The Last Supper (1995, R)

As reviewed by James Brundage

What if you could go back in time to Austria, 1909, and eat lunch with an Austrian art student named Adolf. Do you kill him? Is the death of another for the greater good worth the act of killing? Therein lies the premise of the dark dramity/thriller The Last Supper.

Five liberal grad students invite someone over to dinner every Sunday to talk. About religion; about politics; about sex; about anything and everything. But when they end up killing (in self defense) one of their dinner guests -- a pyschopath who believes that Hitler was right -- things change. The liberals decide to stop talking and start taking action: in the form of a series of murders of hard-line conservatives.

The five get almost addicted to the murders: they form their outlet to political frustrations in life. They right wrongs, they prevent murders, but is what they're doing right?

The film is obviously an essay, but is one of the beautiful essays so open to interpreation that it is nearly impossible to not interpret towards an outcome you desire. You could say that it is an endorsement, flat-out, of conservatives: if liberals are killing people, then conservatives should be the saner group by default. Others could say that the film endorses liberals. You can believe the ones who died did so for the greater good.

On a raw critical aspect it lacks in performances or skillful direction but makes up for it in creative genius. I have never seen a film be so political without saying a definitive word one way or the other. Nor have I seen such a quirky plot come off as believeable. Also, never has a film crossed my eyes that has been so satiric without screaming its metaphor in your face. It is a world in which almost nothing is sure. One thing, however, is for sure: the film has a definitve message, but it is sheltered so in as much ambiguity as the plot.