‘The Last Duel’ is a powerful epic with a story that still resonates

Posted on October 22, 2021

By MARK VIOLA

Since the onset of COVID, I really haven’t seen that many “serious” movies. I watched a few around this year’s Academy Awards ceremony, but even then, I let most of the Best Picture nominees slip by me.

Now that I’m back to watching movies more or less regularly in theaters, I’ve seen almost exclusively action movies or lighter fare.

Prior to COVID, October was a month when we would start to get a handful of “Oscar-bait” movies, more serious films with solid pedigrees that were setting themselves up for a solid run toward the Academy Awards.

In another sign that we are slowly returning to some level of normalcy, we have our first Oscar-bait film to be released nationwide, “The Last Duel.”

Directed by Ridley Scott (“The Martian,” “Gladiator,” “Alien”), this historic epic boasts an all-star cast and tells a story based on real events from the 1300s about a woman who spoke out and demanded justice after being sexually assaulted.

Considering the subject matter, I knew that this would be a serious movie, although while it does treat the subject matter with respect, it’s not a dour experience for its entire two-hour, 32-minute runtime. It is slow at times, but never feels overly sluggish, and it benefits from the fact that the audience knows early on that it is building to a climatic showdown.

I purposefully avoided any information about the actual events, and I’m glad I did, because not knowing the outcome really helps build the tension in the final act when the duel finally arrives.

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