Last Seen Alive Review

According to a quick Google search, meth use is "not a major threat" in New Hampshire. It is, of course, a terrible drug (and no, I didn't need to Google that), but I digress.

What does any of this have to do with Gerard Butler's latest action thriller "Last Seen Alive?" Well, there is of course illegal drugs involved, but I'm getting ahead of myself and off-topic. The film, which was unceremoniously dumped to streaming this weekend, is more of a New England remix on "Taken," but hey, what aging action hero hasn't had their own, ahem, "take" on Liam Neeson's surprising blockbuster?

Gerard stars as Will Spann, a dumb name if I've ever heard one, who's dropping his estranged wife Lisa (Jaimie Alexander) off at her parents house in the granite state. An innocent stop at a gas station along the way leads to her disappearance, though the trailers give more away then I'm at liberty to. So, what now?

The cops are of course involved, with detective Paterson (Russell Hornsby) working in parallel to our Scottish leading man. "Stay here," our man with a badge tells the panicked husband, but of course he doesn't listen. (If he did, then Gerald would be playing the lawman.) So we get chases, some gunplay, plenty of fists tossed around, a kidnapping or two, all the necessary ingredients for this type of movie.

So where does "Last Seen Alive" stand? It stands right in the middle, a perfectly serviceable popcorn-muncher that lacks its own hook to drive sales. Or maybe in today's climate, a film with a white guy holding a gun on the poster isn't in good taste?

In it's defense, the pacing is rather tight, with many scenes of our hero stalking a would-be bad guy, only for the music would suddenly stop. Now, anyone who's ever seen a movie will tell you, that means something's going to "startle" him or the audience, but not here. There are so many false climaxes that it left me on slight edge.

Still, it is fascinating to see the police shown as competent in this sort of flick, though they're still left picking up the pieces of the wreckage left behind by Mr. Spann. There's glimmers of a more interesting motion picture in the script by Marc Frydman, with deputies and her family initially suspecting the missing woman's spouse. I mean it's not interesting per se, but who did what is almost immediately revealed, so any chance at a plot twist is instantly thrown out the window (that's about a $62 fine in "Live Free or Die" land).

The "why" for any of this happening is not said until much later, but so what? It's a ridiculous reason that boils down to the local drug-lord, his idiot lackies, money, and miscommunication; it's the screenwriting equivalent of saying "what's a thriller movie but two episodes of crime-TV?"

Is that a spoiler? Does it matter? Look, "Last Seen Alive" has Gerard Butler beating up meth-heads with blunt objects, bullets and clenched hands, and on that promise and that promise alone, it delivers the goods. So I ask again, does it matter?