DVD & BluRay

THE LAST JOB

101 Films, cert 15, DVD £7.99 & on Digital

This may not be the strongest gig in his illustrious film career, but Richard Dreyfuss (pictured) adds heft to this soft-centred gangster revenge tale.

He plays mob boss Ben Myers who decides to quit his life of crime and violence when he gets a cancer diagnosis. He wants to spend time with his family and lose the fear of someone wanting to rub him out. But, maybe Ben’s left it all too late because his Alzheimer’s-stricken wife Nan needs all his attention. Unfortunately, despite mild concern over a suspicious van parked near his home, Ben decides to leave her for a short time while he checks up on business at the bar which is his ‘retirement’ fund. When he returns home he finds the place ransacked and the loot in his safe gone, but Nan is just confused. Luckily, the robbers have been caught on surveillance camera in their phoney gas company uniforms, so Ben decides he’s going to hunt them down in time-honoured fashion, rather than go to the cops. But his vigilante justice results in his daughter Nicki (Mira Sorvino), a homicide detective, getting drawn into the mayhem anyway, despite (oddly) running security for a congressman seeking reelection. Not content with that, the director, throws in another sub-plot involving Ben’s other estranged daughter Sherry (Joanna

Walchuk) also being diagnosed with cancer, and likely to leave two young sons motherless. Ben might well feel life was more fun running a criminal empire, but we find him in a philosophical mood in an unnecessary voiceover narrated in Dreyfuss’s gravelly tones.