The Last One for the Road

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 globalization and the slow decline of local color. Each roadside tavern offers the promise of one last drink – unless the next one ups the ante.

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 free-flowing bender through time and space.