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The Last Stand DVD Review

by Kam Williams

Flashback Flick Focuses on Fate of Five Struggling Standup Comics

What is life like for a struggling, African-American stand-up comic who's trying to make the jump from the Chitlin' Circuit to the big time? That's the theme of this bittersweet dramedy, written and directed by Russ Parr, himself a former comedian who has gone on to host his own nationally-syndicated radio show.

His sobering flashback flick opens at the scene of a suicide, before backing up a year to follow events unfolding in the fledgling careers of a quintet of aspiring young entertainers. The implication is that the victim was one of these five joke-telling protagonists, thus, the audience is primed to guess which one had bottomed out to the point of taking his or her own life.

Each of the dysfunctional losers had ample reason to be depressed, starting with Dede Calvin (Tami Roman), who we learn was molested as a child by her mother's boyfriend. Bo Clark (Todd Williams) is unhappily married, because his wife, Cheryl (Samantha Brown), wants him to take a full-time job with benefits at Fed Ex. This makes sense, at least to her, since they have a two year-old son to raise, but Bo isn't ready to abandon his dream of stardom.

Reggie Sinclair (Guy Torry) has just been kicked out of the house by his father who wants his freeloading son to follow in his footsteps in the real estate business. Then there's Jay (Anthony Anderson), a jaded wannabe who has turned to drug dealing to make ends meet. Finally, there's TD (Darrin Dewitt Henson), a recently paroled ex-con on the down low.

The movie is effective in creating a sharp contrast between the flip, happy-go-lucky personas we see on stage and their desperate alter-egos who frequently find themselves tempted to compromise their values to survive and to make it in showbiz. Will Dede succumb to a sleazy agent's pressure to join him on the casting couch? How will TD handle a colleague's homophobic reaction to discovering his roommate's gay?

It's too bad that a film which tackles timely themes in a sophisticated fashion would simultaneously trade so freely in profanity, misogyny, intolerance and ethnic slurs on stage. Who wants to feel empathy for the personal plight of an anguished soul who could use cruel lines like, "Your mother's so black, they use her bath water to dye bowling balls."

Perhaps such offensive language accurately reflects the sorry state of observational ghetto humor you might find on BET. Still, to the extent that you can ignore the jokes in The Last Stand, you'll likely appreciate the rest of Parr's otherwise well-crafted, multi-layered mystery.

Good (2 stars)
Unrated
Running time: 100 minutes
Studio: Warner Home Video
DVD Extras: "The Making of" featurette.

judythpiazza@newsblaze.com