There is a general rule that we all are expected to follow when in the presence of proverbial “decent” company – never speak about politics, religion or sex while gathered around the dinner table, which many consider to be a sacred space in which conversation should be polite, congenial and pleasant. For the protagonists in The Last Supper, the directorial debut of Stacy Title (who seemed to be on the upswing in terms of being an essential and exciting voice in independent cinema in the 1990s), this is not much of a factor for them, since they spend their evenings debating about any range of topics – but when their most recent dinner is interrupted by the arrival of an unexpected guest who proves to not share the same political and cultural viewpoints as these nouveau riche intellectuals, their nightly dinners take a more sinister turn as they begin to target anyone who doesn’t adhere to their liberal perspective. Having developed quite a cult following over the years, The Last Supper has amassed a lot of support, which makes the realization that it is perhaps not a very good film all the more jarring, especially considering it had the opportunity to be a fascinating and timely piece of fiction, but instead has far too many shortcomings to ever attain legitimate greatness, or offer the audience something we haven’t seen executed with more precision and honesty on a number of other occasions in the past. There are several flaws that prevent The Last Supper from being viewed as a particularly effective film, and most of them are likely due to the relative inexperience of the writer and director, whose perspective was valuable, but unfortunately softened by the fact that she just didn’t quite hit the mark quite as well as we may have hoped, which leads to quite a heavy-handed film without too much resonance.

There is undeniably a lot of promise that is packaged with The Last Supper, almost all of it being restricted to the concept that initiated the film’s creation. The idea of making the world a better place by murdering conservatives is certainly ambitious, and one that the film bases its entire narrative around. It brings us to the subject of the politics that exist beneath the surface of such a film – political cinema takes many form, and as we’ve said on multiple occasions, all art is inherently political in one way or another, which is why it is difficult to criticize this film for wearing its heart on its sleeve when it comes to the underlying intentions that drive most of the story. Regardless of where one sits on the issues at the heart of the story, The Last Supper certainly has a very ambitious premise, and Title’s aim to create a film that plays in multiple different genres is the definition of audacity, even if the results aren’t as satisfying as we would hope. A combination of darkly comical satire, slasher horror and psychological thriller, the film leaps between different genres with a peculiar intensity that makes it quite jarring at times, especially since it isn’t always sure exactly what it wants to achieve, and as a result we find that the best ideas are those that don’t quite manifest into anything particularly valuable, but mostly just linger in the ether for most of the running time of this film, which is not particularly effective in how it handles the majority of its underlying conceptual foundation, leading to a film we wish was far more polished in both form and content, faltering in both areas and generally being a bundled of missed opportunities.

In the past, we’ve discussed how satire covers a wide range of works, and it is difficult to compare one version to another, since tone and intention are always a primary factor in such works. However, you can essentially situate them somewhere along the spectrum between more subtle works and those that are far more obvious in what they are conveying. The Last Supper is one of the clearest examples of the most obvious, direct kind of satire imaginable, falling under the sub-genre we have termed the “sledgehammer satire”, so named after the fact that this is a film so obvious in what it is aiming to say, it has the subtelty of a sledgehammer to the forehead, forcing in its ideas without any discernible sense of elegance or nuance. This is ultimately where the film falls apart the most, since it seems to believe the viewer isn’t capable of drawing our own conclusions, and that instead we have to have absolutely everything spelt out to us, which not only feels massively condescending, but eventually forces us to lose interest in the film as a whole. The Last Supper is extremely repetitive and quite uninteresting after a while – there is only so much it can do with this paper-thin premise before it is entirely worn out, and within the first act, we’ve already started to grow weary of the narrative, which works in a cyclical nature – these intellectuals battle with their own internal morality as they murder one conservative after another, leading them to fall into a major existential crisis that has a brutal conclusion. It sounds compelling in theory, but the satire is so obvious that we can predict exactly where it is heading after a while, and it loses a lot of the surprise, which is ultimately what such a film is built on, since without these elements, it’s a painfully didactic and obvious comedy that never quite amounts to anything of value.

The Last Supper is at least somewhat notable for the actors cast in the leading roles, since it contains a blend of ambitious young upstarts that would go on to be major players in the industry, as well as a supporting cast consisting of some terrific character actors. Cameron Diaz (by far the biggest star to come out of this film) was at the beginning of her career, and she is as charming as ever, playing perhaps the only interesting character of the group. Courtney B. Vance, slightly too old for the role but still very captivating, is wonderfully sinister as the most immoral of the quintet, which is rounded out by solid but unremarkable performances by Annabeth Gish, Ron Eldard and Jonathan Penner (the director’s professional partner with whom she co-wrote the film), none of which amounted to do anything particularly special but are still solid and reliable actors who have done good work in the past. It’s the supporting cast, which includes the likes of Bill Paxton, Jason Alexander and Charles Durning, that does much of the heavy-lifting despite only having one scene each, and then Ron Perlman in a larger supporting role as a Rush Limbaugh-esque commentator who gives a genuinely chilling performance, one much better than the film that surrounds him. Unfortunately, the performances are mostly one-dimensional and lack depth, which prevents The Last Supper from reaching its full potential or being anything other than merely marginally entertaining at most, which is bizarre for a film that could have at least pulled out some genuinely great performances if it was willing to put in the effort.

Not every satire can be sharp, scathing and thought-provoking, and it only stands to reason that some of them will take bold swings that cannot unfortunately be followed through to its entirety, which is exactly what we see transpiring with The Last Supper, a film with a lot of potential but only marginal ability to achieve anything beyond being merely passable, an unfortunate but expected outcome, especially for someone making their feature-length debut. The film has great ideas, but they deflate almost immediately, becoming an overly pretentious and quite misguided attempt at lampooning the differences between liberals and conservatives (but not caring to develop a single character beyond being a blatant stereotype), and never sticking the landing anywhere close to as easily as it seems to believe itself to be capable. Despite running only 87 minutes, the film feels overlong and meanders to the point where we become restless and disinterested, patiently waiting for these characters to get their just desserts so that we may be able to move on. Despite all of this, which does indicate some kind of potential behind the film, The Last Supper does provoke enough thought for us to wonder how successful it could have been in the hands of someone more experienced, since the premise is excellent but the execution is where it fails, ultimately becoming a terse and uninteresting exercise that could have been much better with more nuanced execution and a bit more effort in all the places that mattered.