Nassim Lyes – Movies of the Soul

Vampire Owl: I thought we were done with the vampire mercenaries.

Vampire Bat: Vampires haven’t been mercenaries for a very long time.

Vampire Owl: So the last mercenary is not the last vampire.

Vampire Bat: Well, humans are the best mercenaries as murder is easy for them.

Vampire Owl: At least we have kept them away from the realm for now.

Vampire Bat: They are still very close to getting here through the portal.

Vampire Owl: I thought that the portal was sealed by the selected team of witches, sorcerers and the new necromancers.

Vampire Bat: Yes, but with the human greed letting them achieve more at all times, you never know.
Vampire Owl: Should I inform Doctor Frankenstein then?

Vampire Bat: Well, never inform Mr Frankenstein who always makes things worse.

[Gets a marble cake and three cups of iced tea].

What is the movie about? :: Richard Brumere (Jean-Claude Van Damme), also known as The Mist is a former secret service agent presently working as a mercenary, one of the best of his category during his time – he is forced to return to France, as his son with an Arabic woman named Farah (Ouidad Elma), Archibald Al Mahmoud (Samir Decazza) is falsely accused of arms and drug trafficking. Meanwhile, people are also looking for him to come back so that they can finish the trouble which is him. After getting back to Paris, he meets Dalila (Assa Sylla) who has been a friend. He realizes that someone is using the immunity that Archibald received from Richard, and there are weapons involved. It seems that someone named Simyon Novak (Nassim Lyes) was involved, and he had used this particular immunity. The police is preparing for Richard to come and try to free his son, so that they can shoot and kill him in self-defence. But he takes the unexpected path, and with the help of his former friends in the secret service, manages to get his son out of prison.

So, what happens with the events here as we just keep looking? :: The man who was taking care of Archibald, Fernand (Michel Cremades) is also dead. Archibald who is not ready to take that death, and also not prepared to take another father, doesn’t want to heard about Richard at all. Alexandre Lazare (Alban Ivanov) at the ministry seems to have something about the present situation. Then there is Paul Lesueur (Eric Judor) who seems to have even more in mind. His plans seem to go deeper than ever. Their plan is to kidnap Alexandre and gather enough information. But Archibald, wanting only to be known as Archie is not really the co-operating type. He is the one irritating child resembling his more irritating mother, the one who refuses to grow up, and doesn’t even take responsibility for his own foolish actions. They are basically up against a nation named Taarghistan, and those who support them are former agents who are basically too old for most of the operations. Can Richard and his team fight against all odds and be successful? At least Dalila and her brother seems to be confident about that. Well, lack experience brings more confidence, doesn’t it?

The defence of The Last Mercenary :: The movie focuses on both action and comedy at the same time, and it does manage to hold the two sides together. The focus here seems to be in making an entertaining journey with the usual comic-like spy, but not in a serious manner. The movie does bring some innovation into the usual stuff too. The memorable moments of the film including the protagonists driving a learner’s school car and the fight with two unsuspecting women guards wearing gold. Then there is the last fight which is kept funny, without losing out on style. Most of the performers also seem to be nicely chosen. The visuals are really good, and you never really get tired of seeing Paris on the screen – the big city which is on everyone’s list of places to visit, and another one of those places, most of us might never visit due to the big amount of money that people in this part of the world will have to spend to get there and enjoy the glory. Along with the humour during most of the time, the action is also effective, and this is the combination that successfully brings the entertainment here.

The claws of flaw :: The movie does get slow at times, as there are lot of unnecessary moments – it could have surely done without a few minutes; we do have the feeling that it has been stretched to become longer without any real need for the same. There is the humour for sure, but there are those foolish scenes which are rather too dumb to take. It is okay to make use of that to add to the comic side, but there is the need for some borders to be set. Having the high official on the road like a clown feels very much ridiculous. The son spends rather too much time in being irritating too, and some of the other characters here feel rather unnecessary considering how the movie progresses. Some of the dialogues feel strange rather than anything else. Even when taking it as a parody, there is rather too much here to keep us away from being interested in some of these characters. It could have also had some more of serious action from the protagonist, because we are always looking for that, considering what a big name he has been in the past – some people might be watching the film just for him.

The performers of the soul :: We see Jean-Claude Van Damme back here again, and he is one actor who wish to see coming back like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger – one among the three big action stars from the childhood. After all, he has been the Cyborg, Kickboxer and the Universal Soldier from those nostalgic times of childhood. Well, one would feel that he hadn’t really left, but none of his movies made it to the big screen around here for a very long time, except for those in which he was side-lined. He has that classic entry here too, even though there is never that big an action sequence for him to perform, with the movie never getting that serious. Well, he is never really short of the moments, as we look around. The one performer who seems to be of fine support here is Assa Sylla. At the same time, Alban Ivanov brings the comic side to a stronger level. Samir Decazza just goes along as the irritating son, and manages well for most of the time. Eric Judor has the villainy at work quite well.

How it finishes :: The Last Mercenary, as an action comedy flick, feels like a parody. We enjoy the world that the French setting brings us, as we still ruminate and be sad about the fact that most of us might never visit Paris, considering the fact that we will never have that much money to spare, visiting from this part of the world. Well, being the rich bourgeois from here seems to be a long way away, unless you are part of any reserved category or somehow land on a government job – being the politician is the next refuge. The enjoyable ride here adds to the list of action movies that has enough of the humour and action to keep it moving strong. It has Van Damme in action, and this is more or less like seeing some nostalgia coming back again like we had seen past coming back again like in Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Escape Plan and Terminator: Genisys or Terminator: Dark Fate. Then there was The Expendables to have them all together. You are never that far away from the action stars you witnessed on the screen as a child.

Release date: 30th July 2021 (Netflix)
Running time: 110 minutes
Directed by: David Charhon
Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Alban Ivanov, Assa Sylla, Samir Decazza, Eric Judor, Ouidad Elma, Miou-Miou, Valerie Kaprisky, Michel Cremades, Nassim Lyes, Oleksiy Gorbunov