Watch Last Chance Harvey For Free

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Don't listen to the negative reviews

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Not that infamous Harvey, who doesn't merit a last chance at any rate, this is his fellow American, the amicable Harvey Shine (Hoffman, who ironically, has been mired in his own misconduct scandal in the MeToo era), a divorced, middle-aged musician specializes in writing jingles for commercial use, who plans to spend a weekend to attend his daughter's wedding in London, but ends up extending his stay indefinitely when romance beckons. Contemporaneously in London, Kate Walker (Thompson), an unmarried airport staff, is the cynosure of her mother Maggie's (Atkins) idle life (save for suspecting her new Polish neighbor is a corpse-hoarding killer), buffeted with the latter's unremitting phone calls, and just when Harvey comes in for a politely reserved reception in the dinner before the wedding, Kate is subjected to an awkward blind date that doesn't go anywhere, their binary trajectories are self-evident in verging together later (actually they had a short encounter in the airport and an odd chance as sequential passengers of a taxi), but before that comes to the fore, British director Joel Hopkins has something to flog to death.So, everything must plunge to the absolute nadir for Harvey before it bottoms out, he is wantonly secluded from the rest of the wedding guests, apparently under the behest of his ex-wife Jean (Baker), and is dwarfed by the latter's current hubby Brian (a none other than James Brolin, the silver fox and Mr. Barbra Steisand himself), both in appearance and in close affinity with his daughter Susan (Lapaine), who does have the temerity to ask Harvey to waive his fatherly right of leading her to the alter; across the Atlantic, his boss Marvin (Schiff) twists the knife in his wound by firing him on the phone when Harvey misses the plane after a low-key presence of Susan's wedding ceremony. If one can survive those aforementioned heavy-handed and cookie-cutter build-up, everything definitely lightens up from the chance meeting between Harvey and Kate in the airport bar with a quirky stiff-upper-lip mimicry as the icebreaker, whereupon, in the successful mode of Richard Linklater's BEFORE... trilogy, their growing interaction plays out through incessant but significantly less philosophical small talk, until Kate encourages and accompanies him to attend Susan's wedding reception in the evening, a fairly pleasant familial reconciliation is chalked up, but the next day, a hiccup nearly ruins their budding romance, and guess who has the say-so in the end? Both Hoffman and Thompson sustain their roles brilliantly with either a fish-out-of-water awkwardness meld with affable sincerity or a touching vulnerability that only hints at past baggage, and their niceties of vamping up even the hoariest happenstances pay dividends in this workmanlike love story for grow-ups who might look for a second chance or a fresh start.

Oscar winners Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson do a fantastic job in bringing ordinary people like Kate Walker, aspiring writer and poll taker at Heathrow Airport; and Harvey Shine, a musical composer. Harvey travels to London, England for his daughter's wedding. His ex-wife and mother is played by Kathy Baker. James Brolin played the perfect stepfather. Harvey and Kate are both awkward at the gatherings where they don't feel connected to the people there. Even in Harvey's case, he is obviously uncomfortable being alone and single. He had lost his job because he failed to make it back to New York City and takes interest in Kate sitting and reading a book nearby. Dustin and Emma are great and believable together as a couple. The supporting cast also includes Dame Eileen Atkins who played Kate's suspicious mother, Maggie, who thinks her Polish neighbor is keeping secrets in the shed. Still, Dustin and Emma have a mature chemistry where their characters connect in a more disconnecting world. It's an enjoyable feel good movie to watch repeatedly.

This is my first film review. Never before have I felt the need to contribute to the system, however in this case the system has let me down. As a regular user of IMDb, I often use the rating of a film in order to make a decision as to whether to watch a film or not. In the case of this film, the rating is way too high. At the time of writing it is 6.7! Literally nothing happens in this film. 1 hour and 25 minutes of nothing. It's your choice, but watching this film filled me with regret for the time I had lost. The high rating of this film (and the fact it stars Dustin) kept me thinking that something might happen; it did not - but once you get over that half way point, it feels like there's no turning back. I wrote this review during the last 5 minutes of the film. There is one good thing about this film, Kitty, Daisy and Lewis, which is why I have given the film a rating of 2 and not 1.

Two people, completely out of place with their own life find each other on London. That's the premise of the movie.Aside from the cliché moments, this movie starts really slow and depressing. Harvey is set out to play into a very unpleasant meeting with her daughter and his fiancée in party before their marriage.Harvey is devastated by the cold feeling the whole family has with him and this really gets to the viewer, let me say that even when Harvey meets Kate after the very depressing first part, the movie does not have the "up-beat" we should be expecting, somehow, the whole tone for the movie is downright depressing and this is even with the nice music that is played in the background all the time. The whole idea and story is short and simple, the acting is OK but, being a fan of Huffman and Thomson myself, this is not their best performances, not by a long mile.The movie may be classified as a romantic drama but the tone feels like just a drama,it develops slow, emotions are toned down and Harvey's life is miserable, somehow, Kate does not bring the light we're all hoping for and this is the director's fault.Sadly, the balance for the movie is OK, not nice, just OK, not Oscar material, not even very good.A drama trying so hard to be romantic and somehow failing at it. With the two first class actors and a script designed for them, this is unforgivable.6 out of 10