The Last of the Finest Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

The Last of the Finest Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson July 17, 2017

Please note that this review includes several spoilers.

Precious few commercial films or documentaries have dealt either overtly or implicitly with the Iran-Contra Affair during the Reagan era or since. (One anticipates the planned Amazon mini-series about the trials of Oliver North starring Colin Farrell and directed by Yorgos Lanthimos.) David Kasper and Barbara Trent's doc Cover Up: Behind the Iran Contra Affair (1988) is a terrific examination of the various covert operations undertaken by members of the Reagan Administration but it's not widely seen or recognized. Scottish director John Mackenzie's (The Long Good Friday) The Last of the Finest, while never explicitly mentioning Nicaragua or the diversion of funds, takes the Iran-Contra scandal and uses it as a plot device in a police procedural about four undercover LAPD antinarcotics officers who try to stymie a multi-million dollar drug smuggling operation.

Following the main titles of the Los Angeles skylight, Mackenzie presents a succession of close-ups of the squad members: Wayne Gross (Joe Pantoliano), a tech savvy expert in electronics, Ricky Rodriguez (Jeff Fahey, playing a Latino), who has a natural way of charming the ladies, Howard 'Hojo' Jones (Bill Paxton), a ruggedly handsome all-American, and Frank Daly (Brian Dennehy), the burly leader of the unit. The quartet of LAPD men are participating in a camaraderie-building flag-football game on a hot day. (Mackenzie later uses the gridiron to connect an individual involved with the drug enterprise who is on the DEA team and poses as an active agent.) Daly receives a tip from informant Fast Eddie (Xander Berkeley) to go to the Alamo Meat Packing Company warehouse where drug czar Anthony Reece (Michael C. Gwynne) is supposedly overseeing a major drug-running transaction. When Daly fails to receive any backup from the Drug Enforcement Administration, he and his men infiltrate the warehouse where a major gun battle ensues. While his own operation suffers some casualties, Reece and his accomplices ignite the $18 million in cash, thus destroying any evidence Daly may have. Captain Joe Torres (Henry Darrow), Daly's longtime friend on the force, is dismayed that the detective went into the warehouse without a warrant or authorization from the higher-ups. Although Daly and his three comrades are suspended, they use Fast Eddie again to arrange a meeting between Reece and Haley (Pamela Gidley), a hooker who ferrets information out of him. Something goes awry at the hotel where Fast Eddie and Haley are staying at and when one of Daley's guys chases Stant (Henry Stolow), the assassin Reece hires, a fatal thing happens to him. At an Internal Affairs hearing into the meat-packing sting operation, Commnader Orsni (Burke Byrnes) interrogates Daly, who has had enough and resigns. The other undercover officers follow suit and quit but that doesn't stop them from conducting their own investigation. They trail Reece, who leads them to the annual dinner of the Central American Relief Fund. Businessman R. J. Norringer delivers a speech in support of the so-called freedom fighters in Central and South America. They manage to capture videotaped footage of a roof-top conversation between Reece and Norringer. After the aid of a lip-reader who is a retired cop, the antinarcotics squad drives to a dock area where inside is a plant containing heavy amounts of drugs and military supplies. After being spotted, the former LAPD detectives get in a lorry unbeknownst to them containing $22.5 million in untraceable bills. Before deciding what to do with all of it, they hide it in a cesspool at a local children's playground.

A quartet of LAPD's finest spies on bad guy Anthony Reece.

As film historian Nathaniel Thompson and filmmaker Steve Mitchell explain on this disc's audio commentary, Orion Pictures put little money into advertising The Last of the Finest. The studio probably had nebulous expectations for an ensemble police thriller with no big-name stars and decided against giving a press screening in advance. According to Mike Pearson of the Rocky Mountain News, Mackenzie's movie "tested poorly with preview audiences." On its opening day (March 9), the picture screened at the Art Greenwich theater in New York for critics. Variety reported that four reviewers deemed it "unfavorable" while another was in the "ambivalent" camp (there were zero favorable reviews for critics present at the screening). The main review that appeared in Variety prognosticated: "Commercial prospects are bleak for this oddball Orion message picture." Jeff Millar of the Houston Chronicle asked a lamentable question: "What on God's green Earth did Orion Pictures think would attract visitors to this enterprise?" Data mined from Box Office Mojo delineates that The Last of the Finest played in a total of 424 theaters nationwide and recouped just $1.5 million at the box office. Of the twenty-five critical reviews that I examined, a majority were negative and mixed (at best). However, the film did receive some praise. Lloyd Sachs, stepping in at the Chicago Sun-Times for Roger Ebert (who must have been off), stated that the film had an exceptional quality for showing Los Angeles undercover cops sniffing out a drugs-for-contra-arms conspiracy and executing it "with a hard-peddled liberal viewpoint." [It's] a commercial film that makes this kind of angry political statement is rare - and welcome." In a mixed review, Eleanor Ringel of the Atlanta Journal Constitution called it "Iran-contra with a cocaine twist." The Los Angeles Times's Kevin Thomas was more admiring and appreciative: "a terrific cop-action picture, imaginative and entertaining, that could have benefited from opening-day reviews."

The Last of the Finest receives uniformly solid performances from the four leads mainly because they give each of their characters distinctive personality traits and we get to know them pretty well. Because of the limited budget, the action scenes are rather pedestrian and while I wasn't hoping for bigger explosions, the film could have used a genre specialist to orchestrate the fights and chase scenes. More importantly, the film could have provided more insights into the US goverment's secret dealings and sharpened the sociopolitical message. But perhaps Orion wanted the film's three scribes to hold back. As critic Peter Stack of the San Francisco Chronicle astutely observed: "It's rather touchy, pointed material - you get the idea that this movie didn't get a lot of marketing and promotion because maybe it hits too close to home."

The Last of the Finest Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Last of the Finest makes its global debut on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber on this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-25. Video streams carry an average bitrate of 23942 kbps for the main feature and a total bitrate of 27.21 Mbps for the entire disc. Mackenzie's American debut was only available on a DVD-r as part of MGM's "Limited Edition Collection." The MOD contained an anamorphic widescreen presentation in 1.85:1 on a single-layered disc. Kino's transfer preserves the film's original theatrical aspect ratio and looks fairly clean throughout. During the first reel and early on, there are some white blips and damage marks that occasionally scar the frame. Daytime exteriors look appropriately bright but there is visible DNR applied when the camera cuts to graphic matches of the four LAPD officers. Look at Screenshot #s 16-19 to see the grain removed on the actors' shiny faces. Kino does bring out the grain in the form of white dots during Daly's Internal Affairs hearing (check out #8). Black levels are pretty solid and deep of the LA noir scene (as Mitchell and Thompson refer to it). Blacks look good in interiors too (e.g., #9). In her review of the film, Janet Maslin of the New York Times pointed out that "'The Last of the Finest' does have a crisp, clear look. The mountaintop aerie of the story's villainous drug-dealing industrialist is one of numerous well-shot, well-chosen settings." Kino's image transfer generally buttresses her observation.

Kino has only provided eight chapter stops.

The Last of the Finest Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Kino Lorber renders the film's original sound track as a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo (1557 kbps, 16-bit). (The DVD also only has a stereo option.) Dialogue is consistently audible and understandable. Composer Jack Nitzsche's score is comprised of synthesized flutes and guitars, the latter performed by former Rolling Stones member Mick Taylor. For some sound effects, there is some separation along the front speakers. There aren't any noticeable flaws in the master that Kino has licensed from MGM.

Most unfortunately, Kino doesn't supply any English subtitles.

The Last of the Finest Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary by Steve Mitchell, Producer-Director of KING COHEN, and Film Historian Nathaniel Thompson - Thompson moderates this running chat and is most effective when he has unknown trivia to share with the viewer or reads excerpts from Orion's press kit for the film. Mitchell sounds like he was recorded in the background and seems to be talking into a speaker phone. He covers a variety of topics and shares several opinions about his recollections of first seeing The Last of the Finest and how it holds up today. Thompson utters way too many plaintive "Yeahs" and "Ahas" but never asks Mitchell to elaborate on a point or explain why he agrees with him. In English, not subtitled.

• The Last of the Finest Trailer (2:09, 1080p) - a restored original theatrical trailer presented in 1.85:1 16x9 widescreen.

• Kino Lorber Trailers - other trailers for Kino catalog titles F/X (2:36, 1080p, 1.33:1), F/X 2 (1:52, 1080p, 1.85:1), Freeway (1:36, 1080p, 1.85:1), and No Man's Land (1:43, 1080p, 1.85:1).

The Last of the Finest Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Last of the Finest is a standard police thriller but it plays better on home video than it first did theatrically in March 1990. Kino Lorber has apparently sourced the best available master from MGM and the video quality is very good for the most part. It would have been ideal to get living cast and/or crew members to do an audio commentary but the Mitchell/Thompson track has its moments and is overall a worthwhile listen. A MODERATE RECOMMENDATION, especially to the fan bases of Dennehy and Paxton.