LAST DAYS (2025) - Mark Reviews Movies

Last Days, Vertical

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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 23, 2025

On its own, the story of John Allen Chau, who was killed while trying to evangelize a voluntarily isolated tribe to Christianity, is neither complex nor particularly interesting. The larger context of Chau's efforts, mainly why he believed he needed to do this, and the debate surrounding them are trickier and more important. Last Days, a dramatized biography of Chau, is almost exclusively about the young man, and director Justin Lin's movie doesn't even seem to trust Chau's story is enough.

It begins, at least, by telling us that its protagonist will be dead by the end, as the noise of assorted experts offer simple words and phrases to describe Chau, his mission, and his death. On one side, voices say that the young man was "martyr," whose faith was proven by his work and especially in dying while trying to spread Christianity to a secluded tribe that otherwise would never hear of it. On the other, voices point out how foolhardy and dangerous Chau's mission was, as well as how unnecessary his death was.

This is about as much insight into the bigger context of Chau's story that's offered by Ben Ripley's screenplay (based on an article by Alex Perry). Otherwise, it simply presents John, played by Sky Yang, in as straightforward and bland terms as possible. He felt some drive to spread Christianity to an assortment of places, as a means to do something important with his life. Even though everything and everyone told him that a trek to North Sentinel Island would be of no benefit—and could be of great harm—to both him and the local population, he goes anyway.

We learn nothing more than this about the main character or what drove him to such an avoidably fatal end beyond the obvious. That the movie opens with a debate is a bit disingenuous, because it suggests it might have some insights or even thoughts to present and, ideally, set against each other. Chau's life and death raise multiple questions about the ethics and efficacy of missionary work, as well as how and why people see tribes like the Sentinelese as people who require "saving," despite the plain evidence that they can and clearly do want to live without any contact from the outside world. This movie only has dull, to-the-point answers to offer.

The structure of Ripley's screenplay almost seems to go out of its way to trick us into thinking its narrative is more complicated than it actually is. It crosscuts between two different timelines, seen from two distinct perspectives. One thread follows John from his graduation at a Christian university to his arrival in Port Blair, the capital of an island territory of India and where he's certain he can pay the right people to arrange his journey to North Sentinel Island.

Along the way, John dismisses the dreams of his father (played by Ken Leung) that he should become a doctor, meets Cameron (Toby Wallace) while doing humanitarian work in the Middle East, and sees the kind of determination he wants to achieve in his new friend. Cameron speaks of bringing Christianity to an isolated tribe in the Amazon rain forest and to the people of North Korea. Even before talking to the guy, John recognizes the coordinates on Cameron's plane as those of North Sentinel Island—the holy grail of sorts for missionaries.

There are some troubling details, such as a boot camp for mission work that pushes these likely dangerous ventures on eager young people and a last-minute suggestion that John has been directly influenced to risk his life by some of those closest to him. The filmmakers, though, don't want to take any criticism or possible accusations too far, which is mostly to say that they don't provide any real pushback, apart from a young woman (played by Marny Kennedy) in Port Blair who has some talking points to breeze through when an awkward night in her hotel room becomes an uncomfortable discussion about colonialism.

Almost as important as John's story, oddly, is that of a local police constable (played by Radhika Apte), who learns of a missing American man and starts tracing John's steps. Much of the information she learns, as it turns out, is repeated as John's own narrative eventually catches up to this flash-forward, and while the constable might be the only character to even suggest the perspective of the Sentinelese, it's not nearly enough to justify a structure that feels as if it's giving us the runaround.

The simplicity of the story, the characters, and the ideas of Last Days does none of them any favors. We're just watching a man follow his beliefs into a suicide mission, and the movie seems far more fascinated by how he did it than why.

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