Last Will (2010)

Directed by: Brent Huff | 100 minutes | drama, thriller | Actors: Tatum O’Neal, Tom Berenger, Patrick Muldoon, Peter Coyote, Shawn Huff, William Shockley, Jeffery Dean, James Brolin, Moon Unit Zappa, Loy Edge, Alicia Cabrera, Karlee Cheesman, Brent Crawford, Jackson Bolt, Shawn Patrick Nash Albert J. Burnes, Pat Frey, Brian Paulette, Laurie Mazuer, Jeff Vaughn, Yve Rojas

Hayden Emery (Tatum O’Neal) has hooked up a good guy with hubby Frank Emery (Tom Berenger). He comes from a wealthy family, works as a surgeon and has a heart of gold. Unfortunately, his brothers Joseph (Patrick Muldoon) and Virgil (Jeffery Dean) are cut from different cloth. With their unsavory real estate company, they let poor neighborhoods deteriorate, only to be able to demolish them later and build expensive buildings. When Hayden urges Frank to stop these practices, he immediately takes action. In fact, he writes his brothers out of his will and makes his wife the sole beneficiary. Of course, that doesn’t go down well with Joseph and Virgil. When Frank has a stroke, the brothers take their chance to usurp the family fortune and discredit Hayden. When Frank dies some time later, they even make sure that she is charged with murder.

‘Last Will’ seems to be based on a true story. So was ‘Titanic’, but that doesn’t mean Leonardo DiCaprio’s bones are at the bottom of the Atlantic. Filmmakers always take the necessary artistic freedom and there is nothing wrong with that in itself, but in the case of ‘Last Will’ it was more than a little and probably a little too much. To inject drama into the life of the new wife Hayden, all registers are pulled out: corrupt judges, corrupt lawyers, corrupt coroners. No one can be trusted and danger lurks in every corner. Fortunately, in the end, the bad guys bring light to the darkness by explaining in detail to Hayden how their nefarious plan worked, just before Police Chief Sloan (James Brolin) comes to her rescue. What happened? We doubt it. Credible? Well no.

It should be clear that ‘Last Will’ does not exceed the level of the average Wednesday night movie. The actors run on routine and portray flat characters, which is a bit disappointing given the names on the cast list. Admittedly, a typical scenario like this doesn’t invite actors to fireworks. In ‘Last Will’ laziness seems to trump. Halfway through, for example, we are treated to an absurdly long flashback in which the first half of the film is redone, with an emphasis on the beautiful moments in the lives of Frank and Hayden. This way the viewer knows that it was true love between the two, and Hayden can skip her mourning period to focus entirely on clearing her name. Easy going was also the creator of the DVD cover. On it we see a dodgy looking Tom Berenger with a gun and the text ‘corruption and murder’. And that while Berenger really plays the good guy in this film.