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Amazon.co.uk Review
The setting is Peckham, South London. Jack, a butcher, has recently died of cancer, leaving instructions that his ashes should be scattered off Margate Pier. Three of his oldest friends and drinking companions, Ray, Lenny and Vic, plus Jack's son Vince, meet at their local pub to carry out his wishes. Jack's widow, Amy, doesn't join them; she has an errand of her own to attend to. During the day's drive to the sea, memories and associations crowd in on each of them, reflections on love and fate and death in richly layered profusion.
Schepisi has assembled a cast of British cinema's most seasoned professionals: Michael Caine, Tom Courtenay, Bob Hoskins, David Hemmings, Helen Mirren and Ray Winstone. The location settings--South London and Kent--exude authenticity, with Brian Tufano's widescreen photography adding dignity. For Schepisi this is a personal project, and he's clearly in love with his material. Just occasionally the film skirts sentimentality, but it's pulled back from the edge by its humour, honesty and commitment to wry, downbeat realism.
On the DVD Last Orders arrives on DVD in a clean anamorphic 16:9 transfer with Dolby 5.1 sound. There's a good range of extras: interviews and filmographies for all six principals plus the director; a "making of" featurette (everyone genuinely seems to be having a great time); written production notes; and not just the theatrical trailer, but a "trailer evolution video" showing alternative versions, plus ditto for the film's publicity poster. --Philip Kemp
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Four geezers and a box.",
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This review is from: Last Orders [2002] [DVD] (DVD)
Three friends who have known Jack Dodds, a butcher, for almost fifty years, along with Jack's son Vince, meet at their local South London pub carrying a box containing Jack's ashes. Jack (Michael Caine) has died of heart failure, leaving a last request--that his ashes be cast off the Margate pier, several hours to the south of London. Ray (Bob Hoskins), a gambler; Vic (Tom Courtenay), an undertaker; Lenny (David Hemmings), a former prizefighter and heavy drinker; and Vince (Ray Winstone), Jack's son, a car dealer, set off for Margate in a Mercedes Benz that Vince has borrowed to honor the occasion. As the men drive south, they reminisce about Jack, joke around, sing songs, irritate each other, and even threaten each other in the emotion of the moment. Director Fred Schepesi, who adapted the screenplay from the Booker Prize-winning novel by Graham Swift, alternates present scenes from the car with contrasting or ironic scenes from Jack's life in the past, contrasting the deadness of the present trip to Margate with the liveliness of the past, showing the relationships among the various characters. Jack's wife Amy (Helen Mirren) has chosen not to come with them for the "ceremony." She is making her weekly visit to their mentally handicapped daughter June, now fifty, whom Jack has never accepted. The nature of each man's relationship with Jack, with spouses and children, and with each other during World War II and after are all presented in flashback--from Vince's affair with Lenny's daughter, to Ray's relationship with Amy, and Jack's last minute bet with Ray to pay off a debt. As the men's relationships evolve onscreen, the viewer recognizes that these are the kinds of relationships that ordinary men spend their lives developing. The viewer comes to know not only Jack, but also the four men in the car heading south to scatter his ashes, and on a larger, universal scale, other men who have shared long friendships, jokes, and common experiences . It is a tribute to the cinematography (Brian Trufano) that I didn't really notice it until the film was over--so apropos to the action and thematic development that it never called attention to itself. The original music (Paul Grabowsky) sets the scene at the beginning of the film but does not intrude on the character development or the interior action thoughout the film. The sensational cast in this wonderful ensemble drama, the sensitive directing, the fully developed themes, and the overwhelming feeling that these characters and situations are real make this one of the best films I've seen in ages.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Perfect casting and a script that fizzes,
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This review is from: Last Orders [2001] [DVD] (DVD)
Schepisi has directed a magical bitter-sweet drama, helped by a cast reading like a who's who of British Londoner character actors: Courtenay, Hemmings, Caine, Hoskins, Mirren, Winstone and co turn in spellbinding performances in telling the story of their intermingled lives over the passage of time via the occasion of a journey to scatter the ashes of Jack (Caine), the town butcher and husband to Mirren, from Margate pier.
Not only that, but the cast playing their younger selves are first rate too and actually LOOK like the people they are supposed to be (especially JJ Feild, who looks the spitting image of a young Caine, and Kelly Reilly who bursts with sexual energy as Mirren's predecessor; the young Hemmings is played by the actor's son Nolan.) Based on Graham Swift's novel, the film looks distinctly dreary in concept if you read the label, but the dialogue fizzes throughout and the result is both moving and charming without ever becoming stilted or melodramatic. Unusually, the flashbacks add value by gently filling in gaps without imposing their own will on the narrative structure. The plot is not hugely demanding, dealing with familiy crises and couplings, Jack's debts, his disabled daughter and adopted son. But with a cast of this quality, the result is riveting. Go see!
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Last Orders should be one of the first on your list.,
By
This review is from: Last Orders [2001] [DVD] (DVD)
Insightful film depicting attitudes to life and death in the working class SE Londoner.
Will make you laugh and make you cry with it's humour and realism.Some unexpected and not so unexpected twists and turns in the story. What it lacks in the story line is compensated by its authenticity. Great casting!
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