The Last Thing He Wanted (2020)
At the turning point of the Iran-Contra affair, Elena McMahon, a fearless investigative journalist covering the 1984 US presidential campaign, puts herself in danger when she abandons her assigned task in order to fulfill the last wish of her ailing father, a mysterious man whose past activities she barely knows.
- Alexandra Burgos
- Alex Scricco
- Michelle Malley Campos
- Dee Rees
- Frances Stafford
- Alejandro Berríos
- Joan Didion
- Dee Rees
- Marco Villalobos
Rating: 4.9/10 by 503 users
Alternative Title:
คำสั่งตาย - TH
マクマホン・ファイル：2020 - JP
Country:
United Kingdom
United States of America
Language:
English
Français
Español
Runtime: 01 hour 56 minutes
Budget: $0
Revenue: $0
Plot Keyword: based on novel or book, sandinism, el salvador, co-workers relationship, woman director, investigative journalism, costa rica, 1980s, political thriller, weapons trafficking, iran–contra affair, father daughter relationship
This has to be the worst example yet of the Netflix gazillions buying a cast that looks great on paper, but that delivers badly on screen. It isn't necessarily their fault - the writing is as incoherent as it is facile and the direction is all over the shop. There are simultaneous threads to the story (journalist Anne Hathaway "Elena" ends up in Central America getting drawn into a story of US government/agency duplicity and espionage that she was meant to be there to report on, basically) that simply don't tie up - we have no context into which we can immerse ourselves! Ben Affleck can't need the cash this badly and though Toby Jones did make me smile; I'm not sure he was meant to. It's a decent enough book, so what happened with this poor adaptation to screenplay is anyone's guess, but please can we have more emphasis on the quality of the story and dialogue to make the A-list cast worth their money next time?
