Pulpmovies Reviews

Things aren’t going too well for Nigel (Morten Vogelius). Down on his luck and deeply in debt, he and his junkie wife, Maria (Jette Philipsen) flee from England, ending up in a run-down apartment in Copenhagen and looking for some way to pay the bills.

Following a chance meeting with Tobias (Erling Eliasson), Nigel makes contact with a character known as “The President” (Peter Ottesen), an underworld figure dealing in porn and prostitution.

I have to admit that I found The President to be a great villain. Peter Ottesen manages to exude a level of casual menace that is both realistic and unnerving. In fact, I probably found him unnerving because I found his character so realistic.

Kudos should also go to Morten Vogelius who does a great job in portraying Nigel as a very weak-willed and self centred character. It’s very much the case that when things start to go wrong for Nigel, his problems are invariably caused by his being so wrapped up in himself that he is either unable or unwilling to extricate himself from a clearly dangerous situation and Vogelius does an excellent job of bringing this across.

We learn later on that, in leaving England, Nigel has also walked out on his wife and son and that he has married Maria more out of convenience than any real feelings for her, which, as much as anything, is a reflection of the entirely self-centred nature of his personality.

The President decides that he does have a job for Nigel – temporarily storing some boxes in his apartment. Nigel agrees, in spite of his initial desire to let Maria know what is going on and The President sends him off with Tanya (Gry Bay), one of his girls.

Unsurprisingly, Nigel ends up in bed with Tanya and is awoken the next morning with a phone call from Maria wanting to know why he didn’t come the previous night and why 50 boxes had been delivered to him.

From this point on, things go from bad to worse for Nigel…

With Last Exit, David Noel Bourke and André Moulin have crafted a darkly comic film – especially in the later scenes – that is well worth seeing. The soundtrack and cinematography combine to provide a suitably downbeat view of Copenhagen’s criminal underside.

Of course, a film such as this wouldn’t work without a solid cast. And again, all of the actors come through very solidly. I’ve already mentioned Morten Vogelius and Peter Ottesen, but none of performances were less than fully believable.

And now seems to be as good time as any to mention Jimmy (Nicholas Sherry), Nigel’s philosophising dope dealer who, in his roundabout way, tries to encourage Nigel to recognise the problems he is laying in store for himself. Jimmy’s philosophical monologues are very entertaining to listen to, to say the least. That said, a bit more explanation as to how Jimmy knows Nigel would have been nice.

Last Exit suffers from some cluttered plotting in places and at least one scene (another monologue, this time from an angry Irishman) that could have been cut. But, for its darkly humorous portrayal of the downfall of a weak willed and self centred man, it’s a film well worth tracking down.

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