It’s fascinating and a bit sad to watch a new Arnold Schwarzenegger movie in a post-Arnold era. What will go through the heads of the future’s children when they come across this film “The Last Stand”, wondering who exactly this shriveled up Austrian man is, and what he’s doing in a movie when he clearly has no grasp of acting? They’ll look him up. The 38th Governor of California, you kidding me?
When Schwarzenegger first shows his face in “The Last Sand” it’s jolting- the fleshy mask of a seventy years old, the dyed thinning hair standing bent at attention over a face covered in stretched leather. His lips appear thin and gray and when he speaks from them he reveals that his acting hasn’t improved much since “Conan the Barbarian” thirty years before.
Everything was working and moving forward in 1981 when Conan was shot in the tranquil regions of Spain. Arnold was riding the wave of a bodybuilding career into Hollywood’s embrace, starring in a perfect follow up to “The Jayne Mansfield Story”. Assistants waited on him hand and foot and women threw themselves at him. He loved to bring the women back to his trailer to bed them and then work on his muscles with weights. Acting was easy, all he needed was the body and the confidence. No one questioned a person like Arnold existing in the fantasy world of Conan, all accents could be used and swirled together to praise Crom. No one questioned the presence of the giant Austrian in the room. He stood five feet ten inches but told people he was 6’ 2, and they believed it.
What made Arnold a star was the audience’s enjoyment of watching him be violent. In fact, there was period of about fifteen years where audiences loved to watch this big Austrian kill people. As he took on roles in the modern world the accent became comical but still we loved to watch him kill. He put down the sword of Conan and picked up the guns of cops, commandos- cybernetic hitmen. He picked up every type of gun. He killed hundreds. In “Terminator” all he did was kill people and we loved it. He killed even more in “Commando” and we cheered.
His drive and ego pushed him far beyond what people expected of him. The same year he starred in “Raw Deal” he married Maria Shriver, a member of the once powerful Kennedy family. Arnold spoke in interviews of interest in politics and people laughed. Who would vote for this gap toothed immigrant “actor”? It was a joke. Arnold kept the goal in mind, steadily pushing his career along with bigger budgets and larger roles. He spent his days on film sets, washing off the flings with make up girls and co-stars in his trailer before returning home to his family. It was in his mansion back in Brentwood that he truly played a role.
In “The Last Stand”, Arnold lets age humble him into playing the part of a small town sheriff. He has has a few interactions with the the town’s residents in the early part of the film. These supporting actors depict salt of the earth, real deal Americans who say they have high cholesterol and don’t care, so why should they be worried about the blood thirsty cartel boss and his gang converging on the town? The scenes are played for laughs but it brought me back to Arnold’s action epics from the ‘80’s, when the actors around Schwarzenegger were always asked to play it straight.
Arnold as an actor seemed to work best in science fiction, when things were already so preposterous the main character’s accent and acting was an afterthought. Twenty five years before “The Hunger Games” Arnold killed before a live television audience in the homicidal world of “The Running Man”. His perfect role, the role of a robot with no personality, was a huge hit and led to the blockbusting sequel “Terminator 2 Judgement Day”. His best film, “Predator”, had him lose the guns and simply use his brawn and brains to battle a physically superior alien in the lush jungle of Columbia. In “Total Recall” he teamed up with Dutch weirdo Paul Verhoven and made the bloodiest adaptation of Phllip K Dick story ever.
Things began to slow down in the mid-90’s. People weren’t coming out to watch Arnold kill people in big crowds anymore. His occasional roles in non-action films like “Jingle All The Way” were disturbingly bizarre. The world seemed to be moving passed Arnold. Audiences were starting to view him as a throwback to the 80’s and his body was not as swelled and taught as it once was.
Arnold looked for solace in unexpected places. One day in early 1997, when his wife and kids were out of the house, he bedded the maid, Patty Baena. On October 2nd she gave birth to a boy, a month after Arnold’s wife, Maria Shriver, gave birth to their fourth child. Arnold was the father of both children but only claimed the legitimate one as his own, falsifying the documents on baby Joseph’s birth certificate.
In 2003 Arnold ran for Governor of California and won. After the recall election, informed citizens of California sat around scratching their heads, wondering what the hell happened. Our new Governor appeared on television and at political events making reference to his film career and calling Democratic lawmakers “economic girlymen”. It was all so preposterous, like one of his science fiction films.
While in office, Arnold found there to be much more to politics than just confidence and an imposing body. After eight years of battling critics and unions he stepped down, his accomplishments limited. Leaving Sacramento freed Maria Shriver to act on the suspicion she had held for fourteen years, that Arnold was the father of the maid’s son Joseph. When finally confronted the ex-governor fessed up to it and Maria took the kids and left.
Arnold was left alone in the Brentwood mansion, pacing the high ceilinged rooms and talking aloud to the bust of Ronald Reagan that sat on his desk. Where had things gone so wrong? What was left except grave disappointment for a man who had accomplished all of his life’s goals? When was the last time he had felt true happiness? Arnold thought back to his years in the state house and came up empty. He thought back to the times he spent on movie sets and a smile came to his graying lips.
“The Last Stand” is a film that allows Arnold to do what he does best, kill people on camera. He blasts them with revolvers and mows them down with an antique machine gun, all in the name of his ageing ego. As I said in the opening, it is indeed fascinating, but even more so, it is undignified and profoundly sad.
09-03-13
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