Yahoo Lifestyle ‘Last Days’ Review: Most Faith-Based Movies Intend to Inspire, but Justin Lin’s Indie Return Cautions Fanatics
SPOILER ALERT: The following review contains spoilers.
You’ve seen it so often, you might roll your eyes, but in “Last Days,” it really happens: American missionary John Allen Chau could have died as he approached North Sentinel Island, had the Bible in his breast pocket not absorbed the blow of a hostile Sentinelese arrow. What was Chau doing halfway around the globe, trying to convert a tribe that had nearly zero contact with the outside world? That’s the mystery director Justin Lin attempts to solve with “Last Days,” prompting an unexpected return to Sundance more than two decades after “Better Luck Tomorrow” launched his career there.
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In the interim, Lin has directed no fewer than five “Fast & Furious” movies, which makes this independent production a conspicuous downshift from exorbitantly budgeted studio fare. Chau’s story has been told multiple times, from the Outside magazine article that served as the basis for Ben Ripley’s script to 2023’s surprisingly philosophical-minded National Geographic documentary “The Mission” — and no wonder. It’s not every day a Christian kid (he was 26 when he died) sacrifices himself to “save” a tribe with absolutely no interest in outside evangelism.
Though Chau’s body has never been found, the world is fairly certain of his fate (teased over the opening credits with snippets of news broadcasts). Even so, “Last Days” approaches his story almost like a thriller, starting with a harrowing scene in which long-haired and wild-eyed John (Sky Yang), who’s spent years preparing for the worst-case scenario, approaches North Sentinel by kayak. As he looks down for a moment, DP Oliver Bokelberg observes him from the shore, oblivious and exposed to the impending spear attack. What else could John have expected (though Lin speculates as to the gesture that triggered it)?
“Last Days” will soon rewind to a time before John found his calling, but first, it introduces Meera Ganali (“Sister Midnight” star Radhika Apte), the “lady police officer” from a nearby Indian harbor town who’ll be tasked with locating the missing American. She has an entirely different perception of John’s actions: “The world is determined to go there and destroy them. Some day they will,” she tells her disinterested and sexist supervisor (Naveen Andrews).
Dramatically speaking, Meera’s investigation is the film’s weakest aspect, and yet, her protective instinct — of the North Sentinelese from uninvited disturbances — supplies an important counterpoint to John’s crusade. That’s an vital element, since a film like “Last Days” is liable to inspire certain viewers to “achieve” what Chau couldn’t. The vibe of Lin’s film is closer to Roland Joffé’s “The Mission” than a faith-based hagiography like “The End of the Spear.”
Yang, who plays John over the span of four years, undergoes both a mental and physical transformation over the course of the film. His earliest scene takes place at Oral Roberts University, where John is a skinny, clean-shaven senior wrestling with his future — his immigrant dad (Ken Leung) wants him to attend medical school. But John has other plans. In time, the young man will bulk up, a feat the production achieved in reverse, by shooting Yang’s muscular scenes first, then having the “Rebel Moon” star shed 30 pounds to play John’s early, uncertain phase.
Whereas other accounts tend to focus on Chau’s overzealous faith, Lin also explores his conflicted immigrant identity as the son of a Chinese father and an American-born mother (Claire Price), bringing personal insights not seen since “Better Luck Tomorrow” to his subject’s psychology. Since “Last Days” never claims to be anything more than a docufiction quasi-adventure movie, Lin and Ripley allow themselves a certain artistic license, imagining answers that “The Mission” never dared (maybe for legal reasons), such as how much his parents knew about his plans, and who might have helped him.
Instead of fingering someone outright, the film invents a slightly older and questionably intentioned role model named Chandler (Toby Wallace), whom John meets while doing mission work in Kurdistan. Chandler and his charismatic girlfriend Kayla (Ciara Bravo) give John a taste for “off-books operations,” risking their lives air-dropping Bibles on potential converts. “Last Days” juggles multiple timelines, with Meera identifying Chandler as an accomplice even before we know the crime, though the script has a few twists up its sleeve in terms of just how deep his involvement goes.
One of the film’s greatest liberties comes late in the game, occurring chronologically after that Bible saves John’s life. He meets up with a trio of Australian tourists, including the free-spirited Melanie (Marny Kennedy), who suggests another path John’s life might have taken, had he directed some of his passion into a partner instead. It feels almost unfair, the way the film implies — between this encounter and the feelings he seems to have for Kayla — that this young virgin simply needed a partner to give his life purpose, but then, all we have to go on is the self-righteous scribbling in John’s diary, which starts to look bonkers during his last days.
Working with a fraction of his usual resources, Lin delivers a film that has a slightly amateurish feel at times. On-location scenes shot in Thailand and off the coast of Phuket give the production a certain grandeur, but most of the performances (the extras’ especially) are unconvincing. Even Yang, whose commitment is admirable, struggles to convey what’s inside John’s head — which, of course, is the whole point of this project. Lin swoops in with an ironic answer in the film’s final minutes, orchestrating an emotional montage with sad-trombone vibes, as “Last Days” implies that Chau desperately wanted his dad’s approval, but tragically went looking for his heavenly father’s instead.
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