One Last Dance (2006)
One Last Dance(2006) 4/10
The best praise i can give it is that it has a good, almost addictive soundtrack and that it looks good visually. You have got to give it some credit for making Singapore look totally unlike Singapore. But beyond visuals and music, the rest of the film is a mess. Its like an amateur trying to imitate Tarantino and failing miserably. Francis Ng tries to save the film, and to his credit he does put in an effort but this is clearly not among his best works and there is only so much he can do to salvage his one-diemensional character. Vivian Hsu is the classical flower vase, while Ti Lung doesn’t do much actually and Harvey Keitel’s role is so minuscule you suspect that he was roped in just to add some dash of Hollywood into this film.
The script is ultimately its downfall, being needlessly confusing. The film does not necessarily progress in chronological order, and the director tries to create a surprising denouement in the third act, but instead of getting The Usual Suspects, we get a muddled screenplay. Its partly financed by Raintree Pictures and instead of hiring a good director, you know someone like Christopher Nolan or David Fincher, it seems the budget only allows for a third-tier director like Max Makowski and a lousy script.
