Last Bullet (2025)

The French action series from director Guillaume Pierret reaches a rowdy climax in Last Bullet (aka Lost Bullet 3). I watched Lost Bullet (2020) and Lost Bullet 2 (2022) a year ago and had a hell of a good time with both Netflix-distributed smash’em ups, reviewed here.

I think this final Bullet movie and Gareth Evans’ Havoc were the only Netflix movies I have been hyped for at all since The Shadow Strays, and then they ended up being released just two weeks apart. Neither film quite lived up to my anticipation, but both are still a good time and deliver some memorably insane action sequences. Anyone upset about the CGI-heavy car chase in Havoc (which I also liked) needs to watch the Lost Bullet movies and all the practical vehicular violence they deliver. Seriously, this series treat cars like a particularly sadistic slasher movie treats the human body, constantly finding new ways to smash, shred, stab, and ‘splode their metal frames into unrecognizable remains. Highlights this time include a truck t-boning a parked car and splitting it in half as the truck flies through it, a car being ground to nothing shooting through a tiny gap, and some shit involving a semi-truck that I won’t dare spoil.

yeah, that's the stuff

Since it has been three years since part 2 was released, Netflix helpfully provides an optional set of clips at the beginning of the movie like a TV show’s “Previously On…” Even with that primer it took me a minute to remember who some of the characters were and where they left off. The simple plot and cast of the first movie has expanded to include multiple factions working against each other (and themselves). It makes sense how it has spiraled out from corrupt cop and initial antagonist Areski (Nicolas Duvauchelle) to include those above and around him, but it means the economical storytelling and propulsive energy I admired so much in the first movie are pretty much gone. This time around we have backstory flashbacks to before the first movie’s events, betrayals on betrayals with both bullets and bureaucratic backstabbing, and more time spent on those plot threads and outside threats driving events.

That is reflected by the opening of the movie focusing on Areski. Two years after escaping the French police, he is in hiding working as a drug courier under corrupt Narcotics Commissioner Resz, the big bad introduced in part 2. Resz wants to clean up loose ends, sending some other couriers to try to sabotage Areski’s bike and kill him. This leads to a short but exciting chase through winding forest roads and my first exclamation of “Awesome!” eight minutes into the runtime. One of the bikers crashes his motorcycle into the back of a van, then flies through the van and out of the front windshield in one of the series’s trademark spectacle crashes. Areski returns to his cabin and his girlfriend who doesn’t know about his shady past. She is murdered by his attackers, but Areskie survives thanks to a great grenade gag and a beefy beatdown, the series' other trademark action element (although the brawls get more brutal this time, as unlike our hero Lino, Areski gives no fucks about killing or collateral damage). Areski makes the surviving assassin tell Resz he is dead, and goes on the run.

The first movie set up protagonist Lino (Alban Lenoir) and his situation in 8 minutes, then kicked the plot into gear with his mentor’s murder at about 20 min. This time around Lino doesn’t even appear until 15 minutes in. Lino has been in captivity in Spain for the last two years until he is exchanged for Alvaro (one of the Spanish cops who helped Lino in part 2). Resz tells Lino he is not worth a bullet and lets him go, a pretty huge oversight considering his otherwise thorough clean up process includes immediately killing Alvaro (and some of the other Spanish cops from part 2) with a semi-truck and staging an accident scene. Lino meets up with Julia (Stefi Celna), his on/off love interest and the cop who always helped him. One little moment I liked: Julia returns to her place after letting Lino rest there, and he has cleaned up and organized her whole apartment! 

Julia has saved some of the vehicles and equipment from their now disbanded police brigade. Lino is angry when he discovers they junked the (completely totaled) car that belonged to his murdered mentor, Charas. He goes to the junkyard, and while inspecting the car’s remains he discovers that Areski was there the previous day retrieving a Saint Christopher medallion he once gave to Charas. We actually saw Areski picking that up from the junkyard in the cliffhanger ending of part 2, but it takes about 30 minutes to get to that scene with Areski in this movie. Lino realizes Areski will go to retrieve his family, and immediately heads for the house of Areski’s ex-wife (who Lino had a relationship with in part 2). 

Resz believes Areski is dead, but his henchman Yuri (Quentin D’Hainaut), scarred survivor of part 2, does not. Yuri and Lino both pursue Areski, with Areski and Yuri having a violent fight in a tram full of people (including a kid shoved head first into a pole!). One thing I realize I have not mentioned in my reviews of this series is the tone. The characters don’t spout one-liners or quips, and it isn’t wacky or irreverent about action and violence as is a common trend these days. The movies are generally serious, but they are not trying to be gritty or po-faced and will give the audience a release or a laugh within the action beats. This tram fight is probably the nastiest the series gets, as it is two unhinged bad guys fighting around and on top of civilians until everyone stampedes out. Then Lino catches up with Areski and Yuri and walks into the now otherwise empty tram and they all take a second and eye each other up. The door closes behind Lino, and its “ding ding” sound is the opening bell of their furious threeway fight! I may have clapped a little.

I appreciate that the filmmakers realized they couldn’t try and one up the big brawls of the previous movies. Part 1 had Lino fight the whole police squad, part 2 had him fight TWO police squads AND a guy he was trying to steal out from under them. The centerpiece fight of this one feels fresh because instead of a handicap match it is three guys all viciously trying to take each other down at the same time, in a confined space where they are just bouncing off of each other’s skulls and various hard objects. 

Areski escapes and goes full Grand Theft Auto. I said The Hidden was like a Grand Theft Auto rampage with cheat codes in movie form. Then L.A. Wars felt like speedrunning a bunch of bullshit missions with its rapid-fire, narrative-free stream of crimes, shootings and retributions. This is the movie version of the endless GTA chase where you are trying and failing to shake the cops, and end up driving like a maniac all over the map. Areski tries to steal a car, accidentally takes out a motorcycle cop, then steals the cop’s bike and takes off. Julia and Lino both give chase in separate vehicles. What follows is the most go-anywhere chase I have ever seen outside of a video game, as they drive through parks, back alleys, crowded town squares, and picturesque but narrow curves around waterways. Julia ends up with Areski, who cuts a deal to squeal with her superior to save his posterior. This sets up another climax based around our heroes pulling off a dangerous extraction mission with a time limit and lots of people in pursuit similar to part 2.

In my review of part 2, I noted that Lino upgrading his car spikes with electricity was a good representation of the sequel as a whole: bigger, more complicated and excessive, cool as hell, but not quite as efficient or fresh as the first time around. With that car totaled, Last Bullet gives Lino a new vehicle that also serves as a handy metaphor for this final movie: a huge fuck-off yellow tow truck equipped with improvised cannons. That means like the rest of the movie, the end chases are bigger, longer, and messier. They involve larger and more varied vehicles and literal fireworks, making the previous movies’ climaxes look low-key in comparison. There are some truly spectacular moments and crashes, but the rhythm is spottier and it didn’t build momentum or excitement as well as the previous films (which had me actually bouncing in my seat by the end). That said, it is still some of the best motor mayhem outside of a Mad Max movie, and well worth any action fan’s time. Maybe when I re-watch the whole trilogy closer together (which I definitely will, my wife needs to see this shit), I will appreciate the storytelling in Last Bullet more and it will hang together better for me.

One final note, this trilogy is a hell of a hair journey for the main characters. Lino started out with buzzed hair and beard, then grew in a fuller look for part 2. When he comes out of captivity in part 3, he is a shaggy mess and for some reason the fuzzier he gets the more he reminds me of Jake Johnson (The New Girl). That's probably just me though...

buddy comedy with Lenoir as the rough and tumble French cousin of goofball Johnson please

Areski started out as a respectable cop with coiffed hair and a cleaner shave than Lino, by part 3 he is a fugitive and has grown a feral looking, mostly grey beard. I like them both the messier and more hobo-like they look. Julia started with braids then upgrades to thicker braids in part 2, which combined with her new under-armour style shirt and kevlar vest gave her a really cool look. In part 3 she is saddled with a much less flattering perm, boo! She does get a sweet new jacket, though, which gave me big 80s/90s anime vibes (always a plus). Thank you for attending my TED Talk on the hairdressing and styling of the Lost Bullet series.