The Last One for the Road

Synopsis

Two charming, broke, fifty-something small-time Italian crooks, Doriano and Carlobianchi, find themselves on a seemingly never-ending alcoholic road trip through the backroads and plains of the Veneto region in northeast Italy. Obsessed with their 'never skip the last drink' philosophy, the permanently tipsy pair stumble across Giulio, a shy, naïve architecture student who is entirely adrift in life. The mismatched trio embark on a chaotic bender through roadside taverns, live-music pubs, and ghost highways, where the older rogues hand out questionable advice and a free-flowing mentorship that completely alters the young man's views on life, love, and the future. Beneath the hangovers and comedic escapades, however, lies a method to their madness; the duo are trying to reach the airport to pick up an exiled old partner-in-crime from Argentina and dig up long-buried cash from a 2008 financial crisis heist. Francesco Sossai's gently melancholic, shaggy-dog road movie offers an artfully shot, perceptive snapshot of a vanishing industrial Italy and the enduring bonds of unexpected male friendship.