Perhaps it took an outsider's eye - Schepisi is Australian - to capture the indomitable spirit and the absurd brave face of this island and its islanders.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 29, 2021

...the elegiac sadness of the reflection on alcohol-soaked lives still has a bitter pungency today...

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 20, 2021

Full Review | Original Score: B | Jan 17, 2013

Schepisi always handles actors sympathetically and here he has a perfect cast, most of whom can draw on their own and their parents' experiences.

| Oct 11, 2010

Delicately handled and superbly textured, this fine adaptation of Graham Swift's Booker Prize-winning novel deals with all the really big subjects: love, friendship, death, life.

| Mar 27, 2009

[A] classy but dry, lackluster trip down memory lane...

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 7, 2008

Ambitious in structure and casting, it packs a lot into its screen time. Quality craftsmanship for a discerning crowd.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 30, 2006

One of the most rewarding and authentic depictions of/tributes to the Cockney way of life in recent years.

| Feb 9, 2006

By film's end one feels as if they have indeed taken a long trip with these people -- and along the way has grown to know and care about them.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Dec 11, 2004

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 20, 2003

'Last Orders' has class stamped all over it.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Feb 13, 2003

By film's end one feels as if they have indeed taken a long trip with these people -- and along the way has grown to know and care about them.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 8, 2002

Fred Schepisi's latest film is based on Graham Swift's Booker prize-winning novel and has a great cast, but is ultimately rather slow moving and dull.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 30, 2002

Old people will love this movie, and I mean that in the nicest possible way: Last Orders will touch the heart of anyone old enough to have earned a 50-year friendship.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 28, 2002

Fred Schepisi's tale of four Englishmen facing the prospect of their own mortality views youthful affluence not as a lost ideal but a starting point.

Full Review | Aug 22, 2002

Gathering its forces slowly, this careful, thoughtful film, quietly but deeply moving, is dramatic without seeming to be.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 15, 2002

You'd think a movie with Bob Hoskins, Michael Caine, Helen Mirren and Tom Courtenay couldn't be all bad, but you'd be wrong.

| Aug 11, 2002

A movie I loved on first sight and, even more important, love in remembrance.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Jul 20, 2002

Last Orders nurtures the multi-layers of its characters, allowing us to remember that life's ultimately a gamble and last orders are to be embraced. It's affecting, amusing, sad and reflective.

| Jul 4, 2002

Portrays the unvarnished nature of friendships: mean and spiteful, petty and begrudging, needy and loving.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 7, 2002