Director Olivier Megaton
Starring Edgar Ramírez, Michael Pitt & Anna Brewster
Rated MA
Score 3/6

In the not-too-distant future, as a final response to terrorism and crime, the U.S. government plans to broadcast a signal making it impossible for anyone to knowingly commit unlawful acts.

For those of you who might be interested The Last Days of American Crime was based on the Radical Publishing graphic novel created by Rick Remender and Greg Tocchini. Also, it should be noted that its release coincided with the George Floyd protests and it was not very well received given how violent portrayal of the police and how authoritarian the government were in the movie I understand where some of the reviewers were coming from.

The concept of The Last Days of American Crime is what attracted me to the movie on Netflix. I really wasn’t overly familiar with anybody cast in this and I wasn’t familiar with Olivier Megaton by name but after looking at his filmography I quickly realised that I had come across his work in the past (those of you who might be wondering some of Mr. Megaton’s directorial efforts include Taken 2, Taken 3 and Transporter 3). Given who Megaton has worked with, the movies he has directed and the simple fact that this is a heist movie, WHY did this have to have such a snail’s pace? Considering that this was released on Netflix it would have been understandable if this was released in two parts. I suppose you could call this a slow burn of a movie though it might seem something of a marathon slog, with a runtime of two and a half hours.
I loved Michael Pitt’s performance it was the first time I have seen him act in years. Perhaps, his performance might come across as being over the top, but it was what was needed to make the movie watchable. A little more of that energy from other cast members would have made this less of a slog. I was a little surprised to see that Sharlto Copley was cast in this, but I loved the scenes he had with Anna Brewster towards the end of the movie.