DVD Roundup
The Last Ride A Story of Hank Williams Music’s Origi- nal Bad Boy (20th Century Fox) Blu-Ray
What a cool
movie. The writer and pro- ducer never claim that it is 100 percent true,
mind you. They say “most of this happened.” Honesty. Rare in Hollywood. Jesse James turns in an outstanding per-
formance as Silas, a young man who spends his days greasing the undersides of those huge, 1950’s automobiles. (Back when cars were by God cars!) Of course, the bossman is a horse’s ass, and the kid is looking for a way out of this dead-end life he is living. Enter, the powder blue Cadillac and it’s mysterious driver, Mr. Wells. Wells is looking to hire a driver to take him to a series of gigs. His pre- vious driver disappeared. Most likely left on the side of the road somewhere. Oh, did I say Wells is a little hard to get along with? How about, a lot hard to get along with? The kid ends up on the phone with Wells’ (Hank Williams, although that name is never spo- ken during the movie. The closest they come is “Luke,” as in “Luke the Drifter”) manager (Fred Dalton Thompson), which begins a process of “check in calls” with Thompson trying to get a sober Williams to his sold-out
gig. Silas has learned that in order for him to get paid, Luke has to show up at the shows sober. Of course, that proves to be quite a challenge. The movie if full of great scenes and
scenery. I don’t want to give anything away, but I will say, this is what I call an “actor’s movie.” The two principles could just as easily be onstage doing a Sam Shepard play. Which brings me to Hank. True confession time. I was halfway through the movie, wondering where I’d seen this great actor playing Hank Williams previously. I looked at the name, Henry Thomas. Oh! I know that name! I pulled up iMDB on my Mac. There he was, the child star, Henry Thomas. Hank Williams was being played by Elliot from E.T. Cool! And man, oh man does he do a great job. Oh, and showing up late in the movie is the ex- tremely cute Kaley Cuoco, providing a love in- terst for Silas. Great acting from Kaley as well. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the
late Rick Dial, who shows up here as a road- side bar owner. Dial, who recently passed away, was my favorite non-actor, actor. A childhood friend of Billy Bob Thornton, Dial ended up playing in many of Thornton’s films, including Sling Blade.He always did great job, then went back to Arkansas and ran his furniture store. Dial was a natural on- screen, He will be missed. The Last Ride gets five stars in my book. In
a day and age where movies are judged by the number of explosions, it is a real treat to get back to my kind of movies - real life dramas.
-Michael Buffalo Smith 64
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