Our hero just wants a quiet life, but when terrorists committing a bank robbery take his wife and child hostage, Michael has no choice but to go up against the lot of them – battling both the bad guys and the incompetent good guys who can’t handle the situation. Sounds a lot like Die Hard, right? Yippee ki-yay, knock-off merchants. Jon Foo plays a down-to-earth ex-special forces soldier whose day watching cartoons on the sofa is ruined when the villainous Cooper (Clayton Norcross) marches his goons into a downtown bank and rounds everyone up, including Michael’s incredibly annoying wife and child. (In fact they are so irritating that you may find yourself wondering uncharitably if Michael shouldn’t just let the baddies get on with their day in peace.) Cue a man on a mission movie with a couple of twists but very few actual surprises up its sleeve.
The acting and script is, to put it kindly, uneven. The problem with ripping off Die Hard is that it’s not that easy: the underlying formula may be simple, but if you cut all of the action scenes out of Die Hard, you would still have an entertaining film. If you cut out all the action scenes from Last Resort, you would have an unholy mess. Moreover, the dialogue feels Trumpian, in the sense that it feels as if they are making it up as they go along. (Here’s a verbatim quote from the shouty lead villain: “Your daddy murders people! He kills them in cold blood! He cuts their feet! He cuts their hands! He tortures them! Oh no, he’s not so nice. He’s bad! He’s very, very bad! He’s bad!”)
If you’re looking for something to scratch a Die Hard itch, that is certainly what Last Resort is trying to do, but there are many superior Die Hard rip-offs available – or you could just watch Die Hard.
Last Resort is on digital platforms from 16 June.