![]() ![]() The wrench in the plot is aided by Cohn’s choice to do away with our usual fluorescent-light association with fast-food restaurants and make Oscar’s brooding and shadowy. Stanley (Richard Jenkins, right) trains Jevon (Shane Paul McGhie) as his replacement in “The Last Shift.” A character we thought we knew cracks and goes down a ruthless path. You think you know where Cohn’s film is headed when an altercation in the parking lot hits you like brain freeze from a milkshake. But gradually they warm to each other, even playing a fun game of frozen hamburger-patty hockey to make the graveyard shift go faster. “If I’m still here at your age, put me out of my misery, please,” Jevon says. He thinks of himself as above the job, having had a column in his school paper, and aspires to a more creative life.Īt first, they spar. Jevon is a young black father, recently out of jail and on parole. His final week of work is the subject of “The Last Shift,” writer-director Andrew Cohn’s sharp new drama about middle-class work, race and our perceptions of both.Īwkward Stanley (Richard Jenkins) has decided to move to Florida to be near his mother, so he’s told to train Jevon (Shane Paul McGhie) as his replacement. Hollywood, which tends to glorify glitzier jobs than this, forgets guys like Stanley exist. But his passion lies with hamburger patties and honey-mustard sauce. Days before his retirement, he still lives with two deadbeat roommates, makes lame “Terminator” jokes and doesn’t know how to drive. He’s a 38-year veteran of Oscar’s Chicken and Fish, a run-of-the-mill fast food joint in Albion, Michigan, where he’s the night manager. ![]()
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