The Last Ride (2012)

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Absolutely the worst movie.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

It's 1952, small town boy Silas (Jesse James) is hired to drive Hank Williams (Henry Thomas) to a couple of New Years shows. However snow and other incidents keep the couple from reaching the shows until it all ends sadly.Jesse James is too weak. He's playing the character as if he's a child. Then there is Henry Thomas who is around 40 playing a 29 year old guy. I know Hank Williams is supposed to be wore out at that time. But the story is missing something when Williams looks like he's an old man instead of a wore out young man. There is a difference. Then there is the gorgeous Kaley Cuoco playing country girl running a filling station. She looks too good. She looks like a Hollywood starlet passing for a country girl.Finally there is the story itself. It lacks any tension. The script is thin on any substance. It tries to ride along with Henry Thomas' posturing. There just isn't enough there to justify a whole movie. Only the ending is there anything dramatic.

Not exactly how I envisioned Hank to be but I certainly did not know him. This movie needed Hank Williams music in it to make it complete - and you know he crashed many of bars and took over the stage, he loved to show off, he loved the limelight, he had to be seen and recognised, it it would have been great to have heard Hank tell his story to the young driver, to see flashbacks that lead up to where they were at that point - because to be honest parts of this movie were kind of flat, a little back story would have been a real attention grabber... where was that in this movie? I would give it an 8 - only because I think Hank have more charm & character than they had the actor express. I know this was just his 'last ride' but Hank had a real temper he also was smooth as silk with the ladies and he was one rowdy guy always looking for a fight - I just think maybe they could have let Jessie James add a lil more oomph into this character... this is definitely worth the watch. Kaley Cuoco was awesome in the movie, even though she had a small part.

I am an absolute fan of Hank Williams Sr and have been ever since 1954. But something just does not smell right about this movie....About 15 years ago there was a made-for-Canadian-TV movie "Hank Williams, The Show He Never Gave" which was a filmed version of a live show, originating in London. The creator of that show/DVD was an inspired Hank Williams fan who knew and understood Hank's great power and he created a movie that still ranks as a gut-level emotional powerhouse. I've seen it 6 times so far."Your Cheatin' Heart" was a planned movie at MGM for 10 years before finally being filmed. It did not do Hank justice. Now comes this new one which looks like a cash-in on Hank's memory, and an imitation of an A+ movie already available. Proceed with caution, because a rip-off movie about Hank will surely make you angry.

Harry Thomason's The Last Ride made me very self and health conscious.My mind wondered throughout most of its' transitions about my own health, as the driver Silas - played by Henry Thomas - throughout most of the ride there, gradually became less and less of a chronic cigarette smoker as a result of seeing his mysterious passenger in the backseat slowly coughing and struggling to death more and more for fresh air, a pack of smokes, or newer bottles of alcohol.By the time they get to the last gas station, before The Last Ride's ultimate climax, I think Silas, unnoticeably quits smoking, before a girl at the pump tells him he is this gas stations last customer. The owner of it died last year of a black lung so this is the gas stations last night of being open for business.The Last Ride starring – that's right – Jesse James as Hank Williams is about Hank Williams' last ride out, to a show somewhere in West Virginia. Two things I considered high brow about The Last Ride are as follows. One thing was The Last Ride, wasn't nearly as autobiographical as you could imagine any movie about a legendary country singer like, say Ray Charles, or Johnny Cash being, as much as it was more so about his last ride, in a literal sense, out to some gig he had in a random place and the relationship he developed with the young man, Silas, employed to get him out there safely.Williams was an alcoholic and chronic cigarette smoker too so it was the drivers' responsibility to get out there sober, while Silas is already worried about getting him out there alive. Another thing was how obvious Thomason didn't make the identity of Williams as a legendary country singer. I had to get out my laptop for research on the last ride to figure out who the mysterious passenger was because I don't think they ever tell you throughout this picture.Altogether I would say the last ride is about Hank William's posthumous fame.Silas doesn't listen to the radio so all he knows about his mysterious passenger the whole way there is that he is an alcoholic musician that carries a gun and won't stop being incredibly mean to him, while scolding him all of the time for calling him sir. But the funnier thing about that is Williams won't give Silas any other name to refer to him as.I think Silas learns of his passenger's traveling name by accident through a long distance phone call he has with an employer who is supposedly his employer, played by some guy whose been a senator for Tennessee for a couple of years and he didn't even mean to give Silas that information. Silas wasn't even supposed to have this guy's number because he is not in fact who originally hired this driver. It's just a weird movie, whose overall story structure run on a lot of obscure Lynchian fuel that you may have seen in either Lost Highway or Refn' latest nominated Drive, starring Ryan Gosling.The aesthetic liberties taken with the mechanics of The Last Ride's story structure is what I think makes up for all that it lacks in cinematography. You can tell they had a budget during the filming of The Last Ride. Altogether in retrospect I see The Last Ride as a hood classic whose mystery comes from what the film doesn't tell you throughout its' duration, about what is actually taking place.Audiences shouldn't go into the last ride knowing who that mysterious musician alcoholic passenger is. Aside from all of the mystery, movies like that about people with fighting chances that they can't stop blowing are usually touching to general audiences because the premise of them is normally in regards to their last chance and the main character of every movie like that never knows how close he is to that last breath, much like each and every one of us.The conservative nature of The Last Ride's scheme is what I think keeps it from venturing too far into anything sentimental or philosophical so its' a lot more chill and a lot less bias than most autobiographical films usually are.