THE LAST ONE FOR THE ROAD (Italy/Germany 2025) ***
Directed by Francesco Sossai
The film begins with two isolated incidents, each not too exciting. As they say, if a film does not grab one's attention in the first few minutes, then the audience will be put off and leave. Well, the film does not get much more exciting; it just meanders on, as it is about two old drunks who keep having one more (drink) for the road. Like the men, the film rambles on and on. It is an Italian road trip film. The two old men pick up a youth on their travels. One good thing about the film is that it avoids clichés. The two old men don't learn from the young one, and neither does the young one from the older men. But their behaviour affects each party, so the audience has to be patient and see how the film unfolds.
The bottom has fallen out for Carlobianchi and Doriano, two small-time Italian crooks. They haven’t been able to mount an honest scam since the 2008 financial crisis and now face the impending mediocrity of middle age. The return of an exiled partner-in-crime from Argentina affords a second chance for long-buried riches, but can Carlobianchi and Doriano put down their beers long enough to keep their eyes on the prize? Along their slow-motion, alcoholic grand tour of the Venetian countryside, they cross paths with Giulio, a shy architecture student who reluctantly warms to the sodden pair and indulges their rants about the folly of globalisation and the slow decline of local colour. Each roadside tavern offers the promise of one last drink – unless the next one ups the ante. “Never mixed the new wine with the old!” The wine in the glass must be finished before the glass is filled. Francesco Sossai’s dazzling sophomore feature is many things at once: a road movie, a casual caper, a tribute to a vanishing industrial Italy, a scruffy intergenerational odyssey, and a free-flowing bender through time and space.
In the story, the two men travel together. The older men pull Giulio, as they share dubious advice, stories, and a carefree “live for today” attitude. What starts as aimless wandering becomes a kind of coming-of-age journey for Giulio. The film requires patience. It is like hanging around a drunk friend, tolerating his or her nonsense. The setting is rural Italy, where the audience is given, at best, a subtle look at economic and social changes.
This film has garnered rave reviews, which is a surprise considering that the film meanders all over the place with apparently not much direction or narrative. A few unconnected segments, like a gay kissing segment, make little sense either.
THE LAST ONE FOR THE ROAD premiered at Cannes in 2025 in the United Certain Regard section. The film screened in TIFF’s Centrepiece program, as well as at VIFF and NYFF, where it steadily built momentum on the festival circuit. It has since become one of the most nominated films at this year’s David di Donatello Awards, with 17 nominations.
The film opens in Toronto on May 8th.
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THE SHEEP DETECTIVES (UK 2026) ****
Directed by Kyle Balda
THE SHEEP DETECTIVES is an upcoming mystery comedy film directed by Kyle Balda and written by Craig Mazin, based on the 2005 German novel Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann. The film features an ensemble cast including Hugh Jackman, Nicholas Braun, Nicholas Galitzine, Molly Gordon, Hong Chau, and Emma Thompson, with the voices of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, Chris O'Dowd, Regina Hall, Patrick Stewart, Bella Ramsey, and Brett Goldstein.
The basic premise involves a flock of sheep setting off to solve the mystery of who murdered their beloved shepherd.
In the Irish village of Glenkill, George Glenn (Hugh Jackman) is a shepherd who is a loner, estranged from his wife, and is fond only of his sheep. Every day, after he lets them out to graze, he reads to them from romance adventure novels and textbooks on sheep diseases. At the start of the book, the sheep find George dead, pinned to the ground by a spade. The film becomes a murder mystery - and quite a good one at that! The rattled sheep decide that they must find their killer. This turns into a difficult task, as sheep can't talk to people, and though they understand the human conversations they listen in on, like the one between George's widow Kate and Bible-basher Beth Jameson, they do not always understand the details. Not even the smartest of them, Miss Maple type, renamed Iris Othello and Mopple the Whale, can understand the humans' behaviour, and are particularly confused by the neighbourhood priest, though they conclude that his name is evidently God. They are afraid to confront suspects like butcher Abraham Rackham, and are suspicious but fearful of their new shepherd, Gabriel O'Rourke, who is raising a flock of sheep for slaughter. And even after a series of providential discoveries and brainwaves reveal the answer to the mystery, they still have to figure out how to let the humans know.
The film feels like a fairy tale fable that a mother would read to a child. The film does have an endearing, wonderful and charming atmosphere, and with animals in the spotlight, makes the film even more delightful.
Sheep have always been depicted as stupid animals. The film begs to differ. Instead of human detectives, the sheep themselves try to solve the mystery - as stupid as sheep! In this case. Each sheep has its own personality: Some are brave and curious, while others are fearful or easily distracted. A few try to think logically (with mixed success). They interpret human actions in often humorous or misguided ways, leading to both comedy and genuine mystery-solving.
The film also balances light humour with a real murder plot, with a perspective shift of humans being seen through the eyes of animals, making everyday behaviour seem strange or suspicious
The film benefits from performances of heavyweights, Academy Award Winner Emma Thompson and Hugh Jackman, which should attract more adults to this family-oriented film.
THE SHEEP DETECTIVES opens in Theatres Friday, May 8, 2026.
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A YARD OF JACKALS (Patio de Chacales) (Chile 2024) ***1/2
Directed by Diego Figueroa
A YARD OF JACKALS is a claustrophobic Kafkaesque political thriller in every sense of the word, reminiscent of the recent TWO PROSECUTORS.
It is the winter of 1978, under Chile’s military regime in Santiago. Raúl Peralta, a lonely architectural model maker, lives a quiet life with only his ailing mother and a pet canary for company. His routine is upended by the arrival of new neighbours whose sinister activities seem to hide dark secrets. Desperately clinging to the last remnants of his sanity, Raúl’s life increasingly intertwines with Guillermo, a mysterious man in dark glasses. As reality unravels, the echoes of Raúl’s past collide with the horrors of his present in a psychological thriller that leaves behind a deep, indelible scar.
The film has an authentic feel throughout, for the director Diego Figueroa did a lot of research on such cases during his studies years earlier.
The genesis of the film began back in 2014 when \the director was working on my thesis project for the Film and Television program at the University of Chile. During an in-depth investigation into the dictatorship’s repressive forces and their relationship with civil society, he came across a series of studies on private homes that had been used as clandestine centres for detention, torture, and, in some cases, extermination. This led me to conduct further research into some of these well-known locations and connect with investigative authors like Javier Rebolledo, whose research into the civilian aspect of the dictatorship and its connections resulted in his book trilogyLos Cuervos.
It turns out the neighbours are secret police agents linked to the dictatorship, and the sounds coming through the walls are interrogations and torture of political prisoners.
As Raúl listens through a stethoscope-type instrument, he becomes aware of this as he hears loud music covering screams of confession under torture. He is drawn into a nightmarish moral situation. His attempts to report or intervene are ignored—or dangerous. He tries to contact through a radio station. He becomes psychologically unravelled, haunted by what he hears but powerless to stop it. To add to the anxiety, Ray is disabled and suffers from some foreign object inns le. But he has a girlfriend who cares, but he cannot reciprocate.
The life and paranoia are effectively created and felt throughout the entire movie, a lowborn in which one can feel the heat of the burn.
One can feel and root for Raul, but things do not look too good for him. His girlfriend escapes to Paris. The film offers Raul a route of escape when his a=bedridden mother passes away, the excuse he always gives for not going out.
One can feel and root for Raul, but things do not look too good for him. His girlfriend escapes to Paris. The film offers Raul a route of escape when his bedridden mother passes away, the excuse he always gives for not going out. The only solace is his girlfriend who takes a liking to him.
The film has an ending (not to be revealed in this review) that is quite ambiguous and disturbing. The audience might not like the ambiguity, but the disturbing factor is expected.
A YARD OF JACKALS premieres exclusively on IndiePix Unlimited on May 8th, 2026.
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