How will the world be in the next ten years? An unknown fear engulfs us every time we think about it. The previous century had watched the world shatter and crumble, but they also saw a new world forming. What we have seen is a world that is not afraid to be itself, a world where possibilities are endless. Simultaneously, our world is selfish and careless. Global environmentalists and scientists are scared about the future. The massive plastic waste and other harmful wastes that humanity is leaving behind are piling up in nature and making its condition worse. We, as humans, are casual about it. Not only that but to fulfill our greed for a lavish lifestyle, we have been mercilessly cutting down trees and ruining the balance of the ecosystem. Furthermore, we are minutely keeping away from the environmental issue and are still planning our political moves, such as waging war on other nations or fueling civil wars across the globe. So, where does it end? More importantly, how does this end?
Director Tanel Toom, in his film Last Sentinel, presents us with a world in the future where nature has taken its sweet revenge on the human race. The fantasy world is filled with fear and horror. We see four sentinels who try hard to stay alive and fight the forces of nature while they defeat their enemies. In a world where natural disasters are common, humans are still not unified; there is still “us” and “them.” The film is a dark satire and gives us a hint of our future reality if we don’t change our behavior.
Spoilers Ahead
The Storm And The Vast Nothingness
Four military personnel are stranded on a base that is located in the midst of a large water body. The movie begins with Baines (Martin McCann), Sullivan, aka Sully (Lucien Laviscount), and Cassidy (Cate Bosworth) trying to catch fish with the net as it is heavily pouring. The weather looked stormy. Suddenly, there was a heavy tremor. Things on the platform began to shake. The sergeant on the base, Hendrichs (Thomas Kretschmann), asks these three people to secure the door. He said that there was an approaching tsunami, and the Richter scale reading went up to 9. Soon, we see massive waves hitting the base where the four were stationed. Baines was asked to secure the Genny, a mysterious circular structure that had something they were trying to protect.
The next morning, nature was calm once again. It showed no sign of the ferocity that had been unleashed the previous night. However, people in the camp were restless. They were tired, angry, and scared. They wanted to return to their homes. The sergeant reminded everyone of their duties. Baines rolled a piece of food off the plate and put it on the table. The ball rolled down, and he said that they were leaning at a 3.4-degree incline and that everything on the camp was rusted or otherwise damaged. So, their chances of survival are getting thinner with each passing moment.
Sully was in charge of encoding and decoding messages. However, there was nothing much to decode on his part. No messages came via radio signals. The connection was formed and lost in routine.
However, something different happened that morning. Standing on the deck with his binoculars, the sergeant spotted another ship. Sully believed that it was the rescue ship and requested the sergeant seize fire. Cassidy tried to establish communication with the ship, but there was no response from the other side. It felt as if a dead ship was approaching them. Everyone was worried that this unresponsive ship might also be a trap. The sergeant asked Scully to go and personally check the boat and report on it to the camp.
Opportunities And Secret Plans
As Sully reached the unidentified ship, he found no one on it. It was as if the ship appeared from nowhere and had no purpose. To ensure his safety, Sully switched off his communication device and began to thoroughly search the ship. Unable to connect with him, Cassidy, Baines, and the sergeant were worried. The sergeant ordered him to blow the ship off with Sully in it. The other two resisted the idea as much as they could. In the meantime, Sully turned the device on and updated the crew about the ship.
As the ship approached, Baines and Sully wanted to take it and leave the god-forsaken place, as they were convinced that no help was on the way. The sergeant was dead against the idea. In the meantime, Sully forwarded a “rescue us” message, which came back to them. The panic of the message coming back went through Sully and Baines, and they were convinced that they would sail away with or without the sergeant.
Cassidy tried hard to convince the sergeant, and he seemed to give the boys a chance. He allowed Sully and Baines to leave on the ship with two weeks’ supply and communicate with the camp about what they saw out there. If they find help, they will bring the ship back to the camp and take the sergeant and Cassidy.
However, things began to take a rough turn. The night before their journey, Scully, Baines, and the others wake up to the emergency alert. The radar of the camp showed another unidentified ship close by. While Cassidy tried to establish the connection, the sergeant and Baines were up on the deck and all set to attack, and Scully found out that it was the ship that they found. The sergeant planned to destroy the boat. He forced the guys to shoot at the ship at gunpoint. As the fight got worse, Cassidy hit the sergeant on the back of his head, knocking him unconscious.
Deception, Murder, And Darkness
Soon, we are introduced to the dark sides of the characters. Baines, a terrible alcoholic, began drinking and lost his sanity. We also find out about the sergeant and his motives. We also discover that Cassidy isn’t who she has portrayed so far. However, the true purpose of the Genny was not disclosed. In the series of events, the director showed us exactly what is wrong with humanity and why the world has come to this position. This is where the audience understands that the two continents that were at constant war for land and resources in a flooded world needed each other. However, the means to get hold of the grain and secure it were violence and deception.
We see how Cassidy murdered the sergeant and killed the crew of a rescue ship as they were coming to save those in the camp. She probably also killed Baines. We see how the two continents are separated by massive plastic waste that separates the waterbody into two halves. However, in the end, as Scully decides to diffuse the Genny, he finds the message that Scully kept chanting while he was drunk.
‘Last Sentinel’ Ending
In the end, Scully and Cassidy decided to join hands and find a sustainable solution to ensure their survival in the world. The four characters in the film remind us of the classic play by Samuel Beckett, “Waiting for Godot.” The sentinels had no idea what they were waiting for. Was it the enemy, the rescue ship, or just their death? The answer remains unknown. However, in the end, the film ends on a positive note. The unity between Sully and Cassidy is symbolic of sustainable development and codependency. This unity and this codependency are what the world needs to practice today for a better future. The ending is more advice for a better world. But the question remains: what did Genny have, and also if, finally, the duo kept their promises? However, we saw birds flying, which is a symbol of a better future.