Films that take place in one location have been hit and miss over the years. Sometimes they can be a bit action-packed and others can be a bit dull and boring. The Last Stop In Yuma County is a bit of both. It has some intense scenes, but a lot of it is slower-paced and boring. This film just doesn’t know the pace it should be set at. It’s a little more disjointed than it should be for the type of movie it is.

For lack of a better word, there is a noir feel to this story. It features a man who stops at a gas station and ends up at the diner next door because the gas pumps are dry. He has to wait patiently for the truck to arrive to fill them up. As he waits the diner fills up with an old couple and other unsavory characters with questionable morals. These people have things that are pressing and hanging out in this diner isn’t exactly what they envisioned when they stopped at this gas station in the middle of nowhere. 

The two different styles, a noir, and a location film, are a perfect fit for this story. Most of the characters are interesting,  but the script doesn’t give them enough of a backstory for my liking. One man is a knife salesman and another woman, the waitress at the diner, is married to the town Sheriff, but there isn’t much to these people. The villains of the story have much more interesting stuff going on with them. 

There is a Western feel to this story so it’s more of a neo-western with noir elements.  The characters are typical characters you’d find in a movie such as this. Some aloof characters, some bystanders, a couple of instigators, and the main bad guys add to quite the mix of characters. There are a couple of twists as far as the different motivations of the various people in the group as well. They helped change things up from other similar films.

The writer/director Galluppi creates an interesting atmosphere for this story to take place. He does a great job of making the characters just accessible enough to keep them interesting to watch and for viewers to care about. The look of the muted Arizona landscape also made it look like a western as well. It’s a Western in all, but the title. Even the characters have that kind of feeling about them as well.

Even the music which is played over various scenes is decent. There is a folk rock and country feel to the songs, but specifically during one scene where  a juke box is playing a Roy Orbison tune, the music is very effective.  This one probably the best scen of the film for me. I loved how the director set the mood during this sequence. It’s the kind of this that your looking for in this type of movie. I enjoyed this quite a bit.

The Last Stop In Yuma County is a film that resembles other styles of movies quite a bit. Whether it’s a neo-western or a noir it has its look and feel to it. The characters are a bit one-note and their motivations could have been fleshed out a little bit more than they were. The direction was fine, but the more intense scenes could have been a little more prevalent.  There are slower moments than I’d like to be honest. Overall it wasn’t a bad film though.

3  stars

Dan Skip Allen