Last Rites

Plot synopsis:
Father Michael is a New York priest with close ties to the Mafia crime syndicate — his father is a don. The priest's brother-in-law Gino, a mafia boss, is murdered while having sex with Angela, a mistress. She narrowly escapes by hiding in a bathroom and locking the door.
Pursued by hitmen, the mistress comes to the priest for confession. She is afraid to go to the police so Father Mike agrees to meet her at her choice of location. A cab driver transports him to a loft apartment, telling him a sorrowful tale of how Angela has helped him and his wife with the grief over losing a young son. Father Mike confronts her about knowing his relationship to Gino. She denies knowing the connection. When the two encounter the hitmen, the priest is wounded and one of the hitmen recognizes Father Mike.
Angela hides in his church. She tells him it was Gino's wife who shot him. Gino is buried, and Father Mike glares across the casket at his sister Zena, having seen her with the hitmen when he was shot. He speaks to his father, who says he expects to lose at his racketeering trial and be sent to prison. The Don tells the priest that his sister wants to run the business, but he has said no since she's a woman. As they leave the cemetery, the hitman tells the Don and Zena that he recognized Michael.
Zena comes to confession and tells Father Mike that she knows of him helping the girl. The priest begins to fall in love with Angela. He meets best friend Nuzo, a detective and godson of his father. Nuzo tells him not to trust her. He tells Mike that Gino gave evidence to a rival crime syndicate, which sealed the Don's fate, in return for 5 million dollars. Nuzo tells him to sit tight while he makes an arrest, but Nuzo is gunned down, dying in Mike's arms.
Father Mike and Angela flee to Mexico, heading for her village. For the first time the priest violates his vows and they have sex. In the morning she is gone. Meanwhile, the Don finds out they are in Mexico and sends Zena to kill the girl. Father Mike races to catch up to Angela, thwarting another hitman along the way. He arrives in the village in time for a festival.
Angela is a fraud who set Gino up and took the money. She is also married to the "cabbie" she sent to pick him up. Now she instructs her husband to kill him. He stops at the festival and Michael spots him. He witnesses the cabbie drive away in the rental car Angela took.
Michael goes to the hotel and finds a surprised Angela. He lies that he loves her and they have sex again. She awakens to see Michael sitting in a chair, staring at her. He stands, walks to the door and leaves her, saying "via con Dios" as he goes. She is stunned to see Zena step through the door. Zena shoots her as Michael continues down the steps past the body of the "cabbie." He gets into a limo and waits for Zena. She sits next to him and says "thank you, brother." He takes her hand and kisses it as they drive away.

Tags: violence

Review:
Awfully Bad. In Los Angeles, a meteor bringing some sort of disease falls on a group of homeless and turns them into flesh eater zombies.
Gangs of the Dead (2006) * 1/2 (out of 4) Also known as LAST RITES, this film was re-titled and thrown on DVD and is yet another stab at the NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD line with some ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 thrown in for good measure.
A group of homeless people are standing around when a meteor crashes on them and turns them into flesh eating zombies.
There's some nice stuff here but in the end I couldn't help but be bored by this because we've seen the zombie side of things so many times.
Zombie fans might be attracted to the (new) title but they've pretty much seen everything here in much better movies..
Unlike most low budget films, they didn't use the pretty boy look.
All characters in the film are very charismatic and look the part, not to mention they are very good actors.It is the kind of movie you want to see with a crowd.
My only complaint is that I wish there were more gore, but other then that it is a very good movie.One thing I like is a surprised ending.
There are lots of great quotes on the packaging like "DAWN OF THE DEAD EAT YOUR HEART OUT" and "THE BUMS ARE EATING THE COPS" (??) but these have little or nothing to do with what is contained within.
i must admit that i did think it was a follow up to 28 weeks later but as soon as the film came on i could see that there was no link at all!!You can tell this is a budget movie and has some cheap actors but don't let that fool you!!!!
the film is actually quite good, the story line is what you'd expect from a zombie movie and it keeps you entertained!!
some people here have given it bad reviews but i think they are forgetting one main thing.....zombie movies were originally just like this one!!!
now im not saying this is as good as the original dawn of the dead or the return of the living deads but if this film had of come out in the late 70s early 80s it would of done quite well!I will say that if your a general movie fan that rents a film every week then this will probably not be for you, but anyone who's into their zombie films or old time 80s horrors will enjoy this one!.
It was quite nice not to watch only a movies were some guys fight zombies but there were some inner tensions because there are three different parties in this "building" so it's not only "kill the damn zombie!" but also "whos side are you on man?" and stuff like that.
That's why liked it, it had many surprises and was probably the "freshest" movie I watched in the last weeks, although of course it was not that well done but still extremely entertaining.
The only people I wouldn't recommend it to are: People who don't like minorities for their stereotypical behavior, people who don't like low budget and of course people who hate zombie-survival stuff.
From the opening scene its clear that LAST RITES (a.k.a GANGS OF THE DEAD) is a really low budget film but it has its upsides, the acting is decent the storyline is competently done and the direction is better than average for a film of this standard.The downside is this film is nothing groundbreaking and obviously won't sell a record breaking number of DVD's and because many people prefer bigger budget films, this one here might put people off, it doesn't have major production values and the sound is sometimes very poor, but despite all that the film is overall competently executed.If you're a zombie fan give it shot, I recommend though that you set your expectations low, like I said its a competent film but the films low budget certainly shows..
Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that, for a low-budget zombie production, this film wasn't nearly as bad as I initially thought it would be.
Traveling through Los Angeles, a group of gang members ask a friend to make one last drug run before he can quit the gang business and go legit, but when the deal is interrupted by a rival gang they find a group of ravenous zombies created when a meteor landed nearby and try to get away from the zombies.When it tries, this one does have some good points to it.
From the general confusion at what's going on, the chaos of the sting and the zombies coming together all at one time makes for some really nice action.
From there, it gets in some bigger and better action, from the first few escape attempts that end up meeting the zombies face-to-face unexpectedly is quite nice.
The ending is also really action-packed, including a couple of quite nicely done moments that come off as really surprising.
The last good moments come from the opening and closing moments dealing with the meteors, as the beginning is a rather effectively done scene that is handled well and comes off as an original method for getting things done.
However, this film sets that scenario up with gang members who aren't exactly the types to put personal issues aside with their rivals for any reason, including a zombie plague, which is pretty much how the whole film breaks down.
Most of them look really similar to most other zombie films, not really making a distinct impression one way or another.
I've watched so many modern day zombie films that have the same plot as Night of the Living Dead that I've produced a template we all can use.Delete as necessary: A (meteor/satellite/witchdoctor/evil book/bad sandwich/particularly powerful fart) raises the dead, resulting in some (marines/drug dealers/teachers/dancers/elephants/British 70s TV entertainers) to barricade themselves in a (warehouse/farmhouse/underground bunker/hotel/shopping mall/portable toilet/suitcase) which results in much arguing.
This is a run of the mill zombie film and if you go in expecting that, you might like it.
The plot: Different groups of inner city L.A. stereotypes collide in a warehouse during a zombie attack.The film is very low budget, and the filmmakers were not particularly resourceful, creative, disturbing, or weird.
Instead, try a French horror film called La Horde, which rose above its stereotypes and clichés to be a gory, fun, and memorable B movie with some interesting things to say about racism and police brutality...
For a low budget film, it looked great and the special FX were awesome.
As this movie is also called Gangs of the dead and like it says above Last Rites, if i knew that was same movie, I would never have picked up (What the hell did it give a different name in the UK.)I can believe i have wasted a hour and half of life on this pieces of rubbish that is called a horror movie.The plot A meteor hit a place and then two gangs come to the same place and go to warn and then the people who should have died are backing attacking the humans.The zombies are not scary at all and the make up effect are really bad and have zombie have no idea how act like a zombie and the acting from whole cast was horrendous.
yes another movie where even the zombies can't act.
I love Zombie films, shame no one seems to know how to make them anymoreBlack and Hispanic gangs go bang, bang, with a penis replacement and use words like hoe and other stereo typical so called black gangster related sayings and while they try, listening people?
I said TRY to act,like gangsters, they just turn this into what looks like a low budget zombie?
It's only when I saw so many credits at the end I realised the 10 year old directing the film must have a lot of friends, who also must have seen the Australian film called Undead which used similar opening well sort of, but was one heck of a lot better, in fact it was good.Or did adults make this mess, I don't know, on the credits it looks like they had a large film crew, which makes me wonder how the hell this turned out to be such a load of pooh, 0/10 try again no gold stars for you.
Films are Built on story lines people not just crappy acting and a few visual effects..
bad title but a good zombies and gangs movie.
gangs of the dead is a good zombie movie that was made on a low budget.
there is not a ton of gore but when there is some it is pretty cool.this movie is a good mix of action and horror on a small budget.
Not only is this a bad remake with Black and Latino gang members in Los Angeles locked in a warehouse to escape the zombies, it is racist to boot.It has been a while since I have see Mantan Moreland yelling "Feets don't fail me now," but I certainly expected it to come out of the mouth of Dayana Jamine, who played the sister of one of the Black gang members like Moreland.Noel Gugliemi played Caesar, the leader of the Latin gang in a obnoxious stereotype of all ultra macho Hispanic.
It was pure racism.The zombie action was good when you saw it, but that was sparse as most of the action took place in the warehouse.Janine Foster was the best character in the movie, and I look for more of her in the future.Neat ending, though..
Weatherman(Cazimir Milostan)is a television personality whose wife is pulled from his convertible by the zombie bums as he looks on in horror, abandoning his vehicle, intruding upon Mitch's warehouse as well, put to good use by Caesar when attempting, unsuccessfully, to retrieve his vehicle.
The fate of Caesar is certain to earn a round of applause from the audience who watches a film like this..he is quite a despicable low-life who obviously gets his jollies from wielding his power with a revolver in his hand as those is fear for their lives do as he says.
Oh, and Reggie Bannister shows up.A better film than "Zombiez" and "Dead Heist," "Gangs of the Dead" is still a rather pedestrian urban horror flick that thinks racial stereotypes and bad dialog are better than actually giving the viewer anything good as far as horror is concerned.Granted, the occasional action scene and gory moment tends to put this above the previously mentioned films, and Reggie Bannister shows up at one point (though his role is essentially an extended cameo) However, the whole thing isn't that different from other Direct to DVD zombie flicks that can be found at movie rentals.
Maybe that's a good thing.It's kind of a shame really, because while watching it, I couldn't help but feel that with a better script and director, this could have been an enjoyable little zombie flick, and that the Urban Horror genre could finally have had a good recent zombie effort.
As it stands, "Gangs of the Dead" is pretty much just the same old song and dance you've seen before, and done better by other movies as well..
It's a little different than some other zombie movies, more like an action movie, but it worked...and there were a few twists that took me and the people I was with by surprise, which is hard to do, because I've seen a LOT of these kinds of movies, and thought I'd seen it all.
very cool.There are long stretches without any zombies but I didn't really mind because there was enough other stuff going on, and every time I started thinking I hadn't seen any zombies in a while, they'd come back (and usually do something really cool (there's a scene in here that's one of the sickest I've ever seen, in a good way!) The action scenes in this one are good, too, you can tell what's going on, not like Batman Begins or some of the 28 days later stuff.I liked the characters, even though there weren't really any 'good guys,' some of them were likable...I won't say which ones get killed or when, but it definitely wasn't who I expected.All in all, a really good film that went by FAST.
Duane Stinnett's "low budget" (it sure looks good for low budget) zombie flick is possibly the best zombie movie I have ever seen (so far).
But at least the language in this film is hilarious.Good idea, actually, just poorly executed.One REALLY good death scene.I've seen worse and would only recommend if you're having a beer and pizza night with your pals.Beer would probably make this movie a whole lot better than it is watching it, sober..
Gangs Of The Dead was alright.It's not a movie I'd ever watch again or buy & I'm not sure if I'd recommend somebody go see it (Maybe if NOTHING else is on) I definitely wasn't expecting to like it at all but I did & I have no idea why.It started off pretty good (That meteorite striking the bridge did look pretty cool) but fell off towards the end.I still enjoyed watching it though.My main thing with Gangs Of The Dead is that you would think a bunch of gangbangers would be able to band together (With the police as well) No matter how much they hate each other & try & fight the zombies trying to get into the warehouse to eat them alive.I think any group of people would at a time like this.Gangs Of The Dead isn't a movie I'd go out searching for but if you're able to see it for free, Why not?.
The filmmakers put a lot of work into the zombies, and although they're present in their entire film whether visually or spoken of, I must admit I would have liked to have seen more of them and 1-on-1 fights, but I guess that would mean I'm partial to zombie-stereotypes.What I did find quite odd is that I don't recall seeing much "brain-eating" per say, but skin was by all means ripping apart, and the victim's screeches still resonate in my brain - that fudgin' weather man left that girl to be eaten alive!I won't say more so that people won't want to see the film, but I think for a zombie flick it should be seen as both entertaining and original, which in my opinion makes it stand out a lot more that films that try to copy the zombie-formula..
The plot brings nothing new and the fact that the survival instinct never seems to kick in for any of the characters is annoying (the keep going with their gang rivalry even when they should just focus on surviving).The movie is visually very acceptable and the story so fast paced I didn't see the time go.
Low budget urban gang version of Night of the Living Dead..
Last Rites is set in Los Angeles & starts as a meteorite crashes down near a bridge where a group of homeless people are gathered, knocked down by the force of the meteorite hitting the ground the homeless get back up again but have been turned into flesh eating zombies.
With two opposing gangs, two cops & hordes of flesh eating zombies outside the unlikely bunch must put their rivalries aside & work together in order to survive but as tensions rise inside the warehouse it might just be safer outside with the zombies...Co-written, produced & directed by Duane Stinnett this cheap Night of the Living Dead (1968) rip-off might have been alright if it were not for the horrible character's that make it an absolute chore to sit through.
Basically Night of the Living Dead with an urban setting in a warehouse with cops & black gang members to keep the tensions high & the arguments coming Last Rites sees this bunch of people trapped inside a warehouse deciding whether to wait t for help or make a run for it.
This character & the way he acts gets really annoying, you just want someone else to shoot him just to shut him up, the other character's fare little better with two bland cops, various black gang members who just swear a lot & try to give it lots of attitude.
It becomes incredibly tedious to watch & as I said the story isn't bad, if the film was populated with more likable character's that you could emphasise with & root for then Last Rites might have been decent, as it is it doesn't so isn't.Retitled to Gangs of the Dead for it's US DVD release & puzzlingly to 48 Weeks Later for it's UK DVD release the film is fairly colourless & a bit bland to look at but competent enough & the initial CGI computer effect of the meteorite crashing to Earth in Los Angeles is quite impressive.
I was attacked by flesh eating zombies I'd rather run than drive off in a nice fast car, I mean that makes sense right?Filmed in Los Angeles the production values are decent, the special effects are alright & it's not the worst looking low budget zombie film out there.
The acting isn't great, the character's who are all annoying anyway come across as even worse.Last Rites is a decent attempt at a low budget urban gang Night of the Living Dead that gets a few things right but the horrible character's ruin the film as you just want to see them all ripped apart & eaten as soon as possible..
There is no reason to go into a major review of this film as it is utter rubbish, save yourself some dollars and re-watch your copy of Dawn Of the Dead for the 50th time at least you will enjoy it!