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So what better way to celebrate April Fool's Day but with another guest review from our resident nudenik, Naked Bill Rinehart. Billy-boy is the last witness to The Last Witness, an Ohio homegrown tale of conspiracy, murder, mayhem and massive blunt groinal trauma. And so once again, he takes one for the team so I don't have to. Always appreciated, partner.

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But, before too long, we’re in a dark room, illuminated only by the hallway lights shining through the glass door. (Glass door? Wow. Tough security around here.) As someone opens the door, someone else grabs them and wrestles to the ground. Now, someone is running through the biggest boiler room since Space Mutiny, looking for a way to escape. (Yeah, those secret government hospitals are a bitch, but you’ll never have to worry about cold water in the shower.) The fugitive makes it out of the building just as the tornado sirens go off.

Officer Al Eisenhart (Charles A. Berry) shows up, straight out of central casting, to take the man into custody. They stop for gas and a snack, and the deputy smashes the cantaloupe against the prisoner’s face. (Hey!  That’s evidence you’re destroying!) Eisenhart realizes his prisoner is no ordinary melon thief. According to the newspaper in the gas station, the Last Witness is really Henry Thurman, (Jeff Henderson), an escapee from Eggerding. Eisenhart may be a hick, but he’s not stupid. He realizes his prisoner is worth something. So, he unlocks Thurman and sends him to the gas station restroom to clean himself up. (And just in case you missed it, HE LETS THE FEDERAL FUGITIVE OUT OF THE BACK OF HIS CAR AND SENDS HIM TO THE BATHROOM BY HIMSELF.)

And as Thurman walks back to the car, the girls from those ZZ Top videos pull up in a convertible Mustang. The driver, Ken Mitchell, (Ken Strunk -- who looks a little like Pierce Brosnan, sans hair), is an grade-A a-hole. But the girls, Jane Mitchell (Vicki Long) and Bonnie (Jeanne Finnerty), are alright. They even offer Thurman a cigarette, and give him the pack. Here, Henry finally sees his opportunity to escape. (Way to go, Hank.  Guess those 5 minutes alone in the bathroom weren’t enough.) He sets fire to the deputy’s crotch, (!), punches out Ken Mitchell, and hops in the car with the girls.

They take off, and soon, we have to wonder who’s holding who hostage. Jane and Bonnie have grabbed the keys to the handcuffs and don’t want to let Henry go. They’re having too much fun being kidnapped. Deputy Eisenhart, meanwhile, has extinguished his flaming midsection and has radioed for help. 2 other cops set up a roadblock and are soon in hot pursuit of the red Mustang. (Coo coo coo!  We’ll get them Duke boys now!) Henry loses the fuzz by pulling into a golf shed, and loses the girls by handcuffing them to each other.

Later, as Henry does Tai Chi in an abandoned missile silo, he gets a visit from the Shaggy D.A, and a kind-hearted bald guy. Carl (Mike Shuster) thinks Henry is just a friendly bum, and invites him back to his house, to meet his wife, Sara (Basia Lubicz). She recognizes Henry from the news and expresses her concern about harboring a wanted man. (Oh, pish posh!  Everybody does it.) But, Henry has already told Carl who he is, and why he’s on the run. (Could somebody let the audience in on who the hell he is?) Seems the government powers that be have told the press Henry is sociopathic schizophrenic who killed an orderly to escape from Eggerding. ( Henderson !? Wait a second. You’re telling me Jeff killed his dad, Fred? The Freudian ramifications are….well, non-existent.)

Later still, after Carl and Sara discuss their walk on the wrong side of the law, they leave Henry alone to prowl around the house. But someone drops the dime on him. Some blonde someone, in a red convertible. Someone who looks a lot like Sara. So the cops stop by Carl and Sara’s place and do a thorough search of the foundation and windows, and leave. Meanwhile, back at the cop shop, Jane is getting grilled over her abduction. Inspector Anderman, (Carl Dahlgren), says her story doesn’t match that of her husband’s. (Cue ominous music.)

That night, Carl and Henry are having a drink and a smoke and a chat by the fireplace. (Unfortunately, on the tape I had, there was some sort of audio error, and for about 30 seconds, all we can hear is the sound of fast forwarding tape.) Carl is having misgivings about inviting this allegedly schizophrenic killer into his home, and Sara’s none too happy either. And FINALLY, we get Henry’s story: He was an aide to Senator O’Keefe. (O’Keefe?  He was just killed in that plane crash!) But, Henry says it was murder. O’Keefe was supposed to pick up a dossier that was too hot to handle. So he sent Thurman instead. Those mystery Theys caused the plane to crash, kidnapped Henry’s wife, and eventually caught Henry himself. But they don’t know where the dossier is. And Henry’s not too sure either.

Carl’s convinced, and they decide to, (what else?), go to the bar. (Sure!  Why not! What’s a little price-on-your-head when you’ve got cabin fever?) At the bar, a band, (Plastic Money) is playing, and Bonnie and Jane are singing. (Imagine karaoke night at a bar you don’t want to be at in the first place, and you too can hear “Ready to Get Heavy” without even seeing the movie.) Henry and Jane head outside to neck and talk a bit, but they’re caught by Jane’s hubby Ken. He pulls his gun and is ready to teach Henry a lesson, but Henry slips away and hides in a barn. Inside, Henry gets the jump on Ken, and stuffs him in the trunk of a car.

Carl decides that it’s getting to dangerous for Henry to hang around.  (Well, duh. If you had only gone to the library instead of the bar, things would be fine.) He and Sara offer to take Henry to Canada . (National motto: Sheltering American fugitives since 1965.) Meantime, Ispector Anderman and his brute squad arrive at the Mitchell household, demanding to know where the file is. Since Ken, Jane and Bonnie have no idea what he’s talking about, his men kill them. (That’ll teach you to be tight-lipped!)

While he waits, Henry covers the truck with branches to foil the airborne reconnaissance. But as he wanders around looking for more branches, (or maybe to pee. It’s been a long drive), a little girl (Roxanne Caudy) finds the truck, and decides to play with it. Henry catches her, and not knowing what else to do, he ties her up in the woods.

After Carl and Sara return with the tire, Henry points out the little girl, and says he had to do it. (So, since she has seen Henry, doesn’t that make her the Last Witness now?) Carl unties the girl, (and takes his sweet time doing it too!  Ewww.), and apologizes. And as he and Sara share a moment, shots ring out from the forest. They’re gunned down, and Henry hits the floor. He’s not hit, and is able to take out one of the government assassins. He’s chased into the woods by the other gunman. After some hide and seek, juxtaposed with a bunny rabbit, Henry returns to the truck. Then, he decides the girl would make a good hostage, and goes back into the woods to untie her. As he does so, he’s shot and killed.  And then the girl, (yes, now she’s the Last Witness), is summarily executed.

It’s true. He even uses this movie as the new employee orientation video.  (And I swear, it did make the next video on health insurance seem gripping.) Jeff tells me they made the film over the course of 3 years. He says when they shot some scenes toward the end, his clothes were literally falling apart at the seams. Jeff says at one point, he’s crossing a stream. The footage of him reaching the other side was made 3 years later. The only professional actor in the cast was Ken Strunk, who went on to play a referee in Hoosiers and has recently appeared in West Wing and Boston Legal.

Still, it’s not the worst thing out there. There’s some creative cinematography, even though it is a little gratuitous at times. And most of the actors are decent. (Especially my boss. He was brilliant. Brilliant, I tell you.) The biggest problems come from the long stretches where nothing happens. The dialogue isn’t strong enough to carry interest through.  Or maybe it’s the dialogue is too strong, bordering on hammy, and the actors can’t prop it up.

But one of the biggest problems was the direction of the film. Jeff says it started out as an art flick. But a distributor told them to punch it up with more action if they wanted it to sell. (It’s the damn money men. They want me to cast Charlton Heston as a Mexican.)

It’s not an easy movie to find. The vaulted IMDB has no mention of The Last Witness.  (They do though, list 237 other movies with “Last” in the title.)  The movie did make the cut for the 2002 edition of the Videohound Golden Movie Retriever (Page 416). You might find it on the rack of a small town gas station, if you’re lucky, but otherwise, you’ll have to take your chances with eBay.  And you’ll have difficulty finding it there.  Especially since Jeff has been busy buying up every copy he can get his hands on. They apparently make great Christmas gifts. However, a quick check of Amazon turned up ten copies for sale from $.99 to $25! 

Editor's Note: Nine copies. I just bought the $.99 cent one. Must. See. This. Thing.