‘Last Days’: Sundance Review

Dir: Justin Lin. US. 2025. 120 minutes.

John Allen Chau turned well-known in dying. The 26-year-old made headlines world wide when he was killed throughout what he believed was the “final mission” to convey Christianity to the uncontacted indigenous individuals of North Sentinel Island within the Bay of Bengal. They didn’t welcome his message and his physique has by no means been retrieved. Final Days tries to work out what drove this misplaced boy to danger and finally lose his life. Whereas director Justin Lin’s thriller-inflected strategy is periodically absorbing, the scattered construction and episodic nature of the plot works towards him because it slides in the direction of an excessively sentimental conclusion.

Light-weight script

The movie – primarily based on a script by Ben Ripley drawn from Alex Perry’s Exterior Journal article ’The Final Days of John Allen Chau’ – marks a return to Sundance for Lin, whose debut Higher Luck Tomorrow performed there in 2002. Since then Lin has notched up blockbusters together with Star Trek Past and 5 Quick & Livid movies, so this actually marks a change of velocity. Whereas the strange-but-true nature of the story is eye-catching – and has already led to Nationwide Geographic documentary The Mission – its mixture of household drama and scrutiny of radical Christianity is perhaps a tough promote for audiences.

A gripping opening sequence gives an early hook as we see John (Display Star of Tomorrow 2023 Sky Yang) paddling his kayak in the direction of the North Sentinel shoreline, solely to be met by a barrage of arrows, captured in a method that makes them appear about to zip by way of the cinema display. From there, the motion flashes again to 2014, when John is about end on the Christian Oral Roberts College. A commencement dinner signifies tensions in his household of the normal type: his Chinese language immigrant father Patrick (Ken Leung) presents him with a stethoscope to be used at medical faculty, however John’s thoughts is already drifting away from the considerations of the physique to extra religious issues.

From right here on, Lin cycles by way of a trio of plot strands. There’s a suspicion that the sheer variety of producers concerned – together with Keanu Reeves at government stage – is partially liable for the motion feeling pulled this fashion and that. In the primary storyline, we observe John as he embarks on varied far-flung missionary expeditions, whereas his dream of changing the Sentinelese progressively takes form.

In a secondary fictional story, presumably included to inject some power, police inspector Meera (Radhika Apte, Sister Midnight) locks horns together with her sexist superior (Naveen Andrews) when, after getting wind of John’s plans, she races to attempt to find him earlier than he can contaminate the indigenous islanders. Apte is robust however poorly served by a script that hints at however by no means commits to her backstory. This component additionally takes up a lot display time that John dangers being marginalised inside his personal film.

Lastly, there are occasional visits again to John’s household, by which Patrick will get to look more and more fearful whereas John’s white American mum (Claire Value) organises prayer conferences for her son.

Amongst these John meets on his travels are Chandler (Toby Wallace), who helps to gasoline his radical plans and, later, a younger girl Melanie (Marny Kennedy, magnetic in a small position) whose sensible nature emphasises how far John has drifted from on a regular basis actuality.

Cinematographer Oliver Bokelberg makes good-looking use of the assorted places, discovering distinction between the bustling daytime streets and nights dominated by deep greens and blues, though nothing fairly matches as much as the stunning point-of-view photographs supplied within the opening Sentinelese encounter.

Yang instructions consideration within the central position, as we watch John beef up as his fervour will increase. However there’s solely a lot inner battle he can convey given the light-weight script. Whereas the screenplay flirts with deeper issues, it finally suggests a decidedly simplistic driver for John’s actions that’s offered through an intercut flashback scene that oozes sentiment. It might need been higher for John to stay an enigma, however Final Days can’t resist providing us chapter and verse.