Raghvendra Singh Rana
‘The Last Stand’ is an action crime film that centers around a small border town through which an escaped crime lord plans to cross over to Mexico. It is up to the town’s sheriff, Ray Owens, and his deputies to stand against the crime lord and his drug cartel. Arnold Schwarzenegger takes on the role of Sheriff Ray Owens in this Kim-jee Woon directorial. Joining the cast alongside him are Forest Whitaker, Luis Guzman, Jaimie Alexander, Johnny Knoxville, Genesis Rodriguez, and Eduardo Noriega.
With multiple firefights and high-speed chase scenes, the film makes for a thrilling ride. Due to its flashy action sequences, ‘The Last Stand’ takes the audience everywhere from a city to a barren highway and even a cornfield. Thus, it is natural for the audience to wonder where the movie was filmed. Allow us to fill you in on all the details of the same!
The Last Stand Filming Locations
‘The Last Stand’ was filmed entirely on location in New Mexico, specifically in Belen, Albuquerque, Mesita, Santa Fe, and Laguna Pueblo. Primary photography began on October 17, 2011, and went on till February 2, 2012. The use of warm colors like yellow and orange gives the town of Sommerton Junction, Arizona (where the story takes place) a welcoming and peaceful feeling. Due to the intense action scenes in the film, which involve a lot of explosions and car crashes, a relatively secluded area was used for the film’s production. Let’s take a look at the exact filming locations of ‘The Last Stand’.
Belen, New Mexico
The story of ‘The Last Stand’ is that of a typical Western – with the good guys facing off against the bad guys in one final shootout in the middle of the town. Therefore, a location that would capture the essence of such a town was important for filming to commence. It also needed to be sans population or with a low population to avoid any sort of accident during filming. In the end, Belen, New Mexico, was chosen as the location for the fictional town of Sommerton Junction, Arizona. It is the ideal place to shoot an action film because of an abandoned area that can be used for as long as possible.
The diner shown in the film, which is the center of activity for the entire town, was originally an abandoned building in Belen and was refurbished for its role in ‘The Last Stand.’ The right set creates the right ambiance for any movie. The same was needed for ‘The Last Stand,’ without which it might have felt incomplete. Besides refurbishing the abandoned building into a diner, Production Designer Franco-Giacomo Carbone used a variety of styles to create different façades, which gave Belen the illusion of a small frontier town that has stood tall against the march of history.
The final confrontation between the drug cartel and Sommerton Junction’s law enforcement forces takes place on Becker Avenue between N 1st St. and N 3rd St. Becker Avenue has also been the site for the filming of the 2014 Johnny Depp starrer, ‘Transcendence’.
Albuquerque, New Mexico
In ‘The Last Stand’ the notorious cartel boss Gabriel Cortez escapes from FBI custody while being transported from a prison in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada. Instead of Las Vegas, downtown Albuquerque in New Mexico is used to film these scenes instead. To avoid any interruption to the daily lives of the people of Albuquerque, the shooting took place between 6 pm and 6 am.
The cornfield through which Ray and Cortez chase each other in their respective cars also lies just outside of Albuquerque and is part of Bosque Farms. In fact, the cornfield was purchased to be used as a filming location in the film and was also added to the Sommerton background during post-production.
Las Vegas, Nevada
Following the original plan to capture the film in and around Las Vegas, Nevada, as the story takes place there, some of the exterior shots were captured in the city and then added during the post-production. The Las Vegas strip, for example, was added to the scenes shot in downtown Albuquerque. General Motors provided 14 cars for the filming of the chase scenes in ‘The Last Stand.’ Two were in their original state, while the rest were specially modified for shooting the fast-paced action sequences from within the car, or for the various vehicular stunts which are present in the film.
Read More: Is The Last Stand Based on a True Story?
