Justin Lin is no stranger to making movies built around spectacle. After all, he directed more Fast & Furious movies than any director working today before stepping away from the franchise (twice). He returns to something much smaller scale after his “Fast X” exit with “Last Days,” a narrative feature based on the true story of American missionary John Allen Chau, who visited and was killed by the isolated Indigenous Sentinelese people on their island off the coast of India after he tried to convert them. While this project seems like it could provide a fresh start for Lin and a return to his roots — he launched his career at Sundance with the indie drama “Better Luck Tomorrow” — it ultimately falls flat.
Unfortunately, instead of using the opportunity to offer up a nuanced, more incisive portrait of the man beyond the headlines, “Last Days” is a film that is so contrived, superficial and misconceived, it does a disservice to the story with every choice it makes. Half the film bizarrely plays out like a thriller as it follows the hunt for John, and the other half is a coming-of-age story in the vein of “Into the Wild” (though with none of the patience to make it work). It’s a film whose intentions may be mostly in the right place, but is undone at every turn by the confounding way it structures its narrative. When there is already a documentary about this story, 2023’s “The Mission,” that approaches it with far more tact, this film feels not just unnecessary, but downright distasteful in how manipulative it is by comparison.
Based on the excellent article “The Last Days of John Allen Chau,” we begin with the 26-year-old John (Sky Yang) as he makes his way to the North Sentinel Island alone on a kayak. He brings with him bibles that he’s wrapped in plastic bags so he can float them to the Sentinelese from a distance. In the film’s depiction of the encounter, this plan is going swimmingly until John makes a quick move and is attacked, resulting in a projectile striking him in the chest. Shot more like an action sequence with John hiding under his kayak as more projectiles whiz by the camera, it’s a strange scene that already feels not just forced, but insulting in how it tries to elicit excitement from the grim moment. It’s as if Lin is still in “Fast & Furious” mode as he sets the stage for a film that is more interested in getting us on the edge of our seats than into the mind of its real character, depriving it of emotion and insight.
As we then flash back through John’s life in one timeline to see how he got to the island and in another timeline, accompany determined Indian policewoman Meera Ganali (Radhika Apte) as she tries to find and stop John before he can carry out his mission, “Last Days” pulls its story in two opposing directions. It does so seemingly to poke at the beliefs of the young man as we hear many times from those not of his world and upbringing how fundamentally misguided he is.
But rather than serve a complex cautionary tale where the layers of how someone like John could become radicalized, the investigation is built around withholding details of the story so that it can be some sort of ticking-clock thriller. Whenever the film shifts in perspective to this part, you wonder why it is that we’re getting what is essentially a drawn-out “Law and Order” episode where the outcome is already known. Where a film like the stellar “Santosh” captures police corruption with nuance, this one is painfully blunt. It plays like filler in a film whose true story not only doesn’t need it, but becomes so dragged down by the added narrative weight that it barely keeps its head above the already choppy storytelling waters. The majority of the dialogue is overwrought and the development of John from lost youth to flawed man is so broadly sketched, it’s tough to get a real handle on his story.
Even when you think you’re starting to possibly get some sort of deeper idea of who John is or how it was that his family’s struggles shaped him (with “Industry’s” Ken Leung doing all he can as John’s father to no avail), it gets thrown out the window to cut back to the thriller story. Both remain constantly on the edge of derailing as “Last Days” returns to where it all began with a bait-and-switch that is so needlessly deceptive and manipulative that it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. On both sides of this moment, it prevents the film from speaking with anything resembling clarity or care.
Lin may have gotten his start outside of Hollywood and is trying to return to his indie roots, but every decision in “Last Days” turns the story into a frustrating, lackluster Hollywoodized version of itself.
“Last Days” is a sales title at Sundance.
