An estranged father and son reunite for one last moment of reconciliation, can they forget about the past and move forward before it’s too late? This is Matthew Paris’ The Last Catch.
The majority of Hollywood filmmakers are male, which is why there is an abundance of father-and-son material in the films that they make. You can find allusions to the father-son relationship in virtually every movie you watch, sometimes they are the entire theme of the film such as Field Of Dreams, Back to The Future, or Big Fish, while other times they are just a small part of a much larger story. Tom Cruise always plays opposite father figures in his movies, Good Will Hunting gives us Will and Sean, and Red and Andy provide that relationship in The Shawshank Redemption, in fact, Morgan Freeman plays it in everything he appears in. Sean Connery as Malone in The Untouchables and even Murtaugh in the Lethal Weapon series, the list is endless.
Writer/director Matthew Paris goes straight for the heart with his drama The Last Catch which sees Bradley Costa’s Mark returning home to visit his dying father James (played by Mitchell Rad) after years of hostility. As the film opens, there is already a hint of disaffection as Mum (Joy Leigh) tells her husband ‘Be nice! He’s coming at four.’ Leigh provides us with a domineering matriarchal figure using a number of stern looks and some tears to great effect. Mark arrives with his girlfriend Whitney (an underused Marielle Taimanglo) who is disapproved of by both Mum and Dad. Will the youngsters be accepted and manage to seal the open wounds within the 12-minute runtime? What Paris manages to do is tell a complete story with the tools he has at his disposal.
Paris uses a Terence Malick-type shot of nature to begin his film and the first thing we notice is that the sound of the production isn’t particularly great. The foley work is interesting, but the dialogue has been re-recorded in post-production and the dubbing is off-kilter with the actor’s lips and this becomes a bit of a distraction. Paris also uses a few traveling and establishing shots, and quick edits to show the parents getting ready for the visit of their son, whilst also relying on a lot on handheld camera work, particularly in the opening and concluding scenes. There are also a couple of Dutch angle shots during the internal scenes, particularly in James’s bedroom, and these give an unusual touch to a pretty straightforward story. The dialogue is a little clunky with Paris’ writing giving us characters who tell us things rather than allowing his film to show us. This is particularly noticeable with the repetition of certain sentences between actors that tend to be major plot points of the script. However the triumphant ending as James walks towards the yard for one last catch brings to mind Brando’s Terry Malloy and his inspirational last stand at the end of On The Waterfront, we are also given a very memorable death scene.
The Last Catch is a sweet film with a good heart. The problems it suffers from are mainly of the technical variety, but with a bigger budget, I’m sure Matthew Paris will be able to go on and create a lot of great art.
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