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‘The Last Front’ Review: An Engrossing Old-School World War I Melodrama of Brave Civilians and Despicable Invaders
Iain Glen stars in 'The Last Front,' an old-school but effective World War I drama about German soldiers invading a Belgian village.
Set at the outbreak of World War I, this fictive tale of invading German forces wreaking havoc in the Belgian countryside depicts just one arena for violence in a conflict that would drag on for another four years. But “The Last Front,” in limited release from Enigma on Friday, is deftly handled, eking considerable force from its familiar faceoff between besieged civilians, led by Iain Glen ’s reluctant-leader farmer, and Joe Anderson, as a truly detestable officer in the Kaiser’s army. It’s a bit of a credibility lapse that the sternly disapproving Commander doesn’t yank his rogue lieutenant-son from the fray, given the degree of sadistic chaos he sows, particularly after dad calls him (accurately enough) a “monster.” Regardless, Anderson creates a vivid nemesis, whose ability to enflame viewer emotions recalls the title given Erich von Stroheim when he was playing similar roles in WWI melodramas over a century ago: “The Man You Love to Hate.”
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