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The Last Thing He Wanted

It's a hot mess.

The Last Thing He Wanted

Grade: D+

Director: Dee Rees (Mudbound)

Screenplay: Rees, Marco Villalobos based on book by Joan Didion

Cast: Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables), Ben Affleck (Argo)

Rating: R

Runtime: 1h 55m

By: John DeSando

“Some real things have happened lately.” Elena McMahon (Anne Hathaway)

As I recall Salvador and Under fire, and countless other forgotten investigative political thrillers, I find The Last Thing He Wanted just as much a mashup of intrigues, both international and romantic, maybe more so. With a plot hovering around Reagan, Sandinistas, conflicting American ambitions, and personal baggage, this story merits going back for its history, but even that doesn’t promise your understanding. At any rate, it’s plot-heavy with material for several movies.

Young but experienced journalist Elena travels to South America to collect an arms contraband payoff for her dicey dad, Dick (Willem Dafoe). You know this is not going to come out well, especially since revolutionaries are notoriously poor debtors, not terribly respectful of women, and this revolution a story she was working on anyway.

Adapted from Joan Didion’s novel, The Last thing He Wanted is probably too faithful to the book and too heavy with its many plot strands. Yet it briefly  entertains as interesting eccentrics glide in and out, and a central player, Treat Morrison (Ben Affleck), doesn’t justify his place in the plot until the end, where he really places himself, if not too late.

Needless to say, I should see this gnarled espionage thriller again to get just the plot right. Yet, why should I have to?

“We were moving fast. We were traveling light. We were younger. I was younger” Elena

John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JohnDeSando62@gmail.com.

John DeSando holds a BA from Georgetown University and a Ph.D. in English from The University of Arizona. He served several universities as a professor, dean, and academic vice president. He has been producing and broadcasting as a film critic on It’s Movie Time and Cinema Classics for more than two decades. DeSando received the Los Angeles Press Club's first-place honors for national entertainment journalism.