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Overall Rating : 3.5/10
Directed By : Russell Gannon
William Forsythe (The Devil's Rejects)
Grace Zabriskie (The Grudge)
Yancy Butler (Hard Target)
Leo Rossi (River's Edge)
Supplied By : MTI Home Video
Film Reviewed By : Rick L. Blalock
Date Reviewed : May. 24, 2007
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| PLOT The fate of a serial killer tried for fourteen brutal slayings has been thrown into the hands of the jury. The pressure builds as the foreman's differences with the other jurors reaches the point of direct confrontation - with devastating consequences. In this sealed room, only one thing is for certain: nothing - or no one - is what it seems! |
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| THE REVIEW THE LAST LETTER tells the story of 12, very different jurors. The jurors have been over-seeing the trial of one Mark Hamilton, a man accused of killing 14 people. We join them as it is now time for them to all decide on a verdict for the case - is the man guilty, or is he innocent for the crimes in question. It isn't long before each juror begins to realize that a decision that once seemed so easy, could never be so difficult. They take a vote, all but one Griffith, the group's leader believe he is guilty, which lead the other jurors to suspect something of him. Griffith them goes on to explain each of the 14 murders in detail just as they happened(this is when the viewer is then treated with flashback visuals of the crimes) The more and more facts presented to them, the more each member has second thoughts on their guilty or innocent standpoint. This leads to many arguments and tussles amongst the jurors, because the majority just want to go home. The serial Killer in question had a unique trademark, they would mark a letter on each victim after each murder in the victims own blood. After each story is told, Griffith retrieves each letter that was marked on the victim and writes them down. The letters at first may not hold any significance at all, but once they are unscrambled they prove to be the key ingredient to the shocking ending of this "story within a story" type thriller. This review DOES CONTAIN SPOILERS, so beware! When I first received THE LAST LETTER in the mail, I had no idea what it was about - but the art on the disc itself suggested this would be a Slasher film. Upon further reading about it, the plot made it seem like, not a Slasher, but a courtroom Thriller. I initially thought of films like the original TV mini-series HELTER SKELTER and how that spent nearly the entire three hour runtime, developing the trial that would happen at the end with details of the crime. I know what you're probably thinking, the film was 3 hours? Yes...3 hours, 15 minutes to be exact, but I have seen this version of HELTER SKELTER many times and it never bothers me, simply for the fact that the build up was great, up until the big trial that's ever greater, all of which was brilliantly acted. I can't say the same for THE LAST LETTER however. We join a jury as they deliberate on a case involving an alleged killer by the last name of Hamilton. The film is different, i'll give it that, many court films and TV shows come and go, but I have never seen an entire plot focus on one jury's deliberation. It's kind of like saying, what did the jury involved with the OJ case say and do in their discussions.(ok maybe not). The plot I just mentioned could've been extremely interesting, but the truth is, it's not in the case of THE LAST LETTER. The jurors, all diverse in race, personality, and even sexual orientation, I guess was meant to stand for more differentially, but what it ended up being was a jury that cannot be believed realistically. Since none of the opposing jurors were believable at anytime in the film, I had a hard time getting into the film, the stupid arguments they had,(one being about one of them being gay, and another over the said gay guy's nail file no less) and the rather boring performances of the actors, made me lose interest in story at hand. To be honest the film has absolutely almost nothing going for it until the very end of it's short 1 hour and 17 minute run time. In my opinion, this film's ending is brilliant, and one of the more clever endings i've seen in awhile. In the end, it is revealed that 10 of the 12 jurors are members of the Police force, while Griffith really being the medical examiner that investigated the case. The entire trail and everything was staged with actors, in order to bait the killer to come out of hiding taking a seat on the jury - this framing an innocent man for crimes that they, themselves committed, I will tell you, I did not expect this ending at all, but it's a good thing it did happen, because it brought this bland court flick up a notch. The reason for the ending's great impact was for the fact that the film was so boring that when you have just about given up on the almost dead film, the ending smacks you right up side the head. This is one of the rare occurrences where something negative works to create a big positive - it's a great thing, but for THE LAST LETTER, it's not exactly enough for it to score big with my interest... |
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| GORE
METER 1.5/10 The only gore shown is within the multiple flashbacks, basically just stab wounds.... pretty boring if you ask me |
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| MUSICAL
SCORE 2/10 The store also seemed to be a very generic suspense score, nothing that really added, nor took away from the film. |
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| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM To tell the truth, I didn't really enjoy THE LAST LETTER. There was no great buildup to the film's end, I felt it had nothing to work with. Also, when the filmmakers introduced the idea of the killer marking a letter on their victims, they probably thought this was a new and original thing - but as soon as Griffith started to write them down, I couldn't help but to think of every film and TV documentary I have seen involving The Zodiac Killer".....and all were better than this. I can't say I'd recommend THE LAST LETTER, but as always, people will see it anyway, it does in fact have a great ending, can't stress that enough, but it's no better than something you'd see on TV, like say, any of the LAW AND ORDER brand of shows. This DVD will be released on June 26, 2007. |
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