Last the Night is a confused movie that I think is meant to be catharsis… revenge… a GenX power fantasy where GenZ is taken down a peg. Or maybe it’s a revenge fantasy for teachers. Or maybe it’s an update of raging-at-modern-society Falling Down… if the only problem you have are those rotten teenagers and, like, their opinions, man.

The flick is set during the pandemic lock-down (50% of the readers just noped right by this review). Brian Austin Green (?!?!) plays a high school teacher barely hanging on as he conducts Zoom class with his distracted, cynical, and condescending students. When he overhears them mocking him and planning a paintball tournament, he cooks up one them there most dangerous games.

Who this movie is about is as about as confusing as what it’s about. In theory, the protagonist and hero is the GenX teacher… but he cray-cray, as those kids would say. But the teens – the traditional victims in a slasher film – aren’t the heroes either. They’re supposed to be annoying but they aren’t annoying enough. Only one is the typical teen you want to die in one of these flicks while the rest are good enough that maybe you should be siding with them?

And then the movie tries to suggest the crazy teacher was a misunderstood good guy all along. No, movie. Just no. You didn’t earn that pseudo-profound ending. This isn’t DFENS confusingly asking, “I’m the bad guy?” at the end of Falling Down.

But ignoring whatever this movie thinks its about, the fact is, it’s not very good at being about it. Fully half the movie is wasted before we actually get to the revenge. The pacing is sluggish, the drama mediocre, and the thriller/suspense elements uneven. Occasionally it will nail a suspense beat or two…. but those overwhelm moments that are supposed to be full of pathos or drama.

This movie is just a conceptual and film-making mess. It can’t decide what it wants to be, it can’t decide who it wants to be about, it can’t decide on a workable theme, and it can’t figure out how to revenge power fantasy right. I guess if you’re the person who shares memes about that darn younger generation being on their cell phones all the time (and then you shake your fist at the clouds), maybe there’s enough catharsis revenge on GenZ for ya. Or you could just watch Bodies Bodies Bodies.

Score: 62