The Last Musketeer

Ex-con Steve McTear (Green) has overcome some bad breaks and youthful folly, traded in his gun for a foil and now hopes to join England’s National Fencing Team. Scottish headmistress Elizabeth Frasier (Arkie Whiteley), who's looking for a fencing instructor for her girl’s academy, drops by a master class and likes what she sees. Cocky Steve, however, is as interested in coaching school girls as in helping his ex-partner, Joe Salter (Joe Caffrey), make deliveries for crime king Ritchie Lowe (Jake Nightingale). When the athletic selection committee bypasses Steve due to temperament problems, he hits the bottle and accepts Ritchie’s offer of easy money. While driving to the cash drop, Steve learns that the supposedly "risk-free" job involves guns. Steve backs out at the last minute, and a good thing that is: The police have set up a sting and Joe walks right into it. Meanwhile, Joe's associate, Tel Fletcher (Dorian Lough), makes off with the cash and pins the theft on Steve. Wanted on both sides of the law, Steve take up Frasier on her offer of a teaching gig in the boondocks. Neither Steve's adolescent students nor his fellow faculty members are initiallyimpressed, but Steve gradually breaks down the girls’ resistance to his methods. Unfortunately, even the remote Oban, Scotland, is far enough away to keep Steve clear of the police, who expect him to help them nail Ritchie. The gangsters catch up with him as well, expecting to retrieve the stolen cash before tossing Steve off the school’s roof. If Steve is going to survive, he must figure out a way to square things with Ritchie.

Even routine genre material like this can come to vivid life in right hands. Screenwriter Walter deftly combines the inspirational aspects of films like TO SIR WITH LOVE (1967) and straight up grit of countless crime pictures, and the result is familiar in its broad outlines but pleasingly different in the details. Add a strong cast and you've got a winner. leave a comment --Robert Pardi