The Last Thing He Wanted
Director: Dee Rees
Writers: Marco Villalobos (screenplay by), Dee Rees (screenplay by)
Stars: Anne Hathaway, Ben Affleck, Rosie Perez
Synopsis: A journalist stops her coverage of the 1984 U.S. Presidential election to take care of her dying father. Soon she learns that his father is an arm dealer for Central America and he asks her to finish some of his deals. While she is playing the role of his father in the deals, her profession as a journalist tends her to dig more and gather evidences about scandals she discover.
Ann Hathaway a journalist named Elena McMahon is always wondering about trusting Treat Morrison as an American government official (Ben Affleck) or the operative named Jones (Edi Gathegi) who keeps showing up wherever she goes.
Rees tries to make things clear for Elena by saying: “Of course it’s the thing that we’re still doing, like other countries where we’re still having an occupying presence. It’s the same thing.
He obviously tries to resonate his words with some of Trump’s slogans when he says: “Nothing’s new. Like bring America back again and make America great again. That’s nothing new. This country continues to behave in paternalistic, interfering ways.
Rees, the director, tries so hard to make the environment real and to use it to make Elena’s presence in the arms deal believable. But more information he adds to the movie, more confusion he creates in the story.
The multiplicity of the scenes and small stories and secrets can’t help the movie to be an attractive political scandal movie, but it hurts the integrity of the main story.
Hathaway’s performance also can’t save the movie because it is not focused on Elena and her challenges to be safe or to be a brave righteous journalist.
Ben Affleck’s as a CIA official Treat Morrison is also much lower than what audience expects. He can’t present a mysterious knowledgeable intelligence officer. Instead he looks more like an intellectual who is trying to explain the situation.
The Last Thing He Wanted is one of the most boring movies made about corrupt politics in US and its role in selling weapons to oppositions, drug dealers and militias in other countries. Even using famous actors couldn’t save the movie from its crippled plot that pretends to be mysterious but telling an old story about the destructive role of US in Central America.
