Plot Details: This opinion reveals everything about the movie's plot.

I saw this movie when it first screened in the theaters in the fall of 1971. I was in my freshman year of college and became entranced by this movie and many of the themes contained within it.

To be sure, when viewed 32 years after its first release, it is a dated but still powerful look at what a biological war, using what we now refer to as WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction) and in that, it offers a gripping look at what could happen if weapons like these were unleashed on a technologically dependent society like the USA.

THE MOVIE'S SETTING:

It is sometime in 1977, two years after the end of a bio-war first started by the Sino-Soviet border conflict that eventually drew in the USA and the rest of the world. The location is downtown Los Angeles and director Boris Sagal (now deceased) had to shoot very early on Sunday mornings to have unfettered use of the city's deserted streets.

THE STAR & MAIN CHARACTER:

Legendary actor Charlton Heston, already known for his roles as Judah Ben-Hur, Andrew Jackson and Michelangelo plays Colonel (Dr.) Robert Neville, an Army bio-war research scientist and medical doctor who is feverishly working on a vaccine to prevent the near 100% fatality rate from the airborne organisms that are destroying humankind throughout America. At the time of the war, he is living and working in Los Angeles and it is there that he believes he has found the cure to stop and ultimately reverse the effects of the plague that is destroying the world.

Before the world as he knows it ends, Neville listens to LA broadcaster Jonathan Mathias (played by Anthony Zerbe who previously appeared with Heston in the 1966 western, WILL PENNY). His position as a TV anchor allows him to postulate on the coming end of the world. He does so with a foreboding vision of the end as it crashes in.

On a short cross-town helicopter flight (in an even then vintage Bell S-13 helicopter), Neville's pilot is overtaken by the plague and he dies at the controls of the chopper. Neville survives the fiery crash and injects himself with the experimental batch of vaccine. It works for him, but unfortunately it is too late for the rest of the world.

THEME 1:

Man dealing with loneliness. From the opening scenes of this movie, we see Neville driving down the deserted streets of metro LA. He stops quickly and without explanation, brings a sub-machine gun to his shoulder and begins to fire into an office building's windows. The first time viewer of this apocalyptic wasteland wonders why?

Neville is alone or is he?

Not really, others have survived, but they are no longer quite human. Not to themselves and certainly not to Colonel Robert Neville, recently a doctor in the Medical Corps of the now defunct U.S. Army.

The other remaining inhabitants of downtown LA are in the "tertiary" stage of the disease caused by the biotoxins that were launched by exploding ICBMs. These remnants of humankind call themselves "The Family." But in reality, they are nothing but mutated forms of human life; they have all become albinos with pale, pigmentless skin and the ultra-sensitivity to light characteristic of people suffering this debilitation.

As the movie progresses, Neville lets on that former newsman Mathias has also survived, and that he is now the self-proclaimed head of the Family. Like the other members, he is now an albino, condemned to darkness during the day and wandering the streets at night trying to catch Neville outside of his fortified townhome and also burning books, machines and other vestiges of "the old way."

Neville lives high and uses the "forbidden things." "He has the smell of oil and electrical circuitry about him." Most importantly he does not share the "marks" that designate membership in THE FAMILY.

Unbeknownst to the psychotic Mathias and the other homicidal maniacs who surround him, Neville is now immune to the plague, since he injected himself with the only then known possible vaccine. Neville knows this and over the two years since the world came to a screeching halt, he has patrolled the streets near his home and has even attempted to capture family members to see if he could create additional sources of antibodies via his own blood as the starting point for a new serum supply. He is not very successful.

On one of his patrols, Neville returns to a movie theater where he goes to watch WOODSTOCK (a then current movie at the time THE OMEGA MAN was being filmed). He has seen it so many times that he can recite the script verbatim. These are the things he does to fill his lonely days; days filled with nothing but never ending solitude.

THEME 2: THE DESCENT INTO MADNESS

Neville has not spoken to another living human being in more than two years and it is starting to wear very, very thin. Rather than endure complete silence, he begins to talk to himself and one wonders does he expect to get coherent answers. On his patrols, he tapes reports into a small micro-cassette recorder, both as a means of record-keeping and as another source of human companionship.

Neville talks to his statue of Caesar when he comes home, but the mute Caesar says nothing. He follows pointless rituals and asks himself and Caesar what day of the week it is and realizes it's Sunday; he answers his own query when he announces to himself (and the viewing audience), "I always dress for dinner on Sundays." As if it really matters. Who will know if he didn't?

Neville has a rather one-sided conversation when he speaks to the corpse of a sales rep at a now deserted Ford dealership. He attempts to negotiate a better trade for the car he left wrecked outside. With no response from the dealer or Ford Credit, Neville does the only thing he can. He simply "steals" the car. Not that Ford or the LAPD care; they no longer exist.

On another patrol Neville realizes he has found more than a mannequin in a now empty department store. It is here we meet Lisa (Rosalind Cash) for the first time. She gives Neville the slip and again, we see Neville questioning his eyesight and sanity.

Shortly thereafter and while investigating a hotel's wine cellar, Neville is captured by the Family. The game would appear to be over, especially when it becomes obvious that Neville is to be tried for his "crimes against humanity." However, the die is cast, the verdict is pre-determined and the Family takes Neville to a deserted Dodger stadium, where having forsaken more modern means, they plan to burn him at the stake.

THEME 3: NEVILLE FACES JUDGMENT

In the mock trial, there is an uncanny reminder of the questioning of Jesus by Pilate. Accusations fly and Neville is accused of just about every heinous crime these mutants can think up. He answers truthfully all questions put to him but tells Mathias, "build coffins, that's all you'll need" when it is obvious they have no interest in his offer of help.

The symbols and related imagery as throwbacks to books and other movies continue unabated. I thought immediately of Charles Dickens A TALE OF TWO CITIES when I saw the tumbril that the Family used to transport Neville to his "Golgotha." I thought of the condemned aristocrats that the Jacobins under Robespierre sent to the guillotine and of Sydney Carton and his famous speech that began with, "it is a far better thing that I do..." I thought of Joan of Arc and the way she died, at the stake for heresy and witchcraft and of millions of others who were murdered with official sanction because their beliefs were not condoned or because they allegedly practiced "forbidden arts and sciences."

Miraculously, it is other humans, hiding from the family who spare Neville the searing heat of the flame and he is rescued and whisked off to safety on a motorcycle by the lady in the department store. Yes, Lisa has returned and has saved Neville's butt.

When they arrive at their fortified redoubt above the forlorn and empty LA downtown, Lisa explains all as Neville meets a small community of children and two adults who have been spared the albinism of the plague. They know they are resistant but not immune. Neville tells them there is hope.

Lisa asks if she can save her brother, Richie (played by former teen actor from ROOM 222, Eric Laneuville - now a TV and movie director). Richie has already turned pale and is light sensitive. His next stop is death or psychosis and should that happen, the small group's only recourse would be to kill him before he could turn on them.

Neville takes Richie back to his fortress home which is also a fully equipped lab. It is there that he finds new purpose as a man and a doctor and slowly he saves Richie's life and offers new hope to what is left of mankind.

THEME 4: COLOR NO LONGER MATTERS

Throughout the early scenes of this movie, we realize that color is no longer an issue. Members of ALL races have died or have suffered the albinism, psychosis of the plague. Mathias has used their common misery to define a common foe, in this case, the LAST MAN ON EARTH.

It is here that I should offer my own observations. There is a certain degree of Christian symbolism contained within the movie. In the Greek alphabet, Omega is the last letter and it is used biblically by Jesus when he refers to himself as "Alpha and Omega," the beginning and the end. Neville, by virtue of his immunity to the plague is the last real human (man) on earth. And as the creator of future vaccine sources, he could justifiably be called the 'first' man on earth as he provides their only possible escape from the edge of the abyss and extinction.

Heston, known for his larger than life roles was deliberately cast in this role as "the savior, a 20th century Messiah, sent to rescue mankind from its own self-induced destruction. It is very clever and subtle casting. Or at least I thought it was when I first saw the movie.

It is an underlying theme that many viewers and reviewers here have either missed or chosen not to discuss.

To be sure, Dr. Robert Neville is not an angel. He enters into a lustful relationship with Lisa and becomes quite protective of her. But he still sees the Family as vermin and wants to achieve their final destruction before he, Lisa, Richie, Dutch (a former med student played by a very young looking Paul Koslo - a 70s standard known more for his villainy than anything more redeeming) and the kiddies can escape to the hopefully safer and more serene rural areas of California. They hope to begin anew and yes, forsake many of the technological trappings that eventually led to mankind's near total destruction.

But peace and harmony are not in the cards, at least not for Neville. On a final shopping trip, Lisa "goes over" and becomes a member of the Family. She approaches Mathias and company and betrays Neville, by showing these arch-enemies of the "scientist, the user of machinery, the one who lives in the light," the way around his defenses.

Neville comes home from a valiant but fruitless attempt to save Richie. Yes, Richie recovered, and in his naive (read misguided liberal) way, had hoped to broker a peace between the Family and Neville. Before they murder him, Richie tells Mathias and the family that Neville has a cure and he is living proof. Mathias denies a cure is possible and and ends the discussion. Later, Neville finds Richie's dead body on the floor, directly below a judge's bench in the building that used to be the LA Hall of Justice.

Mathias has served as judge, jury and executioner and the sentence was carried out swiftly, with no chance of appeal.

When Neville returns home to a darkened apartment, he calls out to Lisa. He tries to explain Richie's death before he fully realizes what has happened in just a few short hours.

As Lisa comes from the darkened corner of their home, she says simply, "Coming, Robert" in a small and delirious voice. Mathias chimes in and in horror, Neville calls out in anguish, "oh my Goddddd." He is captured again.

Mathias has no intention of ever letting him escape again. As far as he is concerned, Neville is the great Satan and he wants the nightmare to end. He no longer wants to have to look over his shoulder or have his daytime sleep disturbed, wondering if Neville has found him and wants to carry out his appointed rounds as the Grim Reaper.

But like a cat, Neville still has some of his 9 lives remaining (at least for a little longer) and he fights off the Family members restraining him. He grabs Lisa and the vaccine from a small lab fridge after witnessing the complete destruction of his home and all he had previously held dear. He heads down to street level knowing that daylight is less than two hours away; he knows that once daylight comes, the Family must remain indoors and that he and Lisa will be safe on the streets for a change.

His plan goes awry when Mathias finds a spear left behind in a previous attempt to take Neville inside his impregnable fortress. While trying to clear a jam in his submachine gun and outlined in the light of the fountain outside his home, Mathias throws the spear and I was reminded of David striking down Goliath with his puny sling.

The spear catches Neville in the chest and we know immediately that the wound is mortal. Mathias revels from above and tells his followers that now they can all sleep in peace.

Neville hangs on and Lisa shield her eyes and face from the rising sun. Shortly after dawn, Dutch arrives with the other surviving children and comes on the scene of Neville's crucifixion. Yes, that imagery is very palpable and real. Heston/Neville is hanging onto the fountain's sculpture as if he had been hung on a cross. He is holding on to deliver his life's blood to Dutch, who as a third year med student will know how to synthesize the last liter of Neville's blood into serum that will save the rest of the world.

With his final mission accomplished, Neville falls into the fountain's blood stained water and the camera rises above his prostrate figure, arms outstretched. It is here that the imagery of crucifixion and the messianic symbolism is most apparent. Some reviewers have called this ending hokey, I thought it consistent with the overall plot and the underlying themes and thought it well done.

By today's standards, the cinematography, the lack of computer generated imagery, the dated clothes and cars have cast a pall on this movie. But don't be dissuaded from seeing this movie. There are a number of messages within this film that are worth retrieving, especially in light of the recent war with Iraq and the alleged threats posed to U.S. civilization by a despot who may or may not have had WMD capability.

Whether this most recent war was a moral one or not is probably best left to future historians. When you watch THE OMEGA MAN, there are no ambiguities; there is good and there is evil. And as author of the novel I AM LEGEND, Richard Matheson, from which this movie was derived shows, there will always be shades of gray.

While dated in some aspects, this is still a movie with a powerful message for whatever time God chooses to grant to humankind. It is also a warning, albeit with Cold War overtones.

We need to remember that we humans have proven quite capable of dreaming up, designing and producing horrific weapons, some so horrible that the thought of their use and destructive capability should be all that is needed to ever permit their unleashing.

Heston delivers a well realized portrait of a tortured, lonely survivor in this 32 year old film. He also speaks eloquently to the needs we all have for love, companionship, warmth and the fellowship of other people.

The ending, while bleak, holds out the possibility of hope for a better future. As the Land Rover heads up the 101 Freeway and out of LA, that is the only message remaining to the few survivors of man's inhumanity to his fellow man.

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older