Why Jason From The Last House Looks So Familiar

Netflix's "The Last House" has a fair amount going for it on paper. It's an original film written by Matthew Robinson, who also penned the wholly delightful post-apocalyptic adventure flick "Love and Monsters" and this year's gonzo sci-fi comedy thriller "Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die." What's more, it hails from director Louis Leterrier, whose output is generally not what one would call high art, but he does tend to make watchably schlocky big-budget fare and B-movies. He's even done some of his career-best work for Netflix on the French heist series "Lupin" and the fantasy prequel show "The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance."

Alas, critics have now weighed in on "The Last House," and they agree it kinda stinks. However, they're also of the opinion that it gets a good deal of mileage from its leading actors, which should come as little surprise. The movie follows a family as, one rainy day, they find they're suddenly unable to leave their home as the result of some inexplicable but clearly preternatural event that has left people the world over trapped in their houses. So, it falls to the parents (played by Greta Lee and Wagner Moura) to do what they must to ensure they and their kids stay alive until they can escape.

Lee, who plays the family's matriarch Ann, has been churning out first-class performances for the last 20 years, although she firmly cemented herself as a dramatic powerhouse with her turn in Celine Song's marvelous 2023 romantic drama movie "Past Lives." As for the family's pater familias, Jason, he's played by Wagner Moura, who only just scored his first Oscar nod for his acting in last year's acclaimed political thriller "The Secret Agent." But in truth, his CV extends much further back than that.

Born in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, Wagner Moura (naturally) spent the first chunk of his career acting primarily in Brazilian films and TV shows starting in the late 1990s. (This was also when he kicked off his run as a theater performer.) It was during this time that he starred in the "Elite Squad" movies, a pair of crime thrillers that proved to be extremely popular in Brazil, bringing both Moura and director José Padilha to international fame. That, in turn, paved the way to the former snagging a pivotal role in 2013's "Elysium," Neill Blomkamp's big-budget sci-fi follow-up to his breakout 2009 sci-fi action hit "District 9."

Two years later, though, Moura got the spotlight to himself when he starred in Netflix's "Narcos" as Pablo Escobar, the notorious, mustached Columbian drug lord whose reign of terror was finally ended by Alfred Matthew Yankovic. (Go watch "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story," and that joke will actually make sense.) The popular TV crime drama ran for several seasons and birthed a meme involving Moura's "King of Cocaine" looking like a sad sack, which is as sure a sign as any that you've made it as an actor.

Moura has only continued to earn his stripes since then, starring in celebrated films like "The Secret Agent" and Alex Garland's thriller "Civil War," voicing the red-eyed, wolf-like Death in "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish," and heading to a galaxy far, far away to play one of the lead characters in the animated show "Star Wars: Maul — Shadow Lord." Needless to say, it won't be long before a misfire like "The Last House" becomes a distant memory for a talented fellow like him.

"The Last House" is now streaming on Netflix.