The Last Photograph recently had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, and, like most Zack Snyder movies, it had people talking… mostly negatively
While chatting with Variety, Zack Snyder was asked whether he thought the negative reaction was more about people’s preexisting feelings about him rather than the movie itself.
“100%,” he said. “There were only 1,200 people in the theater and there are thousands of comments! There was one I was reading where it was a guy who clipped it and said, ‘I haven’t seen it yet but I’m sure it was horrible.’ And look: Whether you like the movie or not, I’m not even commenting on that; but with me, it’s more clickable to say, ‘I hate Zack Snyder! He’s a fascist!’ than it is to say, ‘I saw the movie and it was cool.’ Nobody gives a f*** about that. And obviously, I’m not a fascist.“
Although Snyder tries not to let these takes bother him, it’s hard to avoid them at times. “This morning, I woke up to my X feed, and the discourse is incredibly energized by this battle,” he said. “It’s like there’s a war going on — instantly — and on one hand, I don’t want to say it’s cool, but it has to exist in some ways.“
He continued, “Look, I’m famously surrounded by a particular discourse that happens around my movies. It’s incredibly charged. And I thought, for the smallest of moments, that because it’s a small movie and it’s really not that big of a deal, that it’d be allowed to exist on whatever level it is. What kind of noise does a tiny movie like this warrant from the world?“
The film follows a former DEA agent (Stuart Martin) who cuts a trail of vengeance across an unnamed South American country when his brother and sister-in-law are murdered, and their children are trafficked. Bent on recovering the kids and taking revenge, he enlists the aid of a drug-addled combat photographer (Fra Fee) who took pictures of the slaughter.
Our own Chris Bumbray wasn’t quite as negative as some, saying that, for better or worse, it’s pure, unfiltered Snyder. “A lot of it is good, but too much of it is also bad. The good does slightly outweigh the bad, though, but this is a movie that certainly won’t win over Snyder skeptics,” he wrote. “However, his fans will have a field day and find much to appreciate, including his arresting imagery and a strong musical score, which includes contributions by Hans Zimmer. More than anything, it’s a Snyder movie through and through.” You can check out the rest of his review right here.
The Last Photograph hasn’t been picked up by a studio or streaming service yet, so it’s unclear when (or if) the rest of us will get the chance to watch it.