The Last Stand

A Mexican drug kingpin breaks out of American federal custody, steals a thousand-horsepower Corvette (he's also a race-car driver), and makes a run for the border, where sheriff Arnold Schwarzenegger and ragtag deputies await. It'd be fun to report some frisson from the ex-Governator's return to starring roles, but given this disorderly throwback to the days when creaky action thrillers were at once nostalgic for family-values Westerns and indifferent to human life, the honest response is: meh. Although not without aging-hero-deprecation humor of the sort Clint Eastwood has made tedious, The Last Stand also misses opportunities on that front—no one seemed to notice or admit how much Ahnold's hand shakes when hoisting a .44 Magnum. As to how he's assimilated his stint in “pollydigs,” consider this one-liner: “You make us immigrants look bad.” Otherwise, director Jee-woon Kim and multiple writers get by on bloody gunfights and a climactic cornfield car chase. Co-stars include Eduardo Noriega, Peter Stormare, Forest Whitaker, Harry Dean Stanton, Luis Guzmán, Jaimie Alexander and Johnny Knoxville.