The Last Ride

Goof: So, you have to get from Alabama to West Virginia and you set off in time, but you don't make it. Well, the kid who is driving the car can not make it over about 23 miles an hour. When the car is being filmed you would think it was in a mall parking lot looking for an empty space. The car is fast enough despite the stops insisted upon by Hank Williams. A golf cart is faster than the Cadillac in the movie. I know because we had a 1950's Cadillac of the exact same color and we tooled along the interstates back then at 60 mph with no problems. Hank Williams music is not explored nor his past so it seems more like an excuse to introduce an actor named Jesse James who has to be the only white kid in the South who does not know who Hank Williams is, ostensibly because he doesn't listen to music or have a radio. I am the same age as he is and every kid I knew in the 1950s' had a radio. Hell, everyone in the 1930's in the Depression had a radio just about.. Anyway, the movie makes no sense but the older cars and real country music at least made it somewhat enjoyable.

I give it 7 stars because I really enjoy this story which I consider to be "loosely" based on Hank Williams final road trip. I know this movie has accuracy problems and the cgi snow is pretty unbelievable. I find it hard to accept Arkansas as the primary location for filming but glad to see the old mill from Gone With The Wind make an appearance! I recommend this movie but don't be looking for an exact telling of Hanks final hours. Just watch and enjoy!

There are some value in the film but I would watch it while doing something else. Which I did.

I've never seen "The Car Hank Died In" in Nashville, so I can't tell if it's accurate. But at one point in the film, Hank was extolling it's virtues as a "ElDorado". The first ElDorados were made in 1953. They made 503, a figure widely argued as plus or minus a couple. It's signature wrap around windshield, the first, was still an inexact science, as glass changes when it cools. The bodies were hand built to fit the windshields, and both were slightly unique. Good movie, though. Since I have to write ten lines I will add my appreciation for the curious relationship between Sir Hank and the Driver. I love Hank's music, and a contemporary reported his reading girls' dime novels and explaining that there was where his lyrics came from. Like..."Your Cheatin' Heart Will Tell On You.". Yes Sir, it will.

I want to like any film about Hank Williams,because I am a big fan of the man's music.This fanship comes from my mother,who was a fan as a young girl when he was still alive.Any film or project about the man compels me to watch.Sometimes they impress,sometimes they do not.The Last Ride,I regret to say,does not.While,it has some fine,talented people presenting the story,it is all too obvious that the film was cheaply made.I'm not against low budgeted films because some fine ones have been made,but one of the things that makes a cheaply made film a good film,in my opinion,is the fact it doesn't look cheaply made,and regrettably,this one does.I will give it an A for effort,but will not likely make any effort to see it again.

If you don't know a whole lot about Hank Williams' career, this film isn't going to help. In fact, this could have been written as a fictional story and it would have had as much emotional impact. Maybe more so, knowing now that the picture's title was indeed meant to convey the famed country singer's last ride. Missing for me was any real connection to Williams' career and back story, so I couldn't relate to many aspects of the film to realize if they carried any resonance or not. The most poignant moment for me occurred when Williams (Henry Thomas) struggled to explain to his driver (Jesse James) that he never had a real friend. I just found that so incredibly sad, and attempting to relate that to the real Hank Williams was next to impossible without really knowing the man. Fans of the country singer may have a different take away from mine, but I felt something lacking here. On top of that, it's a real downer when the 'last ride' theme plays itself out. Not recommended for self destructive types.

It's 1952, small town boy Silas (Jesse James) is hired to drive Hank Williams (Henry Thomas) to a couple of New Years shows. However snow and other incidents keep the couple from reaching the shows until it all ends sadly. Jesse James is too weak. He's playing the character as if he's a child. Then there is Henry Thomas who is around 40 playing a 29 year old guy. I know Hank Williams is supposed to be wore out at that time. But the story is missing something when Williams looks like he's an old man instead of a wore out young man. There is a difference. Then there is the gorgeous Kaley Cuoco playing country girl running a filling station. She looks too good. She looks like a Hollywood starlet passing for a country girl. Finally there is the story itself. It lacks any tension. The script is thin on any substance. It tries to ride along with Henry Thomas' posturing. There just isn't enough there to justify a whole movie. Only the ending is there anything dramatic.

I've already reviewed the other Hank Williams movies, so I must owe this one a nod. Unfortunately that's the only reason to watch it, IE that it's specifically about the legendary, self-destructive young country singer/songwriter. It may provide you with a few snippets you didn't know already, and will also misinform you. As a drama, TLR only has the premise of 'get Hank to Charleston sober or you don't get paid' to provide any tension (they don't, but he does get paid, anticlimactically). It's a two-hander road movie, essentially. As a 'docu-drama', again the casting of Hank is problematic, because there's not a lot of interest to be got from the story of a man with multiple addictions who spends the whole movie on the road. Hank himself was a notably tall, shortsighted, skinny geek with big ears - which in some way explains his popular appeal. To see a man physically like that being an all-round PITA (as Hank is portrayed here at first) would have brought home his uniqueness, and made his redemption here to all-round nice guy all the more poignant. The actor here is an ordinarily handsome, strong-looking, forty-year-old, and is just not physically distinctive or vulnerable-looking as Hank was. The movie actually concedes that he's too old by getting him to ask the driver to guess his age. No, you're not shockingly 29, you're obviously not long into middle age. In the end, the story is diverted into a romance for the driver, and Hank is shown to be all heart ('I've never had a friend'). By this time it's obvious that the movie has fizzled out. The sense of 1953 was completely blown by the roadhouse band who sounded like, well, any roadhouse country band from the last thirty years. Pretty rough. Factually inaccurate, musically threadbare, and not particularly well cast - this ain't much of a bone to throw at us Hank fans after sixty years. Only worth watching if like me you just want to carp at the way it misses its mark. 'The Show He Never Gave' remains the one to beat.

In a word, I found the movie to be quite entertaining, in part, because it mentions at the beginning that it is based on true events. I don't understand the $9 million dollar budget, as it looks like a movie that would have been shot for TV or straight to video. That aside, "The Last Ride" depicts a heart-warming study into a small piece of life of one of the most beloved and greatest country artists of all time, Hank Williams. As in most of his career, he was "looked after" by those around him, due to his unreliability in part as a result of terrible alcoholism and drug use (morphine to dull the pain of his spina bifada). This movie depicts a situation where everyone around him does their best to care for him, in their own way, to love him, and in the end, understand his poor choices, to a degree. On the downside, I think the movie tries hard to gain the empathy of the watcher, however falls short in endearing Williams character as a tortured soul, looking for acceptance in anyone he would meet. It might have been the acting. It bared a sad existence for the country legend, but it also was a story of an evolution of friendship between two men from different worlds who only knew each other a few days. I am not sure that casting Henry Thomas as Hank Williams was the right one. It seems that the quirky nature of Thomas' depiction of Williams seemed forced, looked unnatural. Jesse James on the other hand, played his young driver well, and believably acted a 19 year old kid who was taking a lesson in life from a master, (Williams) who had virtually seen and done it all, at the young age of 29. I was also mystified by the casting of Kaley Cuolco (Big Bang Theory), in that she didn't possess the "naturalness" of someone who lived in the '50s (I did), lacked the "southernness" for someone who was born and raised in the area, and seemed to be too "old" to be the love interest of Williams young driver. I think there might have been better choices for this role. I was also confused at the seeming lack of recognition that people had for Williams as one of the biggest music stars of the era. Some of the scenes where intelligent characters for example, such as a small town judge, didn't recognize him as a famous figure, once he was standing before him. This seemed very strange throughout the movie. The viewer only got a glimpse of his notoriety and fame when a bar owner at the end of the movie told the young driver, "Tell him my stage is his stage, anytime". Overall, the movie is a good watch. Its entertaining and interesting. I am not sure however, if it really was a top notch representation of the kind of character Hank Willams was, in the end.

Don't go for the music. This is not "Walk the Line", "Coal Miners Daughter" or "The Buddy Holley Story". I saw this film at it's Montana premier here in Bozeman. I'm not sure whether to call this a "buddy/road trip movie" or a "coming of age" story. The fact that Hank Williams is the mystery passenger is almost irrelevant to the relationship that builds between the two main characters. One can be spoiled by the sophistication of today's blockbuster special effects. The simple rendering of snowfall and other "throw-back" effects reveals this as definitely a low budget movie. And even though both the writing and the acting are a bit stilted, there is an endearing sweetness about "The Last Ride" It is worth seeing.