immediately gets upset at even the most innocent questions about his parents -- ah, at last, something that hints at humanity -- but then Silas refuses to discuss the matter in any detail at all, so both Luke and we, the audience, are once again stymied from getting to know him as a person.

And yet, somehow, this works.  Perhaps this is because, by making Silas a blank slate, the writers are better able to present him as an audience surrogate.  If, for example, Williams had asked Silas "do you like country music?" and, out of a desire to create some good ol' buddy-movie conflict, the writers had made Silas respond, "God, I hate country music!", well that's one detail that alienates a good portion of the audience.

Furthermore, it's a basic cinematic truth that intentionally uninteresting characters sometimes end up being pretty damn interesting.  One of the best characters in Sneakers, for example, is the one played by Stephen Tobolowsky (who shows up here as Silas's first employer, before the young man goes to work for Mr. Wells), a character who in that movie was explicitly referred to as "the most boring man in the world."

But I digress.  I'm sure by now you're thinking, "cut to the chase, is this a good movie?"  Despite James's "so uninteresting he's actually interesting" blank slate of a character, and despite Thomas's miscasting in the other main role (which he more or less overcomes), I've got to say yes.  During their (mostly non-comical, for a change) misadventures on the road, both lead characters elicit our sympathy, as Silas desperately tries to get Mr. Wells to his concert appointment on time ("if he doesn't get there by seven, you don't get paid," Silas is repeatedly told) while the rebellious Hank Williams is constantly finding reasons to delay and detour -- not because he's intentionally trying to screw with poor Silas, but maybe because, on some level, ol' Hank knows that this is his last adventure, and wants to make it a good one.  Despite its flaws, The Last Ride has some quiet virtues as well, and I found it to be a pleasant surprise.

One nit-pick:  Fake snow is such an extraordinarily easy special effect that I've seen elementary school stage productions do it convincingly.  It snows during most of The Last Ride, and the movie has the worst fake-snow effect I've ever seen.