Character studies are not my favorite type of film, probably because so often the central character which the filmmakers wish to spotlight is deeply flawed in some manner.  That isn’t very entertaining to watch, at least to me.  I’m not referring to antiheroes, but rather characters who lack the strength, or the common sense, to find a way out of whatever predicament they happen to be stuck within.  Such a person is at the center of The Last Shift, and I found it a very difficult story to sit through because I grew so tired of the guy.

Writer-director Andrew Cohn’s film centers on Stanley (Richard Jenkins), a nice old guy who has been managing the overnight shift at a chicken restaurant for 38 years.  He needs to quit to take care of his ailing mother in Florida, but before he can go he must train his replacement, a young man named Jevon (Shane Paul McGhie).

Stanley has interpersonal issues, but his real problem is that he’s a dunce.  He is comfortable enough at the restaurant to be productive and useful, but outside of his job he lacks the common sense of any barnyard animal.  As Stanley drifts from one problematic situation to another I had to fight the impulse to leave him to his own pitiful devices.  I could derive no value from watching Stanley buy an obviously junky used car without even knowing how to drive, or offending a trio of hostile youths without realizing that they were going to clobber him at their earliest convenience.  What’s the point?

Stories like this, of course, are life, but fictional films should not necessarily present such flawed characters as their main draws.  I’ve occasionally had problems with characters with whom I cannot connect, so perhaps the issue is mine.  If so, I accept the fact that I have limits of compassion for fictional characters.  Oh well.  Stanley wears out his welcome with me about halfway through, and by the end of the story I simply could not abide him.  Perhaps you will have better luck.  ☆ ☆.  10 May 2021.