Dir. Todd Robinson
The Last Full Measure is the gourmet grilled cheese of movies. It has a lot of fancy ingredients and world class actors, but at the end of the day it’s just a grilled cheese; or in this case a schmaltzy war movie that is probably best suited to being enjoyed at home on a rainy day.
The Last Full Measure follows Sebastian Stan as Scott Huffman, a work addict preoccupied with his government word salad job at the Department of Defense. He is dismayed to find himself assigned to the case of a post-mortem Medal of Honor appeal that leads him to investigate the case of William Pittsenberger, a pararescue officer in the Vietnam war who saved dozens of lives when he voluntarily got in the middle of an ambush, providing medical assistance and helping the wounded get airlifted. Over the course of the investigation, Scott meets Pittsenberger’s family as well as the soldiers whose lives he’d helped save as they try to get him the Medal of Honor 30 years after the fact. The journey also helps Huffman come to terms with his childhood traumas and newly appreciate his own family.
This was less of a movie and more of an exhibition for a bunch of legendary actors. The interviews conducted by Scott allow the movie’s impressive cast which included Christopher Plummer, Samuel L. Jackson, William Hurt and Ed Harris to put their monologue skills to work. With Sebastian’s dialogue mostly limited to “and then what”, the older cast all get an opportunity to stare into the middle distance and recite their horror stories with varying amounts of intentionally tear-tugging anguish.
Their narration is supported by flashback sequences which were impressive to the point that it made me wish the movie had been a more straightforward war movie in two time periods. While it would have made the movie more “basic”, it would have flowed better than this unfocused version. It felt as though this movie wanted to make Scott Huffman the main character, seeing as he does technically have the most screen time, but he really only exists as a supporting character to the story the veterans are relaying about Pittsenberger. I don’t know who this man is outside the Medal of Honor investigation and being told (but not shown) over and over again that he’s changed from a political shark to hopeful family man has absolutely no impact. Supportive Pregnant Wife (whose name I didn’t learn till the last 20 minutes) and Son™ were little more than props. And in the midst of his spiritual journey there’s a weird subplot about a government conspiracy and every time it’s sprinkled into the plot you think the movie will focus more heavily on that but no, it’s just mentioned then gone and ultimately meaningless.
The Last Full Measure has an interesting story to tell and phenomenal actors to help tell it, but it’s lack of focus and syrupy messaging ultimately causes it to fall short of its potential.