Last Man Standing (2011 TV Movie) User Reviews

TV movie starring Catherine Bell

[blanche-2 · 6/10 · 26 January 2013]

Catherine Bell stars with Anthony Michael Hall and Mekhi Phifer in "Last Man Standing," a 2011 TV movie, also produced by Bell.

Do I need to say it's a Lifetime Movie? It is. It gets points for not being a retread of their stalker movies, wife killer movies, husband killer movies, and two women in love with the same man movies.

In this film, Bell plays a former military secret operative, retired, and now a mom with a little girl and a husband (Hall, totally wasted). Suddenly, her life is turned upside down - one of her partners in the military commits suicide, and shortly afterward, her husband is kidnapped. Bell has to go back into her past skill set and do what the kidnappers want, all the time searching for her husband.

This wasn't great, though it had some good sequences. I figured out who was behind it practically before I knew what she was ordered to do in order to keep her husband from being killed.

The performances were so-so - I frankly don't find Bell that interesting an actress. And one thing I hated was that she and her husband were so nauseatingly lovey-dovey, in order to set the stage that she led this idyllic life.

This film is a tiny bit reminiscent of "The Long Kiss Goodnight," a film starring Geena Davis, which is fantastic and highly recommended. Last Man Standing is just okay, but if you're a fan of "Army Wives'" Bell, you will like it a lot more.

Serviceable and forgettable

[gridoon2024 · 6/10 · 5 October 2014]

Standardized but well-made action thriller, with a gender-reversal: here, it's the wife that has to move heaven and earth to rescue her kidnapped husband. Ernest Dickerson is an experienced director and the film is made with professionalism and does not look like a made-for-TV project, although you'll probably forget it as soon as you've finished watching it. Catherine Bell is a very good action heroine - sneaky and quick, no fuss, wham-bam-thank-you-mam - but her abilities are underutilized; Mekhi Phifer and Anthony Micahel Hall provide solid support, and there is one plot twist that I feel almost ashamed for allowing it to fool me. **1/2 out of 4.

Predictable but still pretty good

[comblitz · 6/10 · 30 March 2019]

Yes, it was a TV movie, yes, it was sort of predictable. But all in all, it wasn't terrible. It was actually fun to watch. No spoilers here but give it a chance. Also, always fun to watch a movie with Anthony Michael Hall...

Hotrod Housewife

[HallmarkMovieBuff · 28 July 2011]

Like "eldorado80" (reviewer #2 on this film), I, too, am a fan of Catherine Bell, and as such, I made a point to catch this film's last scheduled showing on the Lifetime channel in its initial run there simply because Ms. Bell starred in it. The title of these comments arises from Bell's stunt driving to escape the police in one scene from the film.

eldorado80 cited four presumed holes in the script. I would add a fifth. Early in the film, Abby Collins (Bell's character) receives a phone call from her war buddy, Jeremy Davis (Mekhi Phifer) that the other member of their three-person team in Afghanistan back in 2002 has committed suicide, and that the funeral will be two days hence.

Later that evening, as they are preparing to retire for the night, Abby's husband Nick (Anthony Michael Hall) asks her who called her earlier that day, so she gives him the lowdown on the call.

The next scene we see is Abby at the grave site. As the funeral ends, Abby calls Nick to tell him it's over, and apologizes for some unspecified behavior "last night." But there is no "last night" in the film, as the previous action occurred two days earlier.

As an aside, am I the only viewer who finds it curious that Bell's 2002 Afghanistan colleague here, the aforementioned Jeremy Davis, has the same first name as her son who died in today's Afghanistan war in her current "day job," TV's "Army Wives"?

Bottom line: despite any real or perceived flaws, "Last Man Standing" is an exciting, suspenseful thriller wherein our girl Cat gets to kick butt. I loved it, despite the fact that I figured out the bad guy very early on.

Absolute garbage!!

[m_imdb-664-263075 · 2/10 · 21 April 2013]

I'm sorry to all the other reviewers who, clearly, have a fondness for Ms. Bell but I felt more like Guil Fisher - the whole script was mind-numbingly moronic.

In the scene where she's just come back from dropping her daughter off with a neighbour, what ON EARTH is she doing with her hands while she is 'composing herself'? I really don't know what the director was trying to induce her to portray but maybe it's something only a woman would understand.

Then, when she goes to the widow's house, she flits downstairs and opens a locked door by taking a credit card from her little handbag and no more than shows it to the door and she's in. And then there's that old American movies rubbish of the paper knife to open a locked desk drawer. For God's sake, get real. Haven't you lot done that one to death yet? Do you think we're all idiots out here?

The she's on the phone, logging into a secure military system - one she's had no contact with for EIGHT years - but her pass code still works!!

So, she's flying all over the place, desperately trying to rescue her husband (yeah, right) but still manages to stop at the public phone to call her neighbour to read bedtime stories to her kid! For goodness sake!! Who wrote this stuff?

This woman can only be 100lbs soaking wet but she's capable of chucking 200lb security guards all over the place with hardly a flick of her pretty little lashes.

...and when she finally gets into this high security building by incapacitating three burly guards, she then manipulates a computer system she's never seen before, bypassing ALL of the network security protocols by - get this - popping into some unlocked broom cupboard she's never been in before and swapping a couple of wires around on a network she knows absolutely nothing about! HAHAHAHAHAHA!! This garbage is PRICELESS!! I nearly wet meself!! So the gaumless writers think that NOBODY out here knows ANYTHING about computer security???

Then there's the car chase. Talk about Keystone Cops! All she has to do is drive around this car park and the cops keep driving into the bushes. BRILLIANT!!

It was at this point that I just about gave up because I'd laughed as much as I wanted to and I felt that I'd been patronised enough. Also, the sickening lovesick-teenager-like relationship that these two had left me looking for the vomit bag!

This is yet another American movie made simply because someone decided that Catherine Bell needed to make another movie. Who cares that none of the scenes make sense? And they don't. No common sense at all has been exercised in the direction of the plot. The whole mess is just thrown together with a hubris so common in cheap American films.

A movie FOR women, written BY a woman, in my view, because not one of the scenes survives close scrutiny.

This stuff is nothing more than an insult to the intelligence of anyone who watches it.

Obvious plot and terrible acting

[LovingGoodShows · 2/10 · 28 October 2017]

All through this movie, I was hoping the plot would not be quite so obvious. It was.

The acting is wooden.

The clichés numerous.

The 'special effects' terrible.

This movie has few, if any redeeming features.

It's bad, but not all bad

[srdjan_veljkovic · 3/10 · 14 January 2016]

Everything here is underwhelming, from the story, to the acting, all the way to directing and visuals.

But, it's not really terrible. Sure, it's hard to believe that Catherine Bell could kick ass around, but, she's actually more believable in that situation than, say, Uma Thurman. The technology that Bell is supposedly good at is pretty silly, too, but, again, it and she are more believable than, say, Sandra Bullock in "The Net". The story is somewhat interesting, though there's many things wrong in both the story itself and the way it's told.

The best thing about the movie is that you want to find out how it ends just enough to stick with it. The ending, while predictable and not really surprising, is not obvious and you don't feel somehow cheated or tricked.

It feels like "another day at the office" for everyone involved. If you're in a compatible mood, taking a rest while watching this is OK.

Could Have Been So Much Better!

[eldorado80 · 7/10 · 25 July 2011]

First, let me say that I love Catherine Bell and make an effort to watch everything she is in. With her as the main character and a very intriguing storyline, I had high expectations going into this movie. I must say, however, that I came away somewhat disappointed with the overall experience.

I agree with the previous reviewer who said that the acting was excellent for the most part. Ms. Bell's performance was flawless. She is such a great actress whose talents are sadly under-utilized. How great she would have been in movies like "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" and "Salt." The actress whom we all know was cast for the starring roles in those films was clearly unbelievable as the characters she portrayed; Ms. Bell would have been perfect.

As for "Last Man Standing," the concept was original and the story was believable, but I must disagree with the previous reviewer's assessment that the writing was excellent. There were four glaring errors or plot holes that for me took much away from the movie as a whole:

1. When Nick said to Abby: "Don't forget to feed Gatsby," why did it take her so long to realize that he was giving her a clue as to how to find him? She totally dismissed it until later seeing a tiger on the TV and then having a revelation. Abby was a very intelligent woman who probably would have gotten the message immediately.

2. When her contact told her that her husband's location was a warehouse four miles from the pay phone she was calling from, she immediately hung up and proceeded to go there. How did she know where to go without an address? This could have easily been remedied with a more precise description of the location, and was just sloppy scripting.

3. When the man was ordered to kill her husband, why in the world would he place a blindfold on him and then step back 20 feet to take aim before shooting him? This made no sense whatsoever. This, of course, allowed Ms. Bell to come up behind him and tell him to drop his weapon, but the scene could easily have been written to play out in a more realistic manner.

4. When the second man came back to check on her husband, he realized that something was amiss and said, "Where's your blindfold?" How did he know that there ever was a blindfold?

Nitpicking? Maybe, but these are mistakes that a more experienced writer would never have made and could easily have been averted. Nevertheless, if you like Catherine Bell, watch this movie. If you can overlook a few amateur writing mistakes, you will enjoy it.

LADY KNIGHT

[nogodnomasters · 2/10 · 15 December 2018]

We have seen scores of movies where the woman or daughter is kidnapped then the husband must use his special ops training skills to rescue them. This movie has a twist where the husband is kidnapped and the woman must go rescue him while obeying the kidnappers.

I was not very convinced of Catherine Bell knocking out large men with one punch any more than if Rick Moranis had played the part. She musters all her savvy to save her husband, going nonstop except for the moments she spends calling her daughter assuring her "mommy will be home soon." And who uses a 4 digit pass code?

I guess if you are a woman and need a super soccer mom role model, or just tired of men playing the "knight" this film would have some appeal to you from that angle. It is just that it was so poorly done.

Made for TV. Some violence. killing. Basically kid safe.

Pale Imitation of The Long Kiss Good Night!

[spookyrat1 · 4/10 · 15 June 2020]

I was hoping it might not be from the brief summary I saw, but that's exactly what it turned out to be.

I make it a rule to rarely watch made for TV movies, but like a few others on this site, I'm a bit of a Catherine Bell fan, so I let my guard down for her ... and was duly disappointed. Mind you, she is the best thing going in the movie, but she doesn't have a lot to back her up.

I don't necessarily go out of my way to watch big budget extravaganzas, but the lack of an appropriate budget for this production is pretty telling. From Afghanistan scenes filmed in close-up with just 3 soldiers, to silly looking Keystone Cops car park car chases, Last Man Standing screams cheap. There's virtually no real action till the third act, where the "big reveal", which was glaringly obvious to all and sundry from around 20 minutes in, finally occurs.

As suggested by my heading, the narrative is pretty neatly extrapolated (minus the amnesia) from Renny Harlin's excellent 1996 action movie, which almost 25 years later is still capable of providing a strong adrenaline shot. It also has Geena Davis and Samuel L Jackson gleefully sprouting all those clever one-liners. By contrast I'm afraid Last Man Standing is just deadly dull. A run of the mill script, no exciting set pieces to speak of and a predictable storyline which only stands out, due to a notable lack of tension, no matter how many times Catherine stares at her watch. I gave TLKG 8, so I'm giving LMS a generous 4.

Drauma, suspense, kick butt action thriller

[jagfanlinda · 10/10 · 7 June 2011]

Close Quarters, released under name of The Last Man Standing. This fast paced action flick is Lifetimes breakout from "ladies" and family films. Stars Catherine Bell as soccer mom married to vet. making pancakes, telling bedtime stories to small daughter. Typical stay at home mom and wife. Suddenly her quiet little warm life falls apart when her husband is taken . She has to reach back into her past. A past she has locked away. To find the reason and save the man she loves. This great film uses fast flashbacks to show us her background as secret operative for the military.It moves very fast. Lots of action, blasts, fights,)Catherine does the car chase driving herself) kinks and turns. Who is after he and why? Catherine Bell is excellent as the ex-secret agent. She does most of the tricks and kicks herself. The dead and injured pile up like stove wood.

The Last Man Standing (Close Quarters0 is written by team of Jolene Rice (Still Small Voices) and Adam Beason, Catherine's real life hubby. Excellent writing, acting and very great story. See again on June 11th. Do not miss this one

Boring impossible to believe

[geoffox-766-418467 · 13 November 2011]

First of all the leading lady Catherine Bell was so unbelievable that I had to laugh at this little woman knocking out all the men around her, forcing police cars off the road and generally being a pain in the butt. I was laughing at most of the picture. She looked cross eyed most of the time and definitely not an attractive person to watch on a large screen. Why is this actress working? Then the plot was silly and most of the time just boring to watch. Kept turning to another channel for relief. But wanted to see the ending. I just can't get over all of these large men being attacked by her and she the victor. That made this totally unbelievable. I kept wanting someone to catch her and lock her up. But she keeps getting away with breaking the law. What a waste of Anthony Michael Hall. That's it. Dislike this actress.