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| Photo credit: Last Seen In Idaho/IMDb |
This
is the type of movie that scares studios away from financing projects written
and directed by actors. Both director Eric Colley and screenwriter Hallie
Shepherd are actors by trade, and they both star in this picture, with Shepherd
taking the lead role. There’s honor in breaking out of your lane to prove the
doubters wrong, but first you need the chops to succeed—and based on this film,
neither Colley nor Shepherd do. Shepherd’s script, about her amnesiac auto
repair shop receptionist character becoming entangled in the criminal
underworld of Tacoma, Washington, while experiencing supernatural visions of
possible futures, is a confused mess of half-baked genre mashup and character
relationships that exist solely because the plot says they have to. Like its
assassin character’s smoking habit, the movie plods along emotionlessly,
warming the audience’s lungs with cheap malevolence.
Colley’s
direction muddies the film far more than the efficient-if-boring script. Every
image takes on the washed out flatness of a CBS crime procedural. But it’s
duller and full of the oppressive blue hues and overly foggy whites you get on
the worst episodes of Cold Case. There are clearly fake “on location”
scenes shot in front of blurry green screens, including a rooftop conversation
that would be right at home on the cutting room floor of The Room. You’d
be shocked to see that there’s a production designer credited (Peter Spawn)
because every set looks like a model home. Every wall is painted beige or gray
and there are no picture frames or posters hanging anywhere. You begin to
believe that these characters have no interests. They live in a vacuum, slaves
to a story nobody needs to hear.
These
characters go about their lives like aliens visiting from another planet,
unable to fully embody humanity. They all have TV cheerleader or jock names
like Summer (Shepherd), Brock (the assassin played by Starship Troopers veteran
Casper Van Dien), Franco (Wes Ramsey), and Lance (Shawn Christian), and not a
single performance works. The villains posture unconvincingly, grumbling cheap
tough-guy lines with all the conviction of a high school play’s least engaged
cast member. The heroes are heroes because we spend the most screen time with
them. Behind their bored eyes, you can see the wheels spinning as if to say,
“Is it my turn to speak yet?” And when it is their turn to speak, they
deliver lines in a passionless drone or a “menacing” growl out of proportion to
the emotion of the scene. It’s like everyone in the cast is out to prove the
“all acting is reacting” saying wrong—they fail, in case that wasn’t clear.
It
doesn’t have to be this way. There is a nugget of a good idea at the center of Last
Seen In Idaho. Summer is injured in a car accident when she flees the
Tacoma mafia—which is apparently a thing—after she witnesses a grisly murder.
Her memory of the incident is gone thanks to a hell of a bump on the head, but
the bad guys keep tabs on her to ensure that she can’t implicate them. There’s
a lot of tension baked into that premise, but layer upon layer of crap is
heaped upon it, like Summer’s amnesia-triggered psychic visions. There’s
nothing wrong with the supernatural element on its face, but it’s a “get out of
jail free” card for the protagonist and the script. Summer’s powers only happen
at times when she’s written into a corner and she needs a magical escape.
Summer sees her own death multiple times but is able to rewrite her fate by
making different decisions when given a second chance. Despite Summer telling
another character that her visions are “warnings,” they’re really just a way
for the movie to levy violence against its primary characters without having to
deal with the consequences of such storytelling decisions.
In
doing that, Last Seen In Idaho becomes, essentially, Just Kidding:
The Movie. This character died—just kidding! The big bad is
revealed—just kidding! Actually, this guy is the big bad—just kidding!
We’re building to something more than two hours of empty cinematic
calories—just kidding!
Director:
Eric Colley
Writer:
Hallie Shepherd
Starring:
Hallie Shepherd, Casper Van Dien, Wes Ramsey, Shawn Christian
Available
April 24 on VOD
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