The Big Picture

• The Last Stop in Yuma County is a dark thriller set in a remote gas station and diner.
• The film carves out its own place in the genre, ratcheting up the tension until the explosive conclusion.
• Jim Cummings emerges as the center of the film, balancing dark comedy and chilling dread effectively.

A sign reading “you’ll die for our rhubarb pie” is normally a cheeky promise of some good eats. When seen at the remote Arizona gas station and diner in writer-director Francis Galluppi's serviceable if a little scattered feature debut The Last Stop in Yuma County, it’s a warning that death is on the menu. Many people will roll through, but a good number of them won’t be leaving. Playing like an extended riff on everything from the diner scene in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction to any number of films by the Coen brothers, it’s a confined little thriller that carves out a distinct place in the genre in how it isn’t afraid to get dark. There is much about it that remains imperfect, especially in terms of some of the broad character beats that it begins with, but it proves to be proper fun once it gets going.

It also is a film that you should not watch the trailer for if you want to preserve the dark delights that get uncovered. Seeing it won’t entirely rob you of the joys that the chaotic experience increasingly careens its way into, but some of the late escalations land far better when you don’t know they’re coming. Even a general plot description should remain light on anything but the basic details. This is not only because the film itself thrives in the twists it takes that, while they all feel grimly inevitable in retrospect, are still mighty tense in the moment, but because of how the story itself matters very little. It’s all about getting a bunch of people in a room, some overtly nefarious while others will take a while to get there, and letting the chips fall in the deadly dance that is bearing down on all of them.

What Is 'The Last Stop in Yuma County' About?

This all begins with a man who is known only as The Knife Salesman. Played by Jim Cummings of everything from the spectacular Thunder Road to the fantastic series finale of Barry, he already seems stressed even before he learns the gas station he has just pulled into has run dry. Now stuck here until a fuel truck arrives, he originally considers staying in his car where he hears a report of a bank robbery on the radio. He then wanders into the diner that has just opened where he strikes up a polite conversation with Charlotte (Jocelin Donahue), who seemingly runs the establishment on her own, while Verno (Faizon Love) works at the adjacent gas station. They aren’t alone for long as two men pull up with a beat-up car that is out of gas. Beau (played by the perfectly menacing Richard Brake) and Travis, the more jittery of the bunch played by Nicholas Logan, are, of course, the bank robbers who are now trying to flee. The Knife Salesman soon puts together who they are and Beau recognizes this, pushing us over the brink into a hostage situation. Charlotte will have to keep up appearances, serving the customers that come through, as we ride the edge until everything explodes.

While it all does ultimately explode, the film doesn’t skimp on the small moments where the sparks begin to grow closer and closer to the powder keg. Even when it breaks the tension just a bit by pulling away from some side characters and their less sharply realized shenanigans, the core diner scenes are all operating at just the right frequency to cut through all the noise. Galluppi never feels like he is phoning it in or leaning too heavily on homage to anything, instead drawing us in deeper into the unique rhythms of the predicament he’s created. Everyone feels perpetually sweaty and tense, ensuring even the most simple of conversations are crackling with energy. It finds just the right balance between dark comedy and a chilling sense of dread at what is coming that may just consume everyone in the diner.

For those who are familiar with Cummings, you’ll also know that this is where he thrives. Thunder Road is still the best example of this, followed closely by The Beta Test, while The Last Stop in Yuma County is closer to the experience of something like The Wolf of Snow Hollow. Each of these roles sees him playing an otherwise straight-laced man on the exterior who has an internal maniac that is just waiting to burst out. He’s the guy you’d almost overlook before you see a strange look in his eyes. While everyone else in the film is solid in their roles, with Donahue finding small moments of resilience for her character just as Brake looms large over everything, it ends up being Cumming who emerges as the center of it all. This ensures that, even when it can stumble a bit in getting there and lose focus on its best parts, there is still plenty of fun to be had even after everything kicks off and it seems like the dust may have settled. It makes for the best part of the whole experience.

'The Last Stop in Yuma Country' Ends With a Brutal and Bloody Bang

Without tipping anything off about what the conclusion looks like, it doesn’t stop even when gunshots may be ringing in your ears. Following a great needle drop that marks the beginning of the end and where the characters go past the point of no return, everything suddenly opens into interesting new directions. Suddenly, the character who was almost most passive steps into the spotlight in a more unsettling yet totally fitting shift. It both slows down and speeds up with the initial danger having seemingly passed just as a new plot comes into focus.

The tragedy of what was essentially a bleak tragicomedy is brought to the forefront as there are still more bodies to stack up. After a film where we thought we had just about everything and everyone figured out, Galluppi reminds us that we very much don’t. Not only is he not interested in leaving us with any sort of catharsis, but he just keeps twisting the screws tighter until there is nowhere left to go. When you hear that one final car horn ring out and everything continues to fall apart, it’s a beautiful thing. Even as it all goes to pieces, it manages to reassemble them in a way that strikes a darkly wonderful tune before riding into the sunset.

The Last Stop in Yuma County comes to theaters in the U.S. and is available to stream on VOD on May 10. Click below for showtimes near you.

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