The aging lawman with a turkey neck, a man of virtue, kindly manner, slight pot belly, face like a satchel. That was Tommy Lee Jones in No Country for Old Men. Throw in a little Gran Torino action — i.e., an ornery old cuss with plenty of moxie and muscle tone…spit in your eye, kick like a mule. Mix, shake and throw in some third-act Mexican cartel carnage and you’ve got Kim Ji-woon‘s The Last Stand. Is this the first half-decent Arnold Schwarzenegger film since he left Sacramento? Or just a good poster?

The impediment, of course, is that Arnold’s face doesn’t have that creased weary elegance that benefitted Mr. Jones in No Country. AS’s face looks re-molded. I’m not convinced that any border-town sheriff has ever been able to afford such a procedure.

Logline: “A drug cartel leader escapes from a courthouse and tries to make the Mexican border. But he first has to get past an aging sheriff (Schwarzenegger) and his inexperienced staff.” Pic costars Jaimie Alexander, Harry Dean Stanton, Genesis Rodriguez, Rodrigo Santoro, Forest Whitaker, Peter Stormare, Johnny Knoxville, Zach Gilford, Luis Guzman. Wait…doesn’t the projected 1.18.13 opening mean it’ll probably be genre sludge?