Gerard Butler is a two-note performer. The star of 300 and the Has Fallen franchise has enough pointless action thrillers under his belt to fill a one-man streaming service. Most of them are awful, but he’s been in some truly excellent and unique projects. The problem is that most of them went unnoticed. This man starred in Coriolanus with Ralph Fiennes, but people only want to see him do garbage like Last Seen Alive.
Last Seen Alive comes from director Brian Goodman, who mostly stays in front of the camera. He’s an actor in the vast majority of his projects. Most of his roles are bit parts, but he’s in classics like Catch Me If You Can and Blow. His only other project as director is a 2017 actioner called Black Butterfly. His films are generic thrillers that fit the same mold with different stars.
Gerard Butler Was Last Seen Alive on HBO Max’s Top Ten
Last Seen Alive fits into Gerard Butler’s long and comfortable list of dad action movies. He isn’t actually a dad in this one, but it’s still a movie for your father. Butler portrays Will, a successful real estate agent, in an unhappy marriage with his wife, Lisa. Will wants to work things out, but Lisa is contemplating filing for divorce. Unfortunately, a kidnapper makes off with Lisa. Will tries to bring this issue to the authorities, but their marital issues make him a suspect. He takes the law into his own hands, hunting down the mysterious forces that stole his wife. It’s a grim action thriller that mostly glorifies personal violence in terrible scenarios. It fits right next to Taken, but that film saw Liam Neeson use his spy skills. This one expects you to believe Butler’s salesman can simply pick up a gun and get his wife back.
Last Seen Alive doesn’t have much financial information out there. It didn’t come to theaters in the United States, but producers brought in $5.9 million from worldwide screenings. The nations that did host the film seem almost entirely random. Gerard Butler has strong international appeal, but this project didn’t take off until it hit streaming. It currently sits at #3 on HBO Max worldwide. Latin American viewers pushed it to the top of the charts a few years after its release. The film hit Netflix a few months after it came out and immediately dominated the service. US viewers didn’t get the chance to see it in theaters, so Netflix became its first comfortable vector. Now, over two years later, new fans are still finding the film on HBO. I can’t imagine it’s a jaw-dropping experience, but people will keep clicking on faces first and premises second.
Last Seen Alive isn’t the worst thing Gerard Butler has ever been in. It’s perfectly on par with Plane and Greenland and his other 1,000 identical projects. It’s not as funny as Geostorm, but what is? Butler pops up in one genuinely good movie for every four or five terrible ones. Maybe his second Den of Thieves entry or the live-action How to Train Your Dragon will do the trick. Last Seen Alive probably shouldn’t be seen at all.
