Customer Reviews

Last Orders [VHS]

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Prime British actors, Michael Caine, Helen Mirren, and Bob Hoskins, give us utterly believable characters in this intricate story about the mourners of Jack Dodds, a butcher from Bermondsey, London.

Jacks last orders come as a surprise to his family and friends, but nevertheless they respect his request and do him proud. The lifelong drinking partners of Jack set out from their local pub to the seaside resort of Margate to carry out his final wishes  that his ashes be scattered from the end of the pier.

The friends, an ex-boxer, a car salesman, an undertaker, and a betting man, take his ashes on a day trip to Margate to do the honors, using a showroom Mercedes to send Jack off in style. Along the way, they stop off at places significant in Jacks history and their own heritage, plus a few pubs, and reflect on their relationships with Jack and his family, and on their own decisions in life.

Meanwhile, back in London, his wife dwells with her own compromises and choices as she visits their severely disabled daughter, a girl Jack never could accept.

Last Orders is a poignant and mostly gentle story of the people who have surrounded Jack Dodds during his adult life. The film is laced with flashbacks to earlier times and the long-ago causes of how their lives are inextricably tied together now. The complexity of these interwoven lives highlights the humor, tolerance, and interdependence necessary for successful life long bonds of family and friends.

This movie deals with universal human questions regarding life, death, personal faults and strengths, and what it all means, all wrapped up in a package of superb acting and a wholly satisfying story.

Upon reaching a certain age, especially when a proper catalyst is provided, one may become wont to consider and reflect upon the life one has lived-- to take stock, as it were. And, without question, the death of a long-time, close friend or associate can effect such a catalysis, which is precisely what happens in "Last Orders," directed by Fred Schepisi, a drama that suggests that perhaps the end of a life can offer a valuable and renewed perspective to those who go on to write yet another chapter of their own in this great book we fondly know as the Human Comedy. Finally, it's about individual resolve and beginnings that can be found in endings, and the life therein reserved for those who may yet count themselves among the living.

Jack (Michael Caine), a working class butcher in London, planned one day to retire with his lovely wife, Amy (Helen Mirren), to the seaside hamlet of Margate. As often happens in life, however, Jack was denied the realization of his dream by the unbidden intervention of Fate, in the form of it's eternal emissary, The Grim Reaper. But Jack enters his everlasting sleep even as he lived his life, one step ahead of the other guy; and the attainment of his final wish begins with the consigning of his ashes to his three closest, life-long friends and his son, Vince (Ray Winstone), along with a request he adjures them as a group to honor. And so it is that Vince, Vic (Tom Courtenay), Lenny (David Hemmings), and Jack's best friend, Ray (Bob Hoskins), set out on a journey to effect the "Last orders" of their good friend, Jack; a journey that will take them into the future by way of the past, as they reflect upon what has gone before, and the possibilities that now lay ahead.

With this film, Schepisi has crafted and delivered what is essentially a moment in time; a moment he examines through a sentimental journey rife with all of the hard knocks and stoic truths that made up Jack's life, and which he presents just as Jack lived it. And a sentimental journey though it may be, don't expect to be seeing it through rose colored glasses. As the story unfolds, what emerges is a portrait of a complex individual made up of the myriad and many facets of the human condition. And each flashback, combined with an episode from the present, reveals another piece of the puzzle that was Jack; and by the end, the picture we have of him is complete. We see him for who and what he really was, good, bad or indifferent, with all the flaws and foibles that were part and parcel of the ebb and flow of his life-- everything that defined him as a human being. Also, inasmuch as the story is told through the eyes of his friends and loved ones, it necessarily follows that they are revealed, as well, especially Amy and Ray. We do get to know Vince, Vic and Lenny, of course, but to something of a lesser degree. In the final analysis, then, what Schepisi has created here is nothing less than an intimate and incisive character study through which Jack, his friends and their story comes vividly to life. Schepisi does the material proud, but then he was, of course, afforded the talents of an extraordinarily gifted ensemble cast, from which he extracts a number of memorable performances.

As Lawrence Jamieson in 1988's "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," he was the most suave and sophisticated gentleman (albeit con man) the screen has seen since Niven or Grant, but without question, since his portrayal of "Alfie," in 1966, Michael Caine has been everyones favorite cockney, and no one-- make that NO one-- does it better. And it's precisely that nuance of character that Caine brings to his portrayal of Jack that makes him so alive and convincing. Caine can be ingratiating even when he's playing a "hard" guy, and there is a decidedly hard side to Jack; but there's a very caring side to Jack, too, which Caine also manages to convey with facility, and he does a splendid job of fusing the many sides of his character into one very real whole. It's the kind of top notch performance we've come to expect from Caine, and it makes his character and the film entirely credible.

When it comes to playing cockney, Caine may be the King, but Bob Hoskins is certainly the Crown Prince, coming in a close second. These two, in fact, would clean up if the Oscars ever decided to include the categories of Best Cockney and Best Supporting Cockney. There are times, perhaps, when you have to turn an ear in to understand what they're saying, but it's part of the charm and viability of their respective portrayals. And Hoskins has an appeal all his own, and though he lacks Caine's charisma, he does have a definite screen presence, all of which helps to make the relationship between Ray and Jack believable.

The wonderful Helen Mirren, meanwhile, turns in a remarkably poignant performance as Amy. Her portrayal readily brings the inner conflicts and complexities of her character to the fore, as Mirren successfully shows us the many sides of this woman, who is wife, lover and mother, all rolled into one. Most importantly, her Amy is so human; there is an earthiness to her, but it is tempered by her more maternal and caring instincts, and it lends an honesty and integrity to the character that makes her very real.

Courtenay, Hemmings and Winstone turn in noteworthy performances, too, each making the utmost of the screen time they are afforded, successfully establishing their characters and the nature of their relationship with Jack as well as one another. It's all a part of what makes "Last Orders" such entertaining and engaging cinema, a film that is both sincere and unforgettable. And that's the magic of the movies.

Three friends who have known Jack Dodds, a butcher, for almost fifty years, along with Jack's son Vince, meet at their local South London pub carrying a box containing Jack's ashes. Jack (Michael Caine) has died of heart failure, leaving a last request--that his ashes be cast off the Margate pier, several hours to the south of London. Ray (Bob Hoskins), a gambler; Vic (Tom Courtenay), an undertaker; Lenny (David Hemmings), a former prizefighter and heavy drinker; and Vince (Ray Winstone), Jack's son, a car dealer, set off for Margate in a Mercedes Benz that Vince has borrowed to honor the occasion.

As the men drive south, they reminisce about Jack, joke around, sing songs, irritate each other, and even threaten each other in the emotion of the moment. Director Fred Schepesi, who adapted the screenplay from the Booker Prize-winning novel by Graham Swift, alternates present scenes from the car with ironic scenes from Jack's life in the past, contrasting the deadness of the present trip to Margate with the liveliness of the past, showing the relationships among the various characters. Jack's wife Amy (Helen Mirren) has chosen not to come with them for the "ceremony." She is making her weekly visit to their mentally handicapped daughter June, now fifty, whom Jack has never accepted.

The nature of each man's relationship with Jack, with spouses and children, and with each other during World War II and after are all presented in flashback--from Vince's affair with Lenny's daughter, to Ray's relationship with Amy, and Jack's last minute bet with Ray to pay off a debt. As the men's relationships evolve onscreen, the viewer recognizes that these are the kinds of relationships that ordinary men spend their lives developing. The viewer comes to know not only Jack, but also the four men in the car heading south to scatter his ashes, and on a larger, universal scale, other men who have shared long friendships, jokes, and common experiences .

It is a tribute to the cinematography (Brian Trufano) that I didn't really notice it until the film was over--so apropos to the action and thematic development that it never called attention to itself. The original music (Paul Grabowsky) sets the scene at the beginning of the film but does not intrude on the character development or the interior action thoughout the film. The sensational cast in this wonderful ensemble drama, the sensitive directing, the fully developed themes, and the overwhelming feeling that these characters and situations are real make this one of the best films I've seen in ages. Mary Whipple

"Last Orders" is an astonishingly beautiful poem of images on time, change and inevitable loss;it is also a meditation on death and the question of what if any meaning or overarching purpose may be snatched from lives uninformed by any particular philosophical or theological depth.
To tell the story of a collection of South London chums on an eccentric "pilgrimage" to the seaside resort of Margate where they intend to scatter into the sea according to an idiosyncratic last request the ashes of a recently deceased fellow, Fred Schepisi has brought together a number of Britain's most talented current actors, among others Michael Caine, Helen Mirren and Bob Hoskins. All of them wonderfully enough have faces now ravaged by time and inevitable decay. Through flashback, the director shows us young actors as their earlier counterparts, beautiful to a person, even flowerlike. These very images are used to convey the age-old theme of life's brevity and the sadness of fleeting beauty.

Britain as well is in part the star of this film. The locations such as the quasi-Victorian-looking streets,the decayed seaside piers, and the still grand interior of Canterbury Cathedral suggest that the characters are walking through the remains of a once more weighty, structured and purposive civilization. In contrast, their lives resemble those of lightweight if affecting flies of a summer. Unlike Chaucer's rascally pilgrims whom they are in some ways like, these modern characters have no living relationship to Thomas a Becket, just as that saint, though his shrine appears, is not the reason for their visit to Canterbury Cathedral. They're on their way to the bustling middle-class resort of Margate to honor a special request. Surely, the director, like Jim Jarmusch in "Mystery Train," intends us to see the meaningful allusive power of this Canterbury comparison, with its revelation of a certain "lightness" at the core of modern being. The film suggests that meaning in life for its characters, if there is any, is to be sought in whatever comforts may be found in love and friendship.

The movies central characters are a bunch of bar buddies that have spent their adult lives in and around one another. When one of them dies, the life of the party; Michael Caine, his last orders are for his ashes to be poured in the Ocean off a local seaside resort pier. This requires the bunch of them (his 3 bar buddies and his son) to drive about a day away to complete this last task for their friend.

The dialogue is very well done, but I'm sorry to say for me, very hard to understand. As an American, the dialogue was fast and with too many British figures of speak to pick up quick. I'm sure I missed 25% of the movie. Given that, what I did catch was marvelous.

As with any group of people that spent their lives together, they are intertwined with tensions and there is a history behind each one. The movie flashes back to bits of recollection and gives some history for the tensions involved. I thought this was very well done. It gave you the true feeling that many have when a person passes away: He was just sitting here yesterday! This is really brought home with the flashbacks.

Michael Caine is the central character and the man that has passed away. His character and his past is well portrayed as well as that of his friends. You get a sense of what pulls them together as well as what repels them about one another. It is not a bigger than life story, but one you can easily imagine yourself being part of.

Here you see how some men grieve; silently, quietly and most often alone. You can also see as we all do, when another dies, we all start to take stock as well.

This is not a horribly sad movie, as the remembering is not done in a maudlin way. These men remember their friend, the fun they had together, the animosities each have felt at time, then like with most of us, life goes on.

Do you ever wonder how your death will affect spouse, children, and, especially, lifelong friends in the short term? This is a question explored by LAST ORDERS, which in common usage means the final drink requests before the closing of an English pub.

Set in London and southeast England, the film opens with undertaker Vic (Tom Courtney) bringing the ashes of his good friend Jack (Michael Caine) to the local watering hole for a last pint with Jack's other lifelong friends, Ray (Bob Hoskins) and Lenny (David Hemmings), along with Vince (Ray Winstone), the son of Jack and Amy (Helen Mirren). Since Jack had expressed the wish to have his ashes scattered into the English Channel at the seaside city of Margate, the four men pile into a luxury Mercedes selected by Vince from his auto dealership as appropriate to the occasion, and set off for the coast. Amy has declined to come along. Rather, she spends the day visiting June (Laura Morelli), Jack and Amy's [handicapped] daughter, who's spent fifty years in an institution. June is so severely handicapped that she's never once recognized Amy as her mother, though the latter has visited once each week over the decades - alone.

The film's Cockney English dialog is difficult to fully understand until one's ear becomes attuned. For me, this was about a third into the movie. Since much of the speaking during this time occurs over a pint, or in the Benz headed to Margate, there's not much action to give clues as to what's being discussed. (My wife gave up and left me to hang tough.) Indeed, if it wasn't for the flashbacks generated by the memories and conversations among Jack's survivors - some extending back to World War II and before - the film would be a tad dreary.

The stellar cast of LAST ORDERS does a commendable job, along with the actors portraying the characters' younger selves, illustrating several truths surrounding death of advanced age: the old were young (or at least younger) once and full of life and passions; relationships of long standing are often not what they appear on the surface and can conceal deep currents; the lives of the survivors must necessarily go on. For these reasons, I liked this film in the balance, although the ordinariness of the plot is determined from the start by the middle class ordinariness of all the characters. I mean, the lives of Jack, Ray, Lenny, Vic and Amy are perhaps not far removed from the lives of most of that generation - perhaps yours, or that of the elderly folks next door. LAST ORDERS is nowhere near being a great film, but perhaps is a representation of real life that's worth viewing on a contemplative, rainy day afternoon.

Could anything be more delightful than realizing at the end of a film that you actually enjoyed it immensely when you were working SOOO hard to understand what was happening? Yes, the accents are difficult. Yes, the editing will make you think you've lost your mind. Just go with it, invest the time, then let it wash over you. Sterling performances by everyone, believable characters, a mystery you already know the answer to (or DO you?), emotional highs and lows...there's everything but a car chase (but a wonderful travelogue of SE England compensates) and if you've ever been to Britain (and why else are you watching this film anyway?) you'll appreciate the four- seasons-in-one-day climate, the traffic, the gloom, and the hope and glory. It's got blood and guts (Michael Caine is, after all, a butcher), patrimony games, infidelity, fidelity, great messages, and a few scenes that, although brief, mean you can't bring the kiddies (and, yippee, nobody else can, either!). Altogether a great cinematic experience in the tradition of close British drama. Not bad music either. Skip the food unless you're fond of pub food. Enjoy.

LAST ORDERS is the story of one man's life as told through the lives and stories of those who knew him best. The cast in this film is absolutely terrific and the cinematography is gorgeous. The lighting alone makes LAST ORDERS pleasing to look at. Had I judged LAST ORDERS by the first hour, however, I would have been sadly disappointed. The film takes quite a long time to get going, but once it does, it becomes something rather touching and memorable.

The plotline is one that will be familiar to most audiences. Four gentlemen are brought together to carry out their friend's (Michael Caine) dying wish: to have his ashes scattered off the Margate Pier into the ocean. The first hour of the film is a bit disorienting, as the audience has not a clue who these characters are. But little by little, we begin to piece together the seemingly dead and anaesthetized present by examining the rich and vibrant past (aided by drastic color and lighting changes). Inevitably, these old friends begin taking side trips, delaying their task more and more. The time provides them not only a moment to reflect on their lost friend, but also on their lives, lives that have gone by so quickly with much left unsaid. In fact, one of their detours is to visit Canterbury, rendering the end of the film into a bit of a pilgrimage of its own.

As LAST ORDER continues on into its second hour, the emotional impact of the film heightens and several of the scenes are rather heart-wrenching. This is not the story of a perfect man gone before his time. It is the story about an ordinary man and those who loved him, their faults, their desires, and their collective journey along a small road in life. I highly recommend it for a rainy, Sunday afternoon.

What a beautiful film, with a marvelous ensemble cast. Michael Caine (as "Jack") is brilliant and in a class by himself; and his love of acting is evident in each role he plays, always superbly. And the addition of Helen Mirren (as his wife "Amy") brings together two of the world's finest actors, and worldwide treasures. Bob Hoskins is always terrific, as is David Hemmings, and of course Ray Winstone (as Jack and Amy's son, "Vince"). It is so nice to see Tom Courtenay (first acclaimed in "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" and "Doctor Zhivago"), as well as the lovely Kelly Reilly (as young Amy).

For those who love British films at their best, in contrast to crass American special-effects movies, this is well worth viewing. The four men set out on a journey to honor Jack's final wishes; and it is moving in ways that are soft and tender, and beautiful. Amy adds that special touch, both in her youth and the winter of her life. Ah, to be a fly on the wall watching these great talents bring their magic to the silver screen--after waiting two and a half years for the money to make the film.

"Last Orders" is also about a father and son, who pretend that they do not need each other, but who need and love one another very much, which is true of most fathers and their daughters too. Also, right at the height of something--as director Fred Schepisi reminds us in the "Special Features" that are included on the disk--something goes wrong. Or as John Lennon reminded us in prophetic words from his last album: "[L]ife is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

What more can I say, this film was thoroughly enjoyable. All the character portrayals are incredibly real. A great collection of actors doing what they do best.

There are no special effects here, just a fabulous heart-felt story.

Is it worth purchasing? Yes. Each time you watch it, you will laugh and you will cry.

Enjoy.