Note: this review refers to the movie as The Last Patrol because that is my DVD title, and it makes more sense.

While the last thing the world needs is another straight to video post disaster movie, I felt the urge to buy The Last Patrol on the grounds that it’s a Dolph action movie, which are usually entertaining, and that it was dirt cheap.

The movie takes place after a gigantic earthquake has separated California from the rest of the USA, making it an island. The only form of order is a military base where three officers of different branches of the military reside. Nick Preston (Dolph Lundgren ) is an army Captain, Sarah McBride(Sherri Alexander – Layover) is an Airforce Captain and Lucky Simcoe (Joe Michael Burke – Wild Things 2) a Marine Sgt.

Also at the base is Lucky’s wife Candy(Rebecca Cross – The Bachelor),comedian and Native/chef wannabe Cooky (Ze’ev Revach – Delta Force One) and Pope (Terry Big Charles – Crazy Horse) a native American youngster.

Preston has a personal quest, to find a bus full of kids that he met just before the quake, but so does McBride, who desperately wants to find her helicopter pilot brother.

But their plans are disrupted by the growing power of a prisoner who has taken over a maximum security prison. As he kidnaps Candy and the trio break into his fortress to rescue her, they discover more than what they expected to find…


Now, I was actually really enjoying this movie in the way I enjoy B action movies, right up until the end, which was not only mind numbingly stupid, but left so many plot elements unfinished.

In the film, a milkman character that has a strange disease that he spreads through his diseased goat’s milk, but this is never elaborated on. Why is the villain trying to spread this disease? What causes it?. Dolph’s character’s amnesia is also something barely touched on, and his relationship with McBride changes from scene to scene. You get the feeling some footage must have either never been shot or has ended up on the cutting room floor.
The less said about the woman who conjures up a storm the better. This completely ridiculous occurrence really spoiled the movie for me, and went unexplained.

The movie actually features some pretty decent actors for the three heroes, but the villains are pretty woeful. The actor who plays Simon Peace (Chanan Elias), a man who predicted the incident and now sides with the prisoners, hasn’t acted since, and its little wonder why.
Lundgren and Sherri Alexander have some decent chemistry, its just a shame the movie never allowed their relationship to actually develop at all.

The music is forgettable, but nothing too shabby.

The movie is actually pretty enjoyable for a straight to video action flick, right up until the stupid ending.

The only people who I can see really having any reason to want to see this are fans of Dolph Lundgren. This isn’t by any stretch of the imagination one of Dolph’s best movies. But it isn’t as boring as Cover Up
or Agent Red

So, file The Last Patrol next to the majority of the big Swede’s straight to video movies. Not anything overly painful, but not anything worth busting a nut to track down. Distinctly average. Had it featured a far more plausible ending, it probably would have been above average, but a poor ending brings an above average movie down to mediocre.

Year: 2000
Titles The Last Patrol
The Last Warrior

Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD