Carlos Miranda | Through the Shattered Lens

The 2004 film, Last Flight Out, tells the story of Dan (Richard Tyson) and Anne (Bobbie Phillips).

Once upon a time, Dan and Anne were in love. Perhaps they were attracted by the fact that their names rhymed. “Dan and Anne” is just one of those phrases that just rolls off the tongue. Unfortunately, it takes more than rhyming names to make a relationship work. Dan was a cynic and Anne wanted to make the world a better place and, in the end, she decided she could do that better without him than with him.

Now, Anne is missionary, working with Dr. Matteo Barrero (Adriano Gonzalez) at a village in a South American country that is, more or less, ruled by a drug cartel. And Dan is a pilot, flying missions throughout the world and trying not to get emotionally connected with anyone. Anne’s mentor, Tony Williams (Cliff de Young), approaches Dan with a job. The village where Anne is working is currently under siege from a drug lord who demands that all the villagers come to work for him. The payment that drug lord offers for their work is simple. If they work for him, he will reward them by not killing them. If they don’t work for him …. well, you get the idea.

Dan flies to the village, mostly to try to get Anne to safety. But Anne explains that she won’t abandon the villagers to the drug lord. Eventually, Anne is able to convince the village’s chief that the entire villages needs to be moved to safety. That’ll mean putting all twenty of them on Dan’s plan and flying them away from the drug lord’s army. Dan explains that, even if they take all the seats out of the plane, they’ll still be overweight and unable to take off. Both Anne and Matteo tells Dan to have a little faith.

And, while the drug lord’s army fires at them from the ground, the plane does manage to take off! But Matteo is left behind. Back in civilization, everyone is convinced that Matteo is dead. Dan, however, is determined to go back and, if possible rescue Matteo. That, of course, will mean flying straight back into the gunfire and once again, risking his life for another person. And, in this case, his name doesn’t even rhyme with Matteo’s!

Last Flight Out isn’t a bad little film. Of course, those tempted to watch the film on Tubi should be aware that it is a faith-based production, so Matteo is very outspoken in his belief in God and the film does feature prayers while in flight. Naturally, Dan is the atheist who changes his position after witnessing the bravery of the missionaries. That said, the film is smart to emphasize action over preaching and Richard Tyson gives a likable performance as Dan. In the end, one need not be filled with faith to know that slave labor is wrong. Director Jerry Jameson, who directed a host of disaster films in the 70s and the 80s, keeps the action moving at a steady pace and, the end result, is a watchable action film.

The Bling Ring was one of the more divisive films of 2013. As often seems to happen with the work of Sofia Coppola, viewers either loved it as a stylish look at America’s self-destructive love affair with fame or else they felt that it was a shallow celebration of the very lifestyle that it claimed to be satirizing. Personally, I felt it was both, which is one reason why I enjoyed The Bling Ring.

The Bling Ring is based on the true story of a bunch of California teenagers who made headlines by breaking into the mansions of their idols. Over the course of several months, they burglarized everyone from Paris Hilton to Lindsay Lohan to Orlando Bloom. While they may have been smart enough to use social media to discover when their targets would be out of town, they weren’t smart enough to not use social media to brag about their crimes. Eventually, they were arrested and, for a brief period of time, they were as famous as the people they robbed. One of them even got her own reality show out of the whole thing. I watched an episode or two. It wasn’t very good.

Though the names have been changed, Coppola pretty much tells the story as it happened. New kid in school Marc (Israel Broussard) meets Rebecca (Kate Chang), who is obsessed with celebrities. Rebecca is also something of an obsessive thief and soon, she and Marc are breaking into the houses of their rich neighbors and acquaintances, stealing money, and going on shopping sprees. Their thievery allows them to leave a lifestyle where every day is just another makeover montage from a romantic comedy. Eventually, they are joined by Nicki (Emma Watson), Sam (Taissa Farmiga), and Chloe (Claire Julien).

One thing that quickly becomes clear is that the members of the Bling Ring are not exactly the smartest group of thieves around. Along with getting increasingly reckless while committing their crimes, they also make the mistake of showing off stolen jewelry at parties and posting pictures of Facebook. When the police eventually do track them down, Marc is a convenient scapegoat, Rebecca is hiding out in Las Vegas with her father, and Nicki becomes a minor celebrity as she and her mother exploit her newfound notoriety for all the publicity that they can get.

I liked The Bling Ring. It’s stylish, all of the actors look good and they’re all wearing beautiful outfits, and I loved seeing all of the houses that they broke into. (Some of the film was shot in the actual residences that were burglarized.) On the one hand, it doesn’t really dig too deeply into the nature of fame in America but, on the other hand, does it really need to? We all know the culture that we live in and, at its best, The Bling Ring forces us to ask whether we would rather be one of the people on the outside looking in or if we would want to be one of the people who broke in by any means necessary.

Add to that, it has a great soundtrack!

(Now, as I said, not everyone agrees with me about The Bling Ring. For an opposite reaction to The Bling Ring, check out Ryan The Trash Film Guru’s review.)