Dreyfuss is a former mobster resorting to violence in a film whose delightful score can’t save it from being a hot mess
The best thing about this crime melodrama is the score, credited to composers Shane Endsley, Ben Wendel and Nate Wood (all part of a jazz group called Kneebody); it is a weird, lilting horn-led underlay to the action, full of keening melodies with an urban, smoky nightclub vibe. It’s a delight – but seems to have almost no relation to the action we see on screen. You might almost imagine that the group’s work just happened to be what was playing in the editing suite when the film was being cut together and a quick deal was done to add class to what is a deeply indifferent, muddled drama.
Written and directed, somewhat ineptly if we are being honest, by Adam Lipsius, The Last Job tells the story of a retired mobster named Ben (Richard Dreyfuss) who now looks after his wife Nan (Megan McFarland) who has dementia, and runs a bar he owns with help from soft-hearted majordomo Tommy (Pruitt Taylor Vince). When someone breaks into Ben’s home one day and steals a considerable stash of cash from his safe, upsetting poor Nan in the process, Ben goes on a violent rampage to hunt down the perpetrators. Meanwhile, his daughter Nick (Mira Sorvino), a police detective who has bafflingly been seconded to take care of security for a congressman (DW Moffett) seeking re-election, has her own problems, including a sister dying of cancer who will leave behind young sons with unspecified special needs.