Zack Snyder’s long-awaited indie drama, The Last Photograph, is a complicated movie to come to terms with, especially if you’re a fan of his work as I am. But even though I do like what Snyder has done for the most part, I’m a realist about his stuff that doesn’t work, such as his disastrous Rebel Moon flicks for Netflix. A passion project that Snyder and writer Kurt Johnstad have been working on at least since 2011, the film is his most intimate and grounded yet. He deserves to be commended for that, and for the genuinely beautiful imagery that he shot himself as cinematographer. But all of his worst traits are there in abundance, too. Overlong, ponderous and deadly serious to a comical degree, it’s a film that feels more like a test run than a finished product. And considering this is the one and only screening here at TIFF, with no distribution on the horizon, that might be all it turns out to be.
Snyder teases you with what could be a great 100-minute revenge thriller, following ex-DEA agent Ethan Black, played by Stuart Martin (doing his best Hugh Jackman, beard and all). Ethan is on the hunt for the hunt in South America to find the men responsible for the brutal assassination of his brother and sister-in-law, and the kidnapping of their two kids. Ethan is emotionally distraught, not so much for the loss of his sibling, but for his brother’s wife, who he shared a passionate love affair with.
Fellow Rebel Moon actor Fra Fee plays Joseph Wallace, a drug-addicted photographer who was there to witness the killings, and took the final photograph of the woman Ethan loves. He was lucky to survive, but now he’s tagging along with Ethan on this dangerous mission, snapping photos of the death, violence, and butterflies (???) that surround them at every turn.
Hey, don’t ask me about the butterfly thing. Snyder couldn’t really explain the weird, constant presence of them in the Q&A that followed. I attribute it to Snyder doing what he thinks a prestige filmmaker, an auteur, might do. Much of The Last Photograph feels like Snyder’s attempt to prove he’s better than just the guy who makes things blow up real good. The dramatic scenes are sluggish and all of them demand to be edited down. The dialogue makes no sense and there isn’t a human being alive who would say some of it. Hilariously, the film begins with a topless woman having sex with Joseph while he shoots a photograph of a non-existent butterfly. There are maybe three women in the entire movie and all of them are topless at some point, and none of them can keep their hands off the nearest guy. Pretty sure Snyder didn’t imagine this one through the female gaze.
And yet, when Snyder stops the pretentious bullshit and gets down to doing what he’s best at, The Last Photograph is a killer revenge thriller and quest movie, with The Searchers a clear inspiration. Ethan and Joseph travel the deadly streets and jungles of South America, facing constant armed assaults from rebels and assassins. Not that any of them stand a chance against Ethan’s military training and righteous vengeance. Snyder’s no-bullshit approach to the violence, credibly brought to life by a game performance by Martin, pulls you into the story a lot better than exhausting conversations about the morality of being a war photographer in a war-torn land.
The first act is some of the worst stuff Snyder has ever done, but if you can get through it, the second act of The Last Photograph is quite compelling, especially for fans of his blockbuster work. The final leg stumbles again, however, with a payoff that falls flat and leaves you wondering what any of this was all for.
The Last Photograph is Snyder’s baby, and I’m sure he loves every single frame that he shot. There’s a good movie in here that’s maybe about an hour shorter, but nobody is going to convince him that’s what it needs. And you know what? I’m fine with that. Snyder should make the movie he wants to make in the way he wants to make it, but The Last Photograph is worse for it. And if I am part of the only audience who ever gets to see it, well, then so be it.
