| The Last Time | |
|---|---|
Movie poster |
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| Directed by | Michael Caleo |
| Produced by | Michael Caleo |
| Written by | Michael Caleo |
| Starring | Michael Keaton Brendan Fraser Amber Valletta |
| Editing by | Thom Noble |
| Release date(s) | 2006 |
| Running time | 96 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Last Time is a 2006 film starring Michael Keaton, Brendan Fraser and Amber Valletta.
Contents |
Ted Ryker (Michael Keaton) is the top salesman in the New York office of a business machine company. The corporate stock lives by quarterly sales numbers, the competition is very intense, and the economy may be headed into a downturn. Ted's company is marking time until a revolutionary new product is ready, probably within a few months. Some competitors may know something about this secret innovation, through industrial espionage, and fear its impact on the market.
A new company hire, callow Midwesterner Jamie Bashant (Brendan Fraser), has moved east with his lovely fiancée Belisa (Amber Valletta). Jamie and Belisa are a young couple just starting out, and Jamie has to learn the business as a trainee. Ted is very successful, but also cynical, hard-driving, profane, obnoxious, abusive, and a lousy team player. He has few if any friends in the company, but his shortcomings are tolerated because his output is so outstanding. Ted, assigned to train Jamie, watches Jamie struggle, failing with presentation after presentation; Ted tries, in vain, to help Jamie improve his performance and make a few sales, even giving one of his own sure deals to Jamie, who messes it up. Then, Ted is introduced to Belisa through normal company friendship, and discovers a strong mutual attraction to her. Belisa is impressed by Ted's success and confident manner. The two start a relationship, and do their best to keep this secret from Jamie, who is worried about being fired because of his weak output. Ted confesses to Belisa that he has a failed love in his past, and that this affected him very deeply, leading to a career switch from college literature professor at Northwestern University near Chicago to hard-driving star salesman in New York. Belisa does her best to comfort him; the two discover a shared interest in Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, which Belisa studied at college.
Ted spends increasingly more time with Belisa and away from the office. Ted is falling hard for Belisa, who postpones her wedding to Jamie; the couple had planned a honeymoon to Jamaica. But Ted's sales performance is dropping dramatically, and since his contribution to the company's profit is so important, the rest of the sales force feels even more pressure. Branch manager John Whitman (Daniel Stern) has prospered with Ted's performance, but starts losing confidence in Ted, and is mystified at Ted's lack of dedication, such a contrast from his previous strong effort. Belisa seems ready to end her engagement to Jamie in favor of Ted, as the two travel to Atlantic City for a getaway from the stress, and use Jamie's week-long absence at a training conference to deepen their relationship. However, the company is in trouble, not just in New York but at its other locations as well, and downsizing and firings are imminent. Just as Ted's love life is prospering, his career is sinking. Jamie, showing no improvement whatsoever in his job performance, becomes suspicious that Belisa is cheating on him, and nears a nervous breakdown, since he also fears for his job. He turns to Ted for advice. Belisa becomes very concerned and decides to break off her affair with Ted, to take care of Jamie. The two plan to return together to Ohio. Ted is devastated at Belisa's change of heart, and no longer cares about his career; he avoids the office, doesn't answer his phone or return messages, fails to close several critical deals, and this drives the company closer to ruin. Manager Whitman's own career is on the line.
The company collapses and dozens of staff personnel are fired. But it finally becomes clear that the bumbling Jamie is a spy, a double agent, sent by a competing firm, to weaken the company, and that this was merely part of a deep nationwide strategy to undermine it as preparation for a corporate takeover, as the company's stock bottoms out with its falling sales. But Belisa, who has been central to the double-dealing scheme all along, so convincing with the affair which distracted Ted, destroying his sales performance and then his confidence, discovers that she does actually love him. Belisa returns to New York and visits Ted, who is no longer interested in her. Ted leaves New York and returns to college teaching, his real career preference; his cynical outlook is reinforced with the failure of the relationship. Jamie, no longer the clumsy klutz, is greatly emboldened now at a company celebration. He confronts his true employer, the corporate shark who masterminded the whole strategem to gain control of the innovative business machine, and demands his money. Belisa is left broken-hearted and angst-ridden; the movie closes with her finding a personal message from Ted in a volume of Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray which he has left behind for her.
The Last Time was filmed in August 2005 in New Orleans, Louisiana, and New York City, New York, on a budget of roughly $4,000,000. The film was released Straight to Video on 10 July 2007, grossing only $626,000.