Product: Last Days (2 Disc Special Edition)
Rating: 3.0
As An Artsy Film, It Was Just OK
After having watched this film, I was left with a sense that I wanted to like the film, but that I just couldn't. We know and are told this film is inspired by Kurt Cobain, and it is not a movie about his life. This review understands that. In just dealing with the lead character, Blake, who the entire movie revolves around, I felt I didn't have a sense of the gravity of pain he was dealing with. Gus Van Sant never gives us a glimpse of the depth to Blake's agony in dealing with his fame. Assuming someone would watch this film knowing little of the details of Cobain's life, that viewer would be left with bewilderment as to why in the world Blake stumbles around and mumbles to himself. I guess it is because of drugs, but there is not one shot of anyone actually doing drugs; there is only one very short scene where a guy offers Blake drugs (Blake just walks away from him).At the end of the film, you do not have a sense of what the main character is going through. It just looks as if he is crazy for no reason. And even with that, I was never sold to the fact that he was bonkers. We know the people around him are there only because of him, but again we never get a full sense of how the relationship between he and them really works. We see it, we know it, but we don't "feel" it. The funny thing is, if you watch the extras on the DVD about how they made the film, some of those shots are better shots than what you see in the actual movie. For instance, there is a scene where Blake hangs from a branch, upside down at one point, just climbing around on it freely. This does not appear in the film. It should have. It is scenes like this that could have added dimension to Blake, but all we ever see is a one-dimensional drone walking about aimlessly without thought; and yet we don't see what it is that has made him that way. Now the argument is that it is supposed to be up to interpretation, but it isn't effective here. The whole movie lives on the surface and it never breaks through to say anything.It could have been done in an artsy way and given us more than what this film does.With that said, I wasn't as bored as I thought I would be with this film. [2.5 out of 5 stars].