Hold on tight to the steering wheel, chauffeur – Newspaper Kommersant No. 239 (7440) of 12/23/2022

Anna Guttormsgard’s neo-noir The Last Flight (Paradise Highway) starring Juliette Binoche and Morgan Freeman was released. Despite the beaten criminal line, Mikhail Trofimenkov The film is not clear what, but hooked seriously.

The storyline becomes clear in the first five, well, ten minutes of the film. The pedophile mafia is transporting kidnapped children from the US to Canada, after keeping them in cages in some vile basement. To save brother Dennis (Frank Grillo), who is at risk if she refuses to get out of federal prison feet first, trucker Sally (Binoche) is drawn into these operations. But having figured out what she was dragged into, Sally mobilizes her maternal instinct, which has long fallen into a lethargic sleep, and challenges the mafia in order to save the girl Layla (Hala Finlay). However, not only the mafia, but also the police: Leila managed to leave behind the corpse of a Canadian pervert with the gentle appearance of Santa Claus.

Having recognized what it is about, the viewer cannot but feel the desire to interrupt the viewing by yawning. No matter how terrible the themes of pedophilia, incest, childhood trauma and other domestic violence are in themselves, they are so banalized, replicated by modern cinema that it is just right to talk about speculating on tragedies on an industrial scale.

The main characters are just as typified at first glance, just as familiar. Sally is a kind of “my boyfriend”. What to wield with a heavy jack, what to take on your chest, unless, of course, some filth is mixed into the whiskey, at least henna. Father’s sawn-off shotgun and baseball bat are always at hand. The cab of the truck has long been her home. What happened in her past life, she herself hardly remembers. And he hardly thinks about the future life: one continuous road to nowhere.

Following in the footsteps of Sally and Layla, Detective Jerich, superbly played by the 85-year-old Morgan Freeman, is also, in general, the type of wise and disillusioned old-school villain hunter familiar from many books and films. His cozy cream hat and green shirt defy the polished elegance of his young FBI partner. He categorically does not believe in the triumph of virtue and the triumph of the law, having been disappointed in the system of law and order for a long time. The only thing he can do is minimize losses in one single criminal investigation. Like the African-American brother of Clint Eastwood’s heroes.

In general, we have seen such cops on the American screen, and more than once. You can even guess in advance where and what evidence Jerich will find. In the same way, you guess at once that Sally should not stop at a giant parking lot, considering its very size – they say, even the pimps who bring girls to truckers do not know all its nooks and crannies – a guarantee of safety.

Why is The Last Flight still addictive and does not let go until the very end?

Last but not least, the film probably owes its appeal to Leila. Being a victim of pedophiles, she should, according to genre logic, turn out to be not a subject, but an object of action, not to save, but to be saved. But she will scream, convulse, and she will suffer only very slightly, at the very beginning of the film. And then he will take the lion’s share of the action for himself.

And the accuracy of shooting from a shotgun from fifteen meters away will demonstrate it on the spot. And he uses a baseball bat at a critical moment for its intended purpose. And even take over the leadership of Sally, intoxicated to death, behind the wheel of a truck. Involuntarily, in this episode, the boy from the cult film by Alexander Vulfovich and Nikita Kurikhin, based on the story by James Aldridge “The Last Inch” (1957), is involuntarily recalled. Remember: the boy dragged his papa-pilot, bitten by sharks, into the cockpit of the plane, which then piloted under his father’s guidance.

There is one more – this time collective – irresistible hero in the film. This is a gang, a family, a mafia, whatever you want to call it, truckers – just truckers, not truckers – coming to the rescue of Sally in the most fatal final circumstances. Surprisingly, this, apparently, is not a scenario twist, but a reflection of American reality. And that means that no less cool and homeless, solidary with each other and risky tear-offs travel along the highways than their male counterparts.

And of course, it is the beauty of their world, captured in the film, that does not let you tear yourself away from the action. The beauty of restless highways and random overnight stays. The beauty of headlights burning in the night – like Christmas trees – and dumb roadside bars. The beauty of that giant parking lot and the night ballet of the sluts living on it. Of course, no normal person would want to live in this beauty, but why not admire it on the screen.