The Last Seven combines an apocalyptic fantasy thriller with a hint of a mystery film. William Blake wakes up on the street of a deserted London, with seven million people mysteriously vanishing. While he is scared, angry, and confused, he sets out to discover the truth. Over the course of his journey, he finds six survivors. Together, they are all attacked by a hoodie-wearing, bloody-faced Angel of Death, but as they try to survive, they realize they are all united by some mysterious event in their past.
The reality of London in 2070 is a best-case scenario for what could have happened. After suffering from ineffective governance, growing pollution, overpopulation, and unmanaged climate issues, London has made a drastic shift. Its current standing as one of the most developed countries in the world crippled down to just 7 million citizens. London is now staring down at an even bleaker future. After missing so many marks, the only option left is to figure out a way to deal with incredible debt and an even more irreversible climatic disaster.
I also think that whoever crafted that text has never actually spoken to anyone who had any connection to the film it mentions themes and actual events that never take place and propose an altogether different movie!
Disregarding the absurd and inelegant introduction, one can see what the film intends to accomplish in the first few establishing shots of a decaying London. There is an overt attempt to recapture the feel of 28 Days Later and indeed I Am Legend, and there is Lost in there too. And for a low-budget film, it makes sense, the shots of London look quite good and it painful becomes apparent that in one tiny fragment of a frame, they undo all of that work, where the budget was clearly spread too thin.
Up to that pivotal moment, the camera work and soundtrack provoke sympathy and empathy within the audience towards the severity of William’s challenging circumstance, making them feel the fear and frustration that accompanies his solitude. However, in the backdrop, we see someone rushing across the frame. In itself, this is not a major giveaway as it is oddly so inconsequential, which chooses to add it even more aggravating. The film should invest more effort in creating a feeling of isolation and should not play the pretend harlot, lifting up her skirt too fast, for that spoils any hint of the thriller/chiller that it desperately attempts to be.
Right when you might be thinking Danny Dyer would be the worst thing about the cast, Simon Philips exceeds himself to take the initial accolades. He does so first by reacting rather pathetically when told he has the possibility of being completely solitary to the point where he needlessly breaks a car in order to get someone’s attention (therein lies a nice little metaphor for Mr Dyer’s career) and then he does not manage to show failure any emotional range at all, beyond having a dress wet face, he does not to such an extreme that it is at all possible to tell whether he is even really capable of feeling anything. And empathy is certainly completely out of the question.
William, a character who Philips plays worse than himself, is certainly encased with general disdain from all sides. The segment wherein William’s character attempts to trace the source behind a ghostly voice is on a whole other level of bad. Even though everyone does their part poorly, Philips appears to do the worst after making a mockery of the whole situation by pirouetting on the spot and screaming over the lines that he could not hear. Phillips’s wonderous “dramatic” spin to exclaim his anger and bewilderment at being left by himself, plus some comical running accompanied with a bizarre facial tick that he adds to the mix, transforms his performance from disturbing to amusing, but for all the wrong reasons. If I understand the film correctly, he is intended to serve as the moral and emotional anchor of the entire film. However, like so many other directors these days, Imran Naqvi carries so many misdirections over aiming for some sort of audible gasp reminiscent of M Night Shyamalan’s works that by the time the audience receives enough information to process what they are forced to think, they’re left despising everyone too much to care.
So just when you think Phillips has no contenders, a new character is introduced. A businessman, named Henry, is wielding a whiskey decanter and who is more than a little drunk. He decides to take it further and starts pouring cognac to increase the stakes. Worst drunk one could ever imagine. Everyone else in the group seems to be a sorry group, but they act out almost as badly as Henry did. So poor behavior on Philips’ end, but not completely at his end. So there are some parts of hope that guide together and make the situation a little more bearable.
Chloe, astonishingly for someone stuck in the middle of the apocalypse, has a rather peculiar attitude problem and informs on-screen Jack (who is acted, rather sternly, by Tamer Hassan) of the “convenient’ discovery of William with the slightest hint of exasperation as if surviving is some sort of burden. Instead of being the problem of the actress, Head is and there are no two ways about it the single most talented performer on the program, and probably did it to mask what appears to be her attempts at absurdity, a small shred of apprehension that not everything is quite alright. But the ineptitude, or should I say the incompetence of the script, which fails to deliver an appropriate proposal to its actors is comical at best and tragically counterproductive at worst.
The featured character of the production is Tamer Hassan, who, to be honest, does not manage to strike a convincing cockney wide boy, military authority, or a football hooligan. For a man with such a savage screen demeanor, he does bloody mangle some horrible dialogue, that’s for sure. On the contrary, Dyer has been given a non-verbal role where he plays a bloodthirsty angel of death. Out for the Kill, in a shocking but somewhat refreshing development, utilizes his silent effect and plays a character that has some extremely violent traits, which works way better in silence.
Rewind is rooted in mystery and the reality of the survivors involved in the flashbacks which tend to get repetitive after a few segments. These constant remakes are annoying. The crux of the issue is that the aforementioned flashbacks that are posted are to allow you to have an understanding of what is really going on as in the haphazard style of storytelling this advanced technical narration has done. Gradually, the sequences shown hint at a more connected memory than what had been explained. These survivors have a pretty decent idea at heart but the way it is presented gets lost in an incomprehensible mess.
It is quite straightforward to suggest that neither the characters nor ourselves are looking for answers, but rather they are looking for an answer to the wrong question. Like in the movie “28 Days Later”, there are flashbacks that provide exposition to the story, but unlike in “28 Days Later”, this story uses a more complex psychological thriller approach. Unfortunately, as the movie progresses, it loses its initial intriguing premise, revealing dreadful pacing alongside a complete lack of attention to detail in almost every part of the film. There also seems to be an oversaturation of insincere genre material that is borderline comical. And, of course, the closing moments of the movie are not nearly as groundbreaking as the creators seem to think.
The long and short of it- The Last Seven is a decent premise bottled down by some of the poorest acting, scripting, and overall direction of the movie. The focus (and whoever did the editing needs immediate firing) towards the end gets lost. Its greatest asset merit is an understatement) has to be the fact that people will see it once they find out that Danny Dyer plays the fuckin’ Angel of Death. Shocking is one way of putting it I still haven’t been able to close my mouth out of disbelief.
This movie has taught me one valuable lesson and that is when a member of your rag-tag group of survivors reveals that they have a possession episode, blacks out, and wakes up in a supermarket, you are best off placing them in the Jam and Cereal aisle. Jam Aisle, not the pharmacy.
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