What ever happened to those guys who used to run drugs from Mexico into the States decades ago?
Well, one of them, Pierce Butler (Jeff Fahey – “Lawnmower Man”), settled down and became a shrimp fisherman on the South Carolina Coast. He raised a family, but these are hard times for the shrimpers, and he’s mortgaged up to his wild beard and hair. On top of that, his wife Julia (Dorothy Hadley Joly) has cancer and her only hope is a very expensive experimental drug.
Besides Julia, Pierce also has a daughter, Alex (Katie Amess), who is dating the local DEA agent, Pete Davis (Drew Waters). And Alex has a daughter, Ella (Maddie Henderson), who is fiercely loyal to her grandfather.
Pierce spent eight years in prison for his youthful escapades, due to the work of DEA agent Sam Sloan (a gaunt-looking Judd Nelson – “The Breakfast Club”), now retired. Pierce decides that the only way to help his wife and save the farm and shrimp boat from foreclosure is to make one more run of 35,000 pounds of marijuana in conjunction with a Mexican cartel headed by Camilla (Meredith Inglesby Blanchard), a beautiful but cold and ruthless woman. Somehow Sloan and Davis get wind of Butler’s plan and this drives the plot from that point on.
Director Chris Helton (“Happy Birthday”) has coaxed uneven performances from his cast, with good work by Fahey, Waters, Inglesby and Henderson, but lesser performances by Amess and, disappointingly, Nelson.
Written by Walter Czura (story) with revisions by Jason Usry (“Dead Water”), these two have given us a shopworn but eternal story of a family in crisis, a father who decides he must re-enter his dark past, external forces that seek to thwart the efforts of the family, and a finale where family members pull together with others to save the day.
There are a few twists, such as the female drug lord, the locale, and the fact that the story is supposedly “inspired by” a real life event, Operation Jackpot, which took place during the Reagan administration. It involved the take-down of “gentlemen smugglers” who were responsible for bringing in hundreds of tons of marijuana and hashish through the South Carolina lowlands. The archival footage of Reagan decrying the terrible scourge of marijuana in this age of oxycontin and fentanyl is amusingly outdated, with smuggling of pot into the US down significantly in recent years. “The Final Run” is set in the present, but any use or possession of marijuana is still illegal in South Caroline and nationally at the federal level where the beliefs of Reagan and his ilk live on.
We are treated to some beautiful camera work exploiting the natural surroundings. Of less beauty is the twangy, sentimental score that plays throughout.
This is light fare that should neither offend nor inspire anyone.
Note: The drug importing character Hank is played by Steve Blanchard, who is married to Meredith Inglesby, who played the drug cartel leader.
Runtime: One hour, 28 minutes
Availability: Available on Fandango, Apple TV, and Google Play. VOD as of Aug. 15.
. . .
Join us on Facebook at
http://www.facebook.com/itsjustmovies!