The Last Run

The box art boasts that “You have never seen The Wonder Years’ Fred Savage like this before”. Right. And will you please all bow your heads and join me in prayer that we never see him like this again. Forget for the moment that I just can’t get the character of Kevin Arnold out of my head any time I see Savage, but watching him turn into some sex crazy maniac is like catching your sister on the toilet. The image is there forever burned into your corneas like some visage of Hell to torment you for the remainder of your natural life.

The story is a simple, or should I say simple minded one. Kevin, I mean Savage’s film character Steven Goodson gets unceremoniously dumped by his hot girlfriend. When he can’t get her out of his mind, he turns to his morally challenged friend Jack (Pasquale) who himself is about to marry a rich girl only for the money. Jack’s advice is to go on a “run”, meaning to sleep with as many girls as he can to help forget about his girlfriend. Kevin, I mean Steven, reluctantly takes the advice and before long is obsessed with sex. He goes broke buying strippers and hookers and loses his job when he can’t stop using his computer at work to view porn. The hook here appears to be that Kevin, that’s Steven, meets an old school crush and falls for her but still can’t give up the sex. While he finally admits to having a problem, the film ends offering us very little in the idea that he will change his deviant ways.

The film starts out with promise, and while I’m no fan of the romantic comedy, it seems that’s where this film is headed. Mindless, maybe, but relatively harmless all the same. Instead The Last Run degenerates into nothing more than soft porn as we are subjected to scene after scene of Kevin, you know who I mean, taking on one sleazy hooker after another. The Last Run is no family film. I suspect the only audience it really has is the soft porn industry.

Video

The Last Run is presented in its original 1.78:1 aspect ratio. There’s nothing really wrong with the picture quality. Colors are fair. Much of the film takes place in low lighting, so black levels are pretty crucial here. They hold up pretty well, offering us more detail than we likely really want. Grain intrudes a bit here, but it’s never enough to spoil the picture. The images themselves do a good enough job of that on their own. There are no compression artifact or print defects that I could see. Of course, my eyesight isn’t what it was before I first put this baby on.

Audio

The Dolby Digital 5.1 track is for the most part completely unnecessary. The film is dialog (if you call all that moaning dialog) heavy, and there is rarely anything happening beyond the front speakers. There’s no sub response to speak of either. This has that typical television quality to it.

Special Features

Blissfully nothing.

Final Thoughts

I really can’t imagine anyone thinking this is a watchable film. There’s not enough graphic sex to appeal to the porn crowd and certainly too much for anyone else. If you enjoy Savage and/or The Wonder Years, you really need to avoid this film completely. It will taint your memories and future enjoyment. In fact, if you are actually thinking of buying this DVD, “you need therapy”.