The Late Nite Landfill: "Last Exit"

Hooray, it’s another “Lifetime” movie! I’ve mentioned Lifetime movies before, and how films aired on that station in past years have ended up as part of a syndicated package of movies that help fill the Late Nite Landfill time slot at Channel 7.

This one looks like a doozy. One of the great things about Lifetime movies of recent vintage is what I call the “heightened escalation” factor. This is usually played out by the female characters in a story, and usually in one of two ways: the first is in their reaction to a cheating spouse or boyfriend, the second in response to a woman who has scorned them in some way (either the other woman stole her man, or ruined her career, or stole her identity, etc.). The characters go from “zero to sixty” in their hysteria, jumping to such insane extremes that they may even consider (and in some cases attempt or even succeed) to kill the party or parties who wronged them! Which makes the following description I found of “Last Exit” all the more amusing in its understatement: “Two ordinary women, both moms, succumb to stresses in their overburdened lives during a traffic jam.”

As I mentioned in an earlier post, there are alternate versions of many Lifetime movies created for international movie theaters, TV broadcasts or home video release. In some cases, those versions are longer and more liberal in their use of graphic language (in the “Last Exit” trailer you’ll hear a word that probably didn’t make it to the US Lifetime broadcast cut of the movie). A lot of Lifetime movies (and a lot of independent movies in general, including others seen on ABC’s late night movie) are co-productions between the US and other countries or Canada. Sometimes the films are made entirely in Canada, using Canadian actors and locales (I believe this may be changing soon, but for years Canadian productions have been government subsidized). Today’s movie appears to be Canadian in nature based on one of the descriptions I found online: “Road rage leads two Canadian mothers on an extended car chase.”

The cast for this one seems interesting. When you read Kathleen Robertson’s bio at imdb.com (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005370/bio) you’ll find that she hasn’t had many lead roles, but she’s had several flashy supporting roles, often opposite big names. Her most well-known movies are probably “Scary Movie 2,” and “Hollywoodland,” and she had the title role in the serial killer bio-pic, “Torso: The Evelyn Dick Story.” Co-star Andrea Roth has done a lot of guest-star roles on TV series and is probably best known for recurring roles as Janet on “Rescue Me” and Diana on the TV series spinoff of “Robocop.” Linden Ashby has worked steady for many years appearing in direct-to-DVD movies, doing guest stints on TV shows, and having recurring roles on soap operas. He is most notable for taking on the role of Johnny Cage in the video game adaptation “Mortal Kombat” after originally slated star Brandon Lee was killed.

The director, John Fawcett has a mixed bag of credits, including directing, producing and writing on a variety of projects. I have to give him a shout-out for directing and co-writing “Ginger Snaps,” an at-the-time unique retelling of the werewolf legend.

View the trailer for “Last Exit” here: