The Last Stop in Yuma County

The Last Stop in Yuma County is a 2023 American crime thriller film written and directed by Francis Galluppi and starring Jim Cummings, Jocelin Donahue, Richard Brake, Faizon Love, and Michael Abbott Jr. It is Galluppi's feature directorial debut.

The Last Stop in Yuma County premiered at Fantastic Fest on September 23, 2023. The film was released in the United States in select theaters and on digital platforms on May 10, 2024, by Well Go USA Entertainment.

Plot
At a remote desert location in Yuma County, Arizona, in the 1970s, a traveling knives salesman stops at a filling station. Vernon, the station and motel attendant, informs him that the station's pumps are dry, and there are no other filling stations for over 100 mi, but that a refueling truck is expected to arrive soon. On the radio, the salesman hears about a bank robbery earlier that morning in Buckeye, where the robbers fled with approximately $250,000 in a green Ford Pinto with a damaged rear end. Charlotte, a waitress at the nearby diner, is dropped off by her husband Charlie, who is the local sheriff; she opens the diner and welcomes the salesman in. In conversation with Charlotte, he mentions that he is on his way to Carlsbad, California, for his daughter Sarah's birthday.

Shortly afterwards, the two bank robbers, Travis and Beau, arrive in a green Pinto, which the salesman recognizes as matching the description of the getaway car in the Buckeye robbery. He communicates his suspicions to Charlotte, who tries to phone her husband at the police station, but Beau forestalls her and cuts the phone cord before Charlotte can say a word to the sheriff. The robbers force her and the salesman at gunpoint to continue behaving normally—until the refueling truck arrives, or somebody else with enough fuel in their car stops by. Unbeknownst to everybody in the diner, the truck will never arrive because it has run off the road and lies overturned several miles away.

Charlie has his deputy, Gavin, come by the diner to pick up coffee for the police station and Charlotte tries to slip a plea for help to him on a coffee lid, but the coffee is spilled with the lid unseen when Gavin bumps into Travis. Meanwhile, joining the salesman and Charlotte in the diner are an elderly couple from Texas, a pair of young aspiring criminals named Miles and Sybil, and local rancher Pete. With the fuel tank of Pete's vehicle being almost full, Beau and Travis try to force him into giving his car keys to them, but with almost everybody in the diner carrying a firearm, a Mexican standoff develops and Pete tries to negotiate for some arrangement out of that impasse. However, Charlotte stabs Beau with a knife, which sparks a shootout in which everybody gets killed except for the salesman and Sybil. In the course of attempting to take the bank robbers’ money, Sybil tries to shoot the salesman - but is stabbed in self-defense by the salesman first.

The salesman decides to take the robbers' loot from the Pinto's trunk, but is interrupted by a young couple with a baby who arrive on the scene. In the ensuing scuffle, the salesman ends up killing them both and, unbeknownst to him, shooting his gas tank. He syphons some fuel from Pete's truck, leaves the crying baby in the couple’s car, and drives off - with a trail of spilled gas behind him. The sheriff and deputy arrive and discover the carnage. Seeking vengeance for his wife’s murder, the sheriff tracks the fleeing salesman, whose car has run out of gasoline near the wreck of the refueling truck. The sheriff is unbelieving of the salesman’s claims of innocence and in his rage, chases after him to shoot him. In the confrontation, the salesman is shot in the gut by the sherrif as he lures the sheriff closer to the crashed fuel truck, lights the gas trail on fire, and causes a huge explosion - killing the sheriff. With the robbers' money blowing away in the background, the salesman staggers into the desert to slowly fall and die in the sand.

Release
The Last Stop in Yuma County premiered at Fantastic Fest on September 23, 2023. The film was released in the United States in select theaters and on digital platforms on May 10, 2024, by Well Go USA Entertainment.

Box office
In North America (Canada, the United States, and Puerto Rico), The Last Stop in Yuma County grossed $41,520 from 45 cinemas during its opening weekend, finishing 29th in the box office rankings. , that constituted 100% of the film's revenue worldwide.