The Last Face

"The Last Face" is the worst kind of good-intentioned noble failure, one that muddles its message because it tries too hard to tell it.

Rarely has a movie felt so simultaneously inane, stultifying and offensive.

Sean Penn turns African strife into a two-hour perfume commercial with The Last Face, veering between gauzy impressionism and shrieky melodrama with his latest directorial effort.

As well meaning as this movie is, it is also a turgid, muddled one.

Characters are undeveloped, dialogue is platitudinous and insincere, and even the leading roles are one-dimensional.

The Last Face spends so much time on the on-again, off-again romance between Bardem's Miguel and Theron's Wren, the African victims are all but nameless and faceless backdrops.

Is Penn actually comparing the "brutality" of civil war in Africa to the "brutality" of personal relationships among Western professionals?

While not a perfect film, there is a passion that comes forth when viewing The Last Face as a whole, a passion of a director that is infectious.

Theron and Penn are both deeply committed to these causes in real life. However, the film's bumbling mix of drippy romance, fetishized violence and self-serving sermonizing in a context-deficient void only makes a mockery of that commitment.

The Last Face sheds light on the lives of those who actually deserve the attention.