This true crime drama about the 1978 prison break of murderer Gary Tison plays like a standard made-for-television drama.

At the start of the film, the character of Tison comes across as a wise guy spouting off one-liners like "B. F. Goodrich is a good tire," just as the tire is about to go flat on the getaway car.

Tison's escape from the Arizona prison was not due so much to his planning or the assistance he received from his fawning sons. Rather, the prison conditions were lax and the officials in charge were incompetent. After Tison and another inmate, Randy Greenawalt, escape, Tison demands complete loyalty from his sons, who become accessories to murder after Tison and Greenawalt kill six innocent people in cold blood.

The filmmakers tried unsuccessfully to raise this tawdry crime drama to a biblical level. The film opens with a quote from Exodus about wrath of the God of the Old Testament: "I, the Lord Thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generations of them that hate me."

Unfortunately, the scope of the film was not biblical, but filled only with pathos coming from a dysfunctional family. Tison was undone when he disrupted his escape plans to search for his brother whom he wanted to kill. The filmmakers probably want this to appear like the story of Cain and Abel, when Tison asserts that "Blood calls to blood, and blood answers back." But the final result was no more than the saga of a demented loser, willing to sacrifice the lives of his sons to save his own hide.

It was the brother's tip about the Econoline truck driven by Tison and his boys that sealed his doom. The true motto of the sleazy Tison was not about "blood," but about cowardice, when, in dire straits, he yells, "Every man for himself!" So much for blood, family values, and paternal concern for his sons!

This film is a crime drama based on the true story of the prison escape of Gary Tison (Robert Patrick) and Randy Greenawalt (Chris Browning) with the assistance of Tison family members. The group run into a lot of bad luck on their way to the border as they have their "last rampage." The characters made the film interesting as Gary shoots a car and says, "It ain't easy to kill a Chrysler." The warden (John Heard) brushes off criticism by telling us 'hindsight is fifty fifty." Heather Graham does an excellent job as Gary's wife who doesn't believe the official records. She shielded her sons from the truth which resulted later with some internal drama.

Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity.

THE LAST RAMPAGE is a film I wasn't expecting too much from. It's a low budget thriller that tells the true story of a jail break in 1978 in which a couple of hardened criminals were busted out of prison in Arizona by the sons of one of the men; they then go on a crime spree through the desert. It's an unwieldy little thriller that comes together thanks to high levels of suspense arising from the situation (think RABID DOGS-style chills) and the excellent performance of Robert Patrick, who proves that he's still got the same gravitas that he demonstrated in TERMINATOR 2 all those years ago.