THE LAST STOP IN YUMA COUNTY (2023) - Movie Review

Director: Francis Galluppi
Starring: Jim Cummings, Faizon Love, Jocelin Donahue, Michael Abbott Jr., Nicholas Logan, Richard Brake, Barbara Crampton, Gene Jones
Genre: Crime, Thriller
Writer: Francis Galluppi
Runtime: 90 min
Rated: Rated R for violence and language
Buy This Movie: Blu-ray (Amazon), Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV

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Synopsis:

THE LAST STOP IN YUMA COUNTY Blu-ray - While awaiting the next fuel truck at a middle-of-nowhere Arizona rest stop, a traveling young knife salesman is thrust into a high-stakes hostage situation by the arrival of two similarly stranded bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained, ill-begotten fortune.

Review:

"The Last Stop in Yuma County" is a breath of fresh air in a cinematic landscape polluted by tired big budget franchises, remakes and sequels. The film echoes the best of 1970s gritty cinema, particularly the movies of Sam Peckinpah, as well Tarantino and the Coen brothers' darkly humorous works. But writer/director Francis Galluppi doesn't just cite references, he makes this project his own in what is one of the most impressive feature directorial debuts I have ever seen.

The set up is simple, even deceptively so, throwing a collection of colorful and interesting characters in the close-quarter situation of a hostage thriller, but Galluppi's neo-noir western has tons of surprises up its sleeve. To sum it up, what makes this movie so impressive is the imaginative use of a great ensemble of character actors, limited locations and classic tropes.

The filmmaker keeps ratcheting up the tension through methodical pacing and a concise, well-structured narrative filled with mounting twists, until its explosively violent payoff. There is humor here, of the dark kind, but it's very clever, and never overpowers the suspense. It's also something of a morality play, but I can't get deeper into that without spoiling the plot.

A surprisingly gripping experience from beginning to end, "The Last Stop in Yuma County" is a movie you shouldn't miss. Stop throwing your hard-earned bucks at big budget trash, and instead support brilliant indie films like this so that Hollywood may finally understand that you don't need to throw $200 million on bad CGI to make a good movie.

SCORE: 8/10