The New Yorker by Anthony Lane
Never quite shrugs off its literary manners. [18 & 25 Feb 2002, p. 200]
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
United Kingdom, Germany · 2001
Rated PG-13 · 1h 49m
Director Fred Schepisi
Starring Michael Caine, Tom Courtenay, David Hemmings, Bob Hoskins
Genre Comedy, Drama
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Before affable butcher Jack Dodd died, he had a final request: that his ashes be scattered in the sea at Margate. His mates Ray, Lenny and Vic and foster son Vince journey to the sea to fulfill his wishes. Along the way, the threads of their lives, loves and disappointments are woven together in their memories of Jack and his wife Amy.
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The New Yorker by Anthony Lane
Never quite shrugs off its literary manners. [18 & 25 Feb 2002, p. 200]
It's a warm, skillful excavation of what look like ordinary lives, ones that aren't so simple once you dig a little deeper.
The New York Times by Dana Stevens
Like finding that perfect stage of moderate drunkenness in which the senses are sharpened rather than dulled, and time passes with leisurely grace.
New York Daily News by Jack Mathews
It is remarkably, unsentimentally dramatized by Fred Schepisi, courtesy of the pitch-perfect performances of its ensemble British cast.
A ho-hum male weepie/road comedy that's worth watching mostly because of a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of England's greatest working-class actors.
New Times (L.A.) by Luke Y. Thompson
The film's biggest strength is the same characteristic that may cause people to underrate it: that the group of friends we watch onscreen feel not like England's greatest actors showing off, but rather a group of friends who have indeed known each other for years through life's little triumphs and large tragedies.
Village Voice by Michael Atkinson
The carload of codgers in Fred Schepisi's Last Orders merely bellyache, philosophize, crack unfunny jokes, and ruminate simplemindedly about Death.
Baltimore Sun by Michael Sragow
It's like Chekhov with a British accent.
Austin Chronicle by Steve Davis
The temporal jumps between the present and varying points in the past deprive the film of a sense of completeness; the transitions from scene to scene are largely disorienting, leaving you struggling to find your bearings.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer by William Arnold
The stars ultimately carry the day, the film cumulatively builds both an emotional power and tender wisdom that's very affecting.
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