everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Did you people see the same film I saw?

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The Last Shot is a charming and inventive comedy starring Alec Baldwin and Matthew Broderick. Baldwin plays an FBI agent that has gone undercover as a Hollywood producer in order to take down the mob. Matthew Broderick is the unknowing writer/director hired by Baldwin to make the movie. Things quickly get out of hand and the movie goes from a cover story to a multi-picture deal backed by the FBI. Baldwin loses himself in his cover and begins to work in earnest with Broderick to make the film actually happen.The humor is clever and the film pokes fun at Hollywood and the movie industry in general. Joan Cusack has a wonderful part as an overstressed Hollywood producer that the FBI calls in for advice on how to make a film that they don't actually intend to make. The movie becomes ever more funny as Baldwin desperately tries to get the film made while still catching the mobsters he was after in the first place. The desire to make the film is so infectious that even the mob ends up wanting a piece of the action. The Last Shot is very light and funny but there is just a hint of sadness to it. In all it is a quality comedy and I recommend it.

Wednesday, September 29, 2004message to Roy Disney for whatever its worth There were several unsafe, against union protocol and contract practices that occurred in the many weeks that I was shooting the film, as one of a handful of extras who were labeled in the script and storyboards as Stevens friends (Matthew Broderick played the role of Steven). Among these practices was the biggest flub of all: The pivotal Helicopter Scene where myself and about 5 others were directed by the Stunt Coordinator to stand under the hovering helicopter that was 10 ft above the ground (if a 6 man jumped up, he could've touched it, see the movie, it shows all) which is in every way a STUNT CONTRACT ROLE. Myself and the others participated about 3 times and then refused, unless given a contract. As there was no SAG rep on the set, we had no one to vouch for us, and the production grew livid at our request and literally started ripping our wardrobe off of us and placing it on other stunt people. This was indication enough as to how integral we were to the shot, and how we were getting a stunt contract stolen from right under us. We got the exact shots that we participated in, as well as the exact cameras that took those shots, as well as the storyboards showing US while the helicopter flew and hovered over our heads and presented it to our REP at the Screen Actors Guild, who in turn was going to present it as a claim on behalf of the 5 of us to Disney. A year went by and 4 of us (all except one) were sent a check of $20 for our troubles. Here is the aftermath of how Disney has made us feel:Written by myself on 9/28/04SOO.. has everyone seen the film yet? I had a chance on Sunday. I must say Disney is all about the profanity, nudity, gangster violence and cheap shots at typical shoddy-haven't we- heard-all-this-before-the-Player-etc "Hollywood biz" humor... ah, when Disney can stoop this low, well, there's your answer to family values, downward spiraling morals of society as a whole and well, a bleak bleak future of quality entertainment.Or am I giving them too much credit?regarding that helicopter scene... What exactly did OUR SAG "REP" say?!? There was no evidence of us being in that shot; and After reviewing the dailies all he saw were people scattering before the chopper came in; and that he could do nothing about it; as well as there was so much debris he couldn't make out anything. This is correct, right, or am I leaving anything out?(Even though when we chose to stop participating, they ripped our jackets and hats off of us and put them on stunt people who WERE UNDER CONTRACT DOING EXACTLY WHAT WE HAD JUST BEEN DOING in the shots that we had specifically named, down to which camera and everything! This alone is evidence that you don't need to weed through crushed walnut shells to uncover. )Well, if you go with THAT line of thinking, than there isn't any evidence that ANYONE was in the shot. I guess all those people were just figments of our imagination, and hell... did the entire shoot happen at all? Or maybe I simply died the night our shuttle bus was breaking every driving rule in the book, including crossing a double yellow line, driving on the wrong side of the road, and zooming way past the speed limit down a very steep hill in Antelope Valley in the wee dark hours of the morning, just to try and get us back to our cars in the nick of time so they wouldn't HAVE to pay us Golden Time... and everything since has ALL BEEN A DREAM. Ah! A dream is a wish your heart makes, to quote from the Disney cricket... and I must have wished this...I also must have wished to see myself speaking on the big screen one day. Who knew the wish would come true while chumming it up with Matty Broderick? It must be a dream, as don't exactly remember speaking nor a boom over my head, and when did that other guy have that huge run-on sentence monologue in the same scene? We must've both been dreaming... how weird! Too bad my dream didn't include a contract for my on-camera speaking role...---After talking with our SAG "rep"He told me after reviewing the dailies all he saw were people scattering before the chopper came in, but he says there was so much debris he "couldn't make out anything".I ask him why would they put Stunt people with us and sandwiched us in. He says "I Don't Know"I said didn't you ask them that, he Says "NO", he says he had to plead with Disney for the $20.00 I ask about the SAG lawyers taking on the case. He says "it's out of their jurisdiction" The only way to get anything is to get an outside lawyer to go after Disney and then SAG for not providing the service and protection we pay them for.They know we probably will not do this so they will make there back handed deals with these production companies.------------------------- Dear Roy, I'm sure your father never intended for his name to be used in this manner.

Back in the 1980s a real FBI agent convinced his bosses to set up a sting operation around a fake movie production. It had to look real, and seem real, so for that reason all involved thought a movie really was being made. This movie, "Last Shot", is loosely based on those real events in the 1980s. The DVD has an interesting extra, where the real agent from the 1980s meets up with and talks with the guys he set up to do the movie, and it is cool to see them reminiscing about it.Matthew Broderick plays Steven Schats with his patented comic style, very appropriate for this role. He works at a movie theater but, like most in Hollywood, has a movie script that he knows would be a big success. Alec Baldwin plays Joe Devine, the FBI agent who thinks up the idea for the sting, and who roams Hollywood for a suitable script and director. That he picks Schats and his script are total surprises to Schats.There are lots of funny characters, like Toni Collette who plays a wanna be famous actress, Tony Shalhoub who plays the mob guy they are after, Calista Flockhart who is Schats' girlfriend and aspires to be an actress, Tim Blake Nelson who is Schats' brother and co-writer of the script, and Ray Liotta who is the brother of Joe Divine.The actual story is fairly thin, but almost stranger than fiction. Most of the fun is the series of comic moments. Moderately interesting.

THE LAST SHOT is best viewed with a bit of info to let the patient viewer understand what is coming. The opening titles are clever, dealing with movie paraphernalia that serve as matrices for the stars and production staff names and should give a sense of what is to come. But it isn't until the first 20 or so minutes into the film that the significance of the movie can be appreciated.Based on an apparently true news article, THE LAST SHOT takes a pot shot at not only Hollywood, but also organized crime, production magnates, the FBI, and little people with big dreams lost in the elusive utopia of fame.The plot is well outlined on these pages. Suffice it to say that the FBI sends Joe Devine (Alec Baldwin) to Hollywood to pose as a producer to lure the underground crime lord Tommy Sanz (Tony Shalhoub) to surface and be caught. Devine needs a script as he discovers from the gross Fanny Nash (Joan Cusack at her hilarious best) and gradually encounters Steven Schats (Matthew Broderick) who with his pathetic brother Marshall Paris (Tim Blake Nelson) has written an unmarketable, non-salable script called 'Arizona'. Devine grabs on to the project, making Schats the director (his dream come true) and casts the film with has-been actress with box office draw Emily French (Toni Collette who looks terrific and adds yet another priceless cameo to her brilliant repertoire) and Valerie Weston (Calista Flockhart) who just happens to be Schats' squeeze.The process of film-making and the infectious delirium of Hollywood affects everyone in this film - even the FBI and especially Devine who softens into a man who wants to provide the 'littleman' Schats with his dream. The humor is broad, WAY over the top, crude, and slapstick and in so many ways this movie mimics all of the intangible oddities that make Hollywood what it is. The performances by Baldwin, Broderick, Cusack, Flockhart - and, well, all of the inserted cameos - are excellent. Once you get the premise of this film it moves from being inane to being a really terrific parody with some sensitive metaphors. Grady Harp