Le Dernier Combat (Luc Besson Collection) - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Le Dernier Combat (Luc Besson Collection)



Movie:
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Movie
And to finish off the entire Luc Besson Collection we circle back around to his very first feature film debut, Le Dernier Combat (known as The Last Battle in America). A film that is extremely hard to describe, yet strangely entrancing. Filmed in 1983 this was at a time when Besson wasn’t known outside of France, and even Le Dernier Combat was never seen outside of Western Europe until the 1990s if my memory serves me correctly. Even his later films like Subway were hidden from Hollywood’s view, but it was La Femme Nikita that changed everything for the French director. The film was an overnight sensation, and international distributors were clamoring to buy the rights to not only Nikita, but his previous works as well. But it wasn’t till Leon: The Professional that Sony bought the rights to his earliest works and brought them over via DVD in the VERY early 2000s (right around 2001-2002). So now, the film that had been hidden from the western world for the better part of 15 years was FINALLY opened up to cinemaphiles and the masses alike.

Le Dernier Combat is an excruciatingly simple film that borders on being a silent production. The film follows a lonely man trying to survive in a post apocalyptic France. No one seems able to speak a word (whether that be simple artistic choice, or whether something happened during the apocalypse to facilitate that phenomenon is unknown to the viewer), and the world has devolved into fighting over scraps while wannabe warlords force the common men to do their bidding. Attacked by rovers, said Man (Pierre Jolivet, who both stars and helped write the film) is able to leap into a motor powered mini-plane and escapes by the skin of his teeth, only to crash land some miles away in wreckage of some unknown city.

Set upon by a brute (Jean Reno, cuz it’s not a Luc Besson film without at least an appearance by Jean Reno), The Man is wounded and takes refuge in a fortified hospital where he is helped by a lone Doctor (Jean Bouise) and nursed back to health. And while The Man and the Doctor come to enjoy each other’s company, there is always the threat of The Brute, as the greedy thug does his best to try and breach the doctor’s defenses and take what he thinks is his.

The story itself is incredibly simple, but also easily accessible. We’re not meant to know what happened in the world that came to this state of being, but rather accept that the world has gone to crap and this is what our protagonists and antagonists are living in. And while Besson manages to evoke a wide variety of emotions across the film through the actors pantomiming, it is also very much a simple and straight forward heroes journey for The Man. He’s a weak man at the beginning, but by the end he has hardened his resolve and becomes someone who is incapable of being pushed around by the thugs that he ran from at the beginning. It lives and dies on its visuals, as well as the facial expressions by everyone involved.

The haunting and melodic score for the film would be a relatively unknown composer named Eric Serra, who turns out to be one of the most indispensable collaborators in Besson’s career, catapulting the man from an unknown to scoring films like 007 Goldeneye, as well as many others. But much like Besson, Sera got his start here, with this one simple independent French drama.

I’m not sure how to accurately describe my reactions to Le Dernier Combat, but needless to say it is something special. As a film it is not THE best of Besson’s works. But it’s incredibly personal and powerful, as Besson is experimenting with visual storytelling in a way that would be hard to do in modern film making. Kind of the Mad Max of the French world, it is haunting, creepy, sweet, and weirdly charming despite only 2 words of dialogue ever spoken in the entire film (or groaned out really). This is a visual treat that really transcends most of Besson’s works, and a look into the past at the famous French director’s humble beginnings.




Rating:

Rated R by the MPAA




Video:

I mistakenly said in my Angel-A review that it was the only black and white film of this collection, but I have to eat some crow as I had forgotten all about Le Dernier Combat being black and white. But that little faux pas fix aside, the Blu-ray for Le Dernier Combat looks very solid. I’m going to guess that it was taken from the same master as the 2009 Optimum Entertainment release back in 2009 with Sony doing some post production polish work to it, but I can’t be certain. I can only guess as it looks very similar to the 2009 disc that was imported.

Personally I doubt we’ll ever get much better than this, as Luc Besson’s first film was shot on a shoe string budget and shot with a relatively inexperienced crew at the time. Some shots are extremely clean and clear, while others have a softness to them. Delineation is solid all the way around, but black crush and some minor grain issues crop up pretty often. Luckily the black and white palette is easy to work with, and the grays and daylight shots tend to look really impressive. But overall the print appears to have been in very good condition, as I could find no real instances of major speckling, debris or print damage anywhere in the presentation.









Audio:

The film comes with a 5.0 and 2.0 DTS-HD MA track pair for the presentation, and while it’s certainly solid, I feel that the mix is just not up to his subsequent films. And honestly, I’m not saying that as a dig or a negatory remark regarding the mix. It was a dirt cheap French film and Besson wasn’t working with the best of equipment back then. As such the film’s audio suffers from some minor LFE (no dedicated LFE channel) and some of the ambient noises are muddied. BUT, Eric Serra’s haunting score comes through impeccably well, and the two words of dialogue spoken throughout the film are crystal clear. Again, there’s nothing WRONG with the mix considering the type of film it is. It just isn’t going to be a bombastic and dynamic mix like one experiences with other Besson films.









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Final Score:

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Le Dernier Combat defies genres in a post apocalypse sci-fi world, but does it on an incredibly tight budget with the bare minimum of accessories to get the job done. As a science fiction movie it’s a work of art, as a beginning for Luc Besson, it is one of his best films. Not because it’s unique, but because you can literally FEEL the pulsating energy and excitement of a first time director eager to express himself on celluloid. There’s not a whole lot going on, but Besson has an amazing eye for theatricality, even when we’re dealing with a budget of $500,000 (U.S. dollars). The Blu-ray looks and sounds very solid all things considering, and I can’t think of a better film to finish off this collection as we circle back to the very beginning of his career. Highly recommended.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Pierre Jolivet, Jean Bouise, Jean Reno, Murice Lamy, Fritz Wepper
Directed by: Luc Besson
Written by: Luc Besson, Pierre Jolivet
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: Music: DTS-HD MA 5.0, Music DTS-HD MA 2.0
Subtitles: English
Studio: Sony
Rated: R
Runtime: 92 minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: November 11th, 2025

Recommendation: Great Watch