The 2023 film The Last Rifleman, is a film with heart. It is another retelling of a WWII veteran going to great lengths for a D-Day reunion.
2023 saw two films about the same story. Bernard Jordan escaping the nursing home to attend a Normandy celebration. The first film, The Great Escaper starred Sir Michael Caine. It is biographical in nature.
Brosnan’s film is not, it just uses the real story for inspiration.
Kevin Fitzpatrick writes The Last Rifleman as an reinterpretation of the tale. In this one, the old veteran escapes after his wife dies. He then makes his way across the channel to France.
The Last Rifleman Cast
Pierce Brosnan is Artie Crawford.
Clémence Poésy is Juliette Bellamy.
John Amos is Lincoln Jefferson Adams.
Jürgen Prochnow is Friedrich Mueller.
Ian McElhinney is Tom Malcolmson.
Desmond Eastwood is Tony McCann.
Samuel Bottomley is Rory.
Kudos to all the actors who did this one. They gave the film a certain truth. Clémence Poésy does so much with the little time she has on screen. I have been a fan since In Bruges. All the actors lent some much needed gravitas to a project that could have been a weepy OAP veteran story.
The Movie
Terry Loane directs The Last Rifleman with a deft touch. He follows Artie’s painful journey to Normandy. It is a film that could have turned maudlin relying on cheap tears to sell this story. The movie avoids this, it just has heart. By the film’s end, we are, indeed, moved to tears.
We want to weep at Artie’s story, all those young men who died and the emptiness of it all.
Death we are told, comes for us all. In a nursing home, in the night. On a battlefield in France. It is our journey that counts. Artie tells us that he and Maggie were together for 68 years. That is a long journey in itself.
The Last Rifleman did not affect me the same way that Caine’s “biopic” did. The message there was meant to make one feel good. And it did. Brosnan’s film is about the kindness of strangers and the human condition. *Both films show the old gentlemen moving on from their experiences. *
Both are equally enjoyable for completely different reasons.
Brosnan Sells This
Brosnan proves once again that he can do straight drama, effortlessly. His character suffers nightly from his landing experiences. He shows us. While Artie is frail, Brosnan never lets him seem helpless. He is resolute and, unbeknownst to Artie, he is brave. Brosnan lets us see all of this.
The Verdict
The Last Rifleman earns a solid 4 stars despite coming up against the Michael Caine biopic. It entertained and made me tear up at the end. It is available on Prime.
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