The Last Stop in Yuma County Movie Review (2024): Francis Galluppi's Debut Film is a Slick, Down-the-Line Genre Exercise

The Last Stop in Yuma County Stars Jim Cummings and Jocelin Donahue and is Directed by Francis Galluppi

Review: Francis Galluppi’s The Last Stop in Yuma County probably won’t reinvent the wheel, but hopefully it’s a sign that we’ve found a new director that’ll do his best to keep slick, low-budget genre exercises alive. These down-the-middle genre movies (excluding horror) are hard to come by nowadays.

The Knife Salesman (Jim Cummings) in The Last Stop in Yuma County (2024)

The Last Stop in Yuma County Movie Review

The Last Stop in Yuma County may wear its influences on its sleeves, but the debut feature film from director Francis Galluppi serves as one of the more confident debuts in 2024. Imbued with worthwhile twists and an array of eclectic characters, the movie stands as a worthy complement to modern-day Westerns and neo-noirs from the likes of the Coen brothers and Steven Soderbergh.

And while it may be easy to dismiss The Last Stop in Yuma County for its wistful energy and lean sum of parts, this breezy 91 minute thrill ride makes for one of the more uncomplicated, satisfying releases in 2024, marking a highpoint for indie filmmaking that succeeds at feeling as grand, intense, and engaging as a big summer blockbuster.

The movie follows an unnamed kitchen knife salesman (played by Jim Cummings) stuck at a remote diner until the nearby gas station is replenished with gas. All goes fairly normal until a duo of similarly stranded bank robbers (Richard Brake and Nicholas Logan) arrive and are hellbent on protecting their new fortune at all costs.

The premise is fairly simple, and the set-up does just enough to hold you over in the first third. It’s a down-the-line picture for the most part, relying on the viewer’s typical impulses/reactions to gore and violence.

Jim Cummings is great as the initial protagonist that we use as the cypher into this world. He carries with him a quaint, intimidated persona that only shrinks with the arrival of dangerous folks around him, as if he’s trying to disappear into the background despite being one of only a handful of individuals present in the diner.

And opposite him are two looming antagonists played with great detail by Richard Brake and Nicholas Logan. Brake is the more experienced, less forgiving half of the duo. He ratchets up the tension more than anyone in the film as his ruthlessness sets the stakes and pushes this movie from being a run-of-the-mill standoff flick to genuinely captivating thriller.

The rest of the characters, from innocent diner waitress Charlotte (Jocelin Donahue) to gas station owner Vernon (Faizon Love) have just enough specific traits to avoid feeling hollow – when the movie meanders away from the main storyline, it doesn’t faulter as a result. It doubles as a respectable hangout film when blood isn’t flying everywhere.

You do get ahead of the film at a certain point, and it’s easy to jump to conclusions about the movie’s end well before the runtime actually gets there, but director/editor Francis Galluppi and cinematographer Mac Fisken fill the space with an increasingly resonant set of insert shots and a brisk pace.

These down-the-middle genre exercises (excluding horror) are hard to come by nowadays. There’s a void in the current Hollywood system for fun, shoot ‘em up westerns and noirs. Galluppi’s The Last Stop in Yuma County probably won’t reinvent the wheel, but hopefully it’s a sign that we’ve found a new director that’ll do his best to keep these kinds of movies alive.