‘Last Seen Alive’ – A generic offering from Gerard Butler

There’s always that perfect couple whose life could not be better. They have good jobs, their health, and what should be the perfect marriage. Yet, something doesn’t feel right for Gerard Butler’s Will and Jaimie Alexander’s Lisa. What that something is, they couldn’t tell you if they tried. The two decide to take a break, figure things out, and reassess. But before they can start to figure out what their relationship is missing, it’s Lisa herself who is nowhere to be found.

Wracked with worry, Will stops at nothing to find his wife, imagining the worst as he does. While most men on a mission might mull more mitigating measures, Will takes a ‘punch first and ask questions later’ approach to his search. Everyone within a one-mile radius who might be a suspect is subject to his rage. Something that’s hilariously not a problem for the detective on the case, played by Russell Hornsby, who is too good of an actor for this role.

Throughout the movie, Will commits several crimes in his pursuit of justice. He steals equipment from a gas station, beats a man to near death with a crowbar and then throws him in the trunk of his car, bound and gagged. Then once he gets a gun in his hands, it’s a veritable free-for-all. All the while, the police are not only aware of his actions, but seem to actively condone them.

There’s even a scene where Will is stopped on the side of the road and caught literally red-handed with a man tied up in his trunk. The policeman who discovers this meekly orders Will to get down on the ground, but does next to nothing when Will decides to run into a nearby bush.

As Will’s heinous crimes rack up, he hopes that he can rescue his wife, operating on the defence of ‘all’s well that ends well’. Until that point, the film is a generic thriller, complete with typical flashback scenes that do nothing for the movie’s characters or plot and seem to be there to pad out the film’s runtime. The worst thing about the film is that for all its ridiculous plot developments, it is ultimately forgettable and should probably only be seen by accident.

Rating: Catch it On Cable

Damian Levy is a film critic and podcaster for Damian Michael Movies.