My Review of Last Ferry (2019)

 

Written by Ramon O. Torres

Directed by Jaki Bradley

Stranger (to Joseph): "Work on your lies little lawyer and friendly tip: no one goes to the meat rack any more."

After the massive misfire that was Fire Island (2023) I thought it was time to go and watch the movie with the same location in question, a similarly decent protagonist and in some respects, it's a case of more of the same. Except this movie came beforehand.

Anyways, our protagonist this time around was a gay lawyer named Joseph (Ramon O. Torres) who decided that he needed a hook up. His solution was to go to Fire Island for that, but he chose the off season, which was the least terrible thing to happen to him in this movie.

While brooding over his career future and a brief phone call to his mother, disaster them followed Joseph like a bad smell. The first being Joseph getting tricked into drinking drugged water and getting mugged by a guy and that guy would later try th same trick on someone a lot more prepared than Joseph.

Then in his drugged state, Joseph only went and witnessed a murder but before he could anything about it, the killer chased him and Joseph passed out. Fortunately for Joseph though, he seemed to have acquired a saviour of sorts named Cameron (Sheldon Best).

The movie then had Joseph staying with Cameron and the latter's friends but as characters, they're mostly harmless ciphers. Except for Rafael (Myles Clohessy) who spent most of his screen time generally being grouchy and drunk as the result of a break up. Needless to say both Rafael and Joseph didn't hit it off while Joseph and Cameron got a lot more intimately acquainted by the second half.

However any hopes of Joseph enjoying his badly timed vacation went out the window when it was revealed that Rafael was a killer and Cameron an accomplice/general enabled. Needless to say, Joseph nearly ended up dead but didn't and this movie ended on a rather weird and abrupt note.

- Ramon O. Torres who played by Joseph also wrote the script for the movie.

- Myles Clohessy who played Rafael did go on to co-write and direct Fire Island (2023). Tonally these two movies are very similar to one another.

-  Apparently the movie drew influences from The Wailing (2010) and Stranger By The Lake (2013).

- Chronology: The off season for Fire Island. 

Last Ferry has its moments as a movie and I think there's a solid central performance from Ramon O. Torres but it's also very undercooked with little development in the central threat itself. An extra few minutes and a clearer ending would've done wonders for this overall decent LGBT mystery.

Rating: 7 out of 10