The Last Stop in Yuma County
Everybody wants something. Charlotte would like the diner air conditioning to work. Vernon would like the gas truck to show up to fill the empty pumps. Miles would like to live his life like he was in a movie, while his girlfriend Sybil would like to turn her life around. The unnamed knife salesman would like to get to Carlsbad, California, to see his daughter for her birthday, rather than being stuck in Yuma County, Nevada. And Beau and Travis would like to fill their empty tank with gas so they can continue their getaway with the $700,000 they just stole.
A run-down gas farm, diner and empty motel sweltering in the dusty desert heat, the last stop in Yuma County is where they have all converged, along with elderly couple Robert and Earline, just going about their business and enjoying their coffee, and Pete, just stopping by to smile at Charlotte even though she’s married to Charlie, the local sheriff whose junior deputy Gavin just stopped in to pick up three coffees to go, much to the alarm of Travis, twitchy and just itching to jump to conclusions.
A single-location thriller written and directed by Francis Galluppi in his feature debut, The Last Stop in Yuma County just might be the final destination for the diverse ensemble, each of them walking into a trap, held hostage by circumstance and oblivious to the danger they are all in with only Charlotte and the salesman (House of the Devil’s Jocelin Donahue and The Wolf of Snow Hollow’s Jim Cummings) aware that the surly silent men at the next table are armed criminals.
The situation a smouldering fuse which could ignite at any moment, Travis (Summoning Sylvia’s Nicholas Logan) is not the brightest but he is still a spark which could set it off, his smarter and calmer brother Beau (The Munsters’ Richard Brake) already having intervened to prevent an incident over spilt coffee with Gavin (Stake Land’s Conor Paolo), while Miles and Sybil (Proximity’s Ryan Masson and The Vast of Night’s Sierra McCormack) are wild cards, beholden to nothing but their own self-interest.
Galluppi balancing the elements of the setup carefully as he shapes his characters and their tangential relationships, coincidences, accidents and bad decisions tying them together, it is only a question of when it will all tumble down, who will pull the trigger first and who will go down, the flash of the muzzle and twist of the knife perhaps a few minutes later than might have been ideal but the whole carried by the fine cast which also includes The Sacrament’s Gene Jones, Suitable Flesh’s Barbara Crampton and Twin Peaks’ Robert Broski.
Released on Blu-ray by Arrow, their edition carries three commentaries combining Galluppi with a variety of cast and crew including Cummings and Donahue, cinematographer Mac Fisken and executive producer James Claeys who sold his house to finance the production, an interview with Galluppi, a video essay by Matt Donato, a “making of” appropriately titled Sell Your House, screenplay to film comparisons, a trailer and a gallery.
The Last Stop in Yuma County will be released on Blu-ray by Arrow Films on Monday 17th February
