Max Allan Collins’ signature hitman character of Quarry blasts his way onto the big screen in THE LAST LULLABY, based on the short story “A Matter of Principal,” itself extended into the full-length novel THE LAST QUARRY.
Director Jeffrey Goodman’s film isn’t quite the pulpy bag of sex and violence you’d expect. Note how the word “lullaby” has snuck its way into the title, because this is a low-key, low-budget crime thriller that plays for mood, not mayhem. In doing so, the whole thing sneaks up on you, subverting your expectations, digging under your skin and having genuine staying power.
Tom Sizemore (HEAT, NATURAL BORN KILLERS) plays Quarry, a former freelance assassin who lives a lonely, empty life. One night, unable to sleep, he drives to the convenience store and overhears two thugs shopping for and talking about a female they obviously do not know well. He figures something’s up and follows them out to the country, where inside a shack of a house, they’re holding a young woman (Sprauge Grayden, TV’s 24) hostage.
One “holy shit!” moment later, Quarry saves her. She assumes he’s been sent by her big-shot father, Martin (Bill Smitrovich, IRON MAN, EAGLE EYE). He hasn’t, of course, but that doesn’t mean Martin isn’t grateful for the return of his daughter. In fact, the jogging-suited papa offers Quarry a job — the temporary kind.
Quarry’s not interested; he’s recently retired from the killing game. But $1 million is tough to turn down. His target: Sarah (Sasha Alexander, TV’s NCIS), a nonthreatening librarian. Why would someone so mild-mannered have a price on her pretty little head? Quarry’s intrigued enough not to off her right away, just to find out.
The movie’s biggest detriment going in turns out to be one of its greatest assets: Sizemore. Given his tabloid antics of recent years, no one ever says, “I can’t wait to see Tom Sizemore’s next!” With his drug arrests and prosthetic penis and near-marriage to Heidi Fleiss, he’s now known more for his public life than his performances, so it’s easy to forget how good of an actor he can be. Within just the first few minutes, all the media-circus baggage that surrounds him just melts away.
He’s excellent in the role, even though this Quarry isn’t exactly the Quarry from the page, despite Collins writing both (here, with co-writer Peter Biegen). The confidence is all there, but he’s not much of a wisecracker or a back-talker. In other words, the shades of noir have been stripped, so the movie is more day than night, more overcast than dark.
Alexander nearly matches him. She’s not Hollywood’s idea of a traditional leading lady … and thank God for that, because she’s very real. Their last scene together — the film’s final shot, incidentally — gave me chills.
Goodman does a great job with limited funds, managing suspense while also purposely maintaining a walking pace — a nice antidote to the usual, pedal-to-the-metal approach of genre films. THE LAST LULLABY is all about atmosphere, and to that end, it’s aided tremendously by Ben Lovett’s minimalist score. I want that soundtrack.
This is a feature that rewards patience and attention. Readers of Collins — or just readers in general — will have to admire that a particularly tense cat-and-mouse sense takes place in a public library, of all places, or that when Quarry ducks for cover into a used bookstore, through the window of which we see a spinner rack with paperback copies of Thomas McGuane’s THE SPORTING CLUB and John D. MacDonald’s DEATH TRAP. Like the planning of a clean hit, it’s all in the details. —Rod Lott
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