There's something about Tony Musante that makes you want to punch him in the nose. Or if you're not the violent type - to have someone else do it. Which is perfect for an actor like George C. Scott, who didn't suffer fools and would scrap with just about anyone, on or off the set...
In THE LAST RUN Scott plays an aged getaway driver hired to take an escaped convict... whom he helped escape... on a score, and the entire Spain setting takes place either in the adobe brown countrysides, painted landscapes and, there and back again, a cool blue, fishing-boat beach. The tagline states, "In the tradition of Hemingway and Bogart," but with a Jerry Goldsmith score detailed by a haunting, reposeful harpsichord, it's really more of a Spaghetti Western with sporadic bursts of action between a "two's company, three's a crowd" road trip from one double-cross to another chance to score, with some twists and turns that shouldn't be spoiled in-between...
Stretched upon another intentionally bleak, atmospheric Neo Noir canvas by director Richard Fleischer, the action ala chase scenes and roadside shootout sequences flow smoothly at times, awkward at others within the parenthetical, motel-hopping, uneven yet savory dialogue, so it's about the characters, guided by their reactions to and against each other rather than the situation at hand, which needed more urgency, overall...
Meanwhile, the signature Spaghetti "revenge" element is portioned out to the audience as it's learned and dealt with by our main man, going from "over his head" to "in too deep" while far from alone in this particular, road-weaving purgatory that includes a brief June/November romance that's more a contrived male fantasy than being necessary to the overall story-line. Then again, this is pulp and it's fiction both. In droves - literally.
As the ingenue, Trish Van Devere delivers lines in a sort of dreamy, lifeless monotone, and she doesn't provide any chemistry in either direction as Scott's initial abhor for the cocky and condescending Musante shapes into something of an Uncle/Nephew who still have it in for each other, and the anti-chemistry works...
Once the trio hooks up during the second act there's a slick, cool, slownburn pace after suffering through a somewhat grueling rudimentary stage: by his rugged, granite looks and tough guy name alone, Scott's Harry Garmes need only exist in a sparse tale that initially tries too hard to establish his rabbit's-foot-religious yet existential character (in a loose "relationship" with a hooker played by ex-wife Colleen Dewhurst) who does only one thing well, and may or may not have waited too long for his return to it. In that, literally from the onset, the title explains everything about him while, at the same time, giving everything away.
