Critic Reviews

Drawing from behind-the-scenes footage and photos on the “Rust” set, police footage from the scene and from interrogation rooms, interviews with actors and production staffers as well as director Joel Souza (who was wounded but fully recovered) and Hutchins’ personal archives, “Last Take” is a powerful piece of work.

Last Take: Rust and the Story of Halyna is informative (albeit distressing) but doesn’t offer any final answers about the accident that cost Hutchins her life.

The film’s biggest letdown lies in its cursory tour of who Hutchins was apart from her final hours. Despite testimony from Hutchins’s friends that repeatedly references her artistry, Mason rarely incorporates clips of Hutchins’s cinematography outside “Rust.”

Mason, a close friend of Hutchins, constructs a propulsive and compelling narrative by skillfully interlacing interviews with people involved in the tragedy — including the OSHA investigator who uncovered a pattern of risky behavior on the “Rust” set — with news footage, police interrogations, and video recorded on cellphones and police minicams.

Trying to do right by Hutchins is what stops “Last Take” from playing like just another salacious true crime doc. Its focus may be scattershot, and it may not change a single mind when it comes to placing blame, but like with grief, working through the pain is never clean and tidy.