Critical Recommendation: The Last Stop in Yuma County

I get that this film digs down really deeply into its Coen Brothers and Tarantino inspirations and that maybe it's not as ambitious as some would have liked it to be. I get that maybe it was too simple from a writing standpoint for the tastes of many viewers and reviewers alike. But what I cannot get over is that my very first initial thought after I finished Francis Gallupi's 2023 neo-western "The Last Stop in Yuma County" was this:

Did I just watch a technically perfect movie?

To call this film well-written would be an egregious understatement. I was consistently amazed at its ability to sustain its own momentum throughout, and while of course there were a lot of other good things to say about the film, the pristine and breakneck pace at which The Last Stop in Yuma County moves has to be by far the best thing about it, and believe me, there are a lot of good things to say about this film. I want to dedicate this article to shouting those good things from the rooftops. Oh, and I also want to say that I have started another semester of college, so for the three of you who read my reviews (thank you, by the way), I'm not sure how much I'm going to be able to publish them anymore, because as crazy as it sounds, I have a life outside of the movie theater, and I have to be working on my schoolwork as well. I hope you don't miss me too much, and I promise that I will write whenever I get the opportunity. Now, let's get into the review for this film. And by the way, you may want to avoid the trailer for The Last Stop in Yuma County. I decided to give the movie a watch because I noted that if the trailer was an accurate representation of the film's pacing (it was), then I was in for a real treat. However, it reveals more of the film than a lot of people will be comfortable with, so consider this a warning before you forge ahead to the Y and O keys on your computer.

To throw out the relatively spoiler-free synopsis, The Last Stop in Yuma County follows a traveling knife salesman as well as a waitress named Charlotte as the two find themselves in the midst of a tense hostage situation created by a couple of desperate bank robbers at a diner.

First, I want to bring you, the reader, back to the fact that the writing in this film is the tightest I've seen in a long, long time. By centering everything in the plot around the diner and what happens there, this film keeps itself from ever spiraling off into meaningless subplots and meandering tangents. The Last Stop in Yuma County builds a sense of tension and apprehension very effectively by constructing what I think is one of the tightest, most effective stories I've ever seen in a film. There's not a single meandering subplot to be found here, and I can't say there's a single meandering scene either, because this film always seems to be working towards its climax, and when I say working towards its climax, I mean hurtling towards it at a terrifyingly breakneck but also meticulously careful pace. This film doesn't waste any time, and for as much as I love big, epic historical and quasi-historical dramas like The Irishman and Apocalypse Now, I'm not going to lie to you and say that films like this aren't self-indulgent, because they are, and extremely so, although I would argue that they deserve to be. This isn't the case with The Last Stop in Yuma County, which is just so tightly and perfectly written that it's a little hard for me to describe what this film accomplished without sounding like I'm embellishing. The film takes much-needed time to establish its characters and why we should care about them, and then just throws them headlong into a pretty crazy and yet endlessly calculated situation that you really have to see to believe. The memory of this film is just incredible, and not a single aspect goes wasted. Every single "narrative gun" that is introduced eventually gets fired (nothing introduced gets wasted in normal people's talk), and this movie is, in a lot of ways, a textbook example of the idea of setup and payoff. On a more fundamental level, the tension that The Last Stop in Yuma County procures is just breathtaking, and I constantly found myself questioning how exactly this situation would end, because this film plays its cards close to the chest and doesn't reveal its hand until the time is just right. It's never a predictable watch, and yet it never sacrifices narrative integrity in the name of being unpredictable, and this was just simply remarkable to witness.

Pushing this plot along at a brisk and incredibly tense pace is a wacky and really fun assortment of characters that are all distinct from each other and wonderfully colorful. I found myself really, really pulling for Charlotte, the waitress at the diner, as the plot started to kick into high gear and the characters suddenly found themselves in mortal danger. Beau and Travis are appropriately menacing and very distinct from not only each other but also from everyone else in the plot. Miles and Sybil bring a lot of much-appreciated Bonnie-and-Clyde energy to the mix, and the police officer duo of Charlie and Gavin is just wonderful. But the Traveling Knife Salesman (yes, that's his name) is just something else. This is his movie, and I thought it was just so interesting to watch him go from being someone who's largely at the mercy of the other characters involved to becoming someone who's in control, for better or worse. Watching this movie was like watching Fargo, Fallout, and a homicidal Elvis Presley walk into a restaurant, and it was really something to behold.

Lastly, what I really, really love about this movie is its immaculate sense of style. The Last Stop in Yuma County doesn't forget that it's supposed to look good, and I appreciated the obvious sweat put into this movie by the production department because it just looks absolutely wonderful, mixing wacky 1970s scenery with a stylistic and yet grounded desert backdrop that's somewhere in-between No Country For Old Men and Asteroid City. Watching this movie was like watching an oddly violent Elvis song come to life, and I found myself extremely satisfied with the technical aspects of the film, even if they are playing second fiddle to the plot and the characterization, so much so that I thought I should devote a whole section to it at the end of this review. Because even if the real hero of this film is its tight and possibly perfect plot, the film is also a visual treat, and I'd be a bum not to talk about the visuals when they're this impressive.

I went into this film expecting to be preoccupied for an hour and a half and walked away from it knowing that I had witnessed something truly great. The film only had a 70-something-percent on Rotten Tomatoes when I watched it, and I was pleased to recently see that the score had reached the mid-to-high 90s as of late and that I wasn't just crazy, although that would also be true. I knew I had to recommend this movie after I finished it, and I will need to tag the end of this article with a request that you avoid any and all spoilers because I think this is just one of those films you have to go into blind. I'm also going to tag this film with a content warning for infrequent but strong violence and a pretty decent amount of strong language, although it's nothing you won't find in a mid-range R-rated film, so it might be redundant for me to nickel-and-dime it in this category. By the time the film had come to a close, it had easily cemented its spot among my favorites of the year and reminded me that even though I love a good epic from time to time, tight writing is my first love, and rightfully so. I can't recommend this film highly enough, and I hope that you will give it a chance because I love sharing my movie experiences with others, and when I find a film I truly love, then it's just that much more special. Don't let the 6.9/10 on IMDb put you off. I've rarely found myself disagreeing with an audience score more, and if exercises in practically perfect pacing or immaculate visual style are your thing, then The Last Stop in Yuma County is for you. That or if you want to buy knives for your kitchenware arsenal, which you very well may by the end of the film.

The Last Stop in Yuma County - 10/10

John 10:10