THE LAST PHOTOGRAPH Snaps A Seething Revenge Epic In The First Trailer
The word is out, and director Zack Snyder’s latest revenge thriller, The Last Photograph, will have its day on September 13 at the 51st Toronto International Film Festival. The official trailer is now online as well as of Monday, host to an alluring backdrop to a bleak revenge tale full of violence and graphic imagery suited for appropriate audiences.
Feel free to check out TIFF programmer Cameron Bailey’s notes below, and then hit the link to the trailer through this text.
Starring Stuart Martin (Army of Thieves), the latest from Zack Snyder (300) follows an ex-DEA agent seeking revenge in a South American jungle where dangerous terrain and inner demons intermingle.
With films like 300 and Watchmen, Zack Snyder has achieved a rare feat, crafting blockbuster-scale spectacles in which every sequence carries the signature of a true original. Centering a pair of textured performances from Stuart Martin (star of the Snyder conceived and co-produced Army of Thieves) and Fra Fee (Les Misérables and Snyder’s Rebel Moon), The Last Photograph finds the director operating in an unexpectedly intimate mode, forging a quest narrative in which dangerous terrain and inner demons intermingle.
Retired DEA agent Ethan Black (Martin) travels to South America in search of his missing nephew and niece, and to avenge the slaying of his brother, a diplomat, and sister-in-law. He is joined by Joe Wallace (Fee), a world-weary, drug-addicted conflict photographer who claims to have witnessed the kidnapping and brutal murder. As the pair journey deeper into a hostile, alpine landscape, unresolved events from Ethan’s troubled past burgeon in his psyche — and muddy his motivations for taking on this precarious mission.
Written by Snyder and regular collaborator Kurt Johnstad, The Last Photograph accrues an air of myth as it proceeds. Haunting flashbacks punctuate the present-tense voyage through a rich culture that Ethan barely comprehends. While the film’s imagery is characteristically rapturous, its focus on a single character creates a space for psychological gravitas of a kind only hinted at in Snyder’s more maximalist visions. This is a Dante-esque road movie where the journey is just as internal as it is external.
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