Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Sam Worthington, Colson Baker, Thomas Jane, Emily Marie Palmer, Heather Graham, Kim DeLonghi, Danny Bohnen, Scotty Bohnen, Alex Meraz, James Landry Hébert, Bates Wilder, James Do Giacomo, Kendra Alaura, Hiram A. Murray, David Silverman, David Myers Gregory, Steve Silkotch, Andrew Stecker, Michael McCartney, Trinity Schuetzie, Fiona Schuetzie, Jodie Moore, Gary Gwin, Casey Birdinground, Kathleen Timberman, Tucson Vernon Walker, Tim Montana, Thomas White, Tanaisia Slaughter, Patrick Thomas O’ Brien, Quentin Schuetzle, Christine Mayn.

Hollywood’s cinema’s history is arguably entwinned with that of the United States of America’s almost preoccupation with the great expanse, its own Civil War, and the damnation of the white skinned European settlers and their descendants as they crossed paths with the Native American people.

The ability to look back on the great Western films of the past with a new conviction has meant that if cinema wishes to create a tale that captures the atrocity and the slow purposeful death associated with a culture, then it must do so with a keener sense of responsibility than it alluded to or showed in the medium’s heyday.

Since the turn of the century, great strides have been taken in the realisation and portrayal of the colonisation of Native American land, and even in a film with even the barest connection to the division across the minds of two competing cultures, there must be a truth that is undeniable and unequivocal. That truth of evil comes forth in The Last Son Of Isaac Lemay, the prophecy of a member of one of the tribes that the man will meet his end at the hands of a progeny is a call back to the belief that the sentient nature of the Native American has never been truly explored, not fully, and whilst this is a brief one shot scene, it holds the entire tale that unfolds as a mark of respect to old traditions, and the serious thought of humanity’s lack of understanding to the nature of forced succession.

To state that the film is grim in its outlook is to suggest the morose feeling that will inevitably hit the viewer during the film, and yet what overrides this is the damage willing to be done, an ancient rite asserting itself that only those who bring another into the world can remove them from life.

Grim, but filmed with dedication, a cascade of realism in the tale’s approach, an onrushing drama in which the devastation of the time is brutally accepted, and disposed of in such a dramatic fashion, and with tremendous performances by Sam Worthington, Thomas Jane, Heather Graham, and especially Emily Marie Palmer in the role of quiet Megan, a seething volcano of a human being who is more than a allusion to a darker soul waiting to erupt, the belief in the film is one to admire, to focus upon with a steady mind.

The Last Son Of Isaac Lemay is a film of anticipation, of pre-revenge, and determination, one that captures the deep ill ease that the west expanse into unknown territory aptly mirrors the mind when ill-intent consumes and naked aggression ensues. Understanding of its time and place, this is a tale of unyielding drama.

Ian D. Hall