Last Orders

The title refers to both a pub landlord's last call and the final wishes of a dying man, in this instance Jack Dodds, an East London butcher who greatly influenced four men over the course of his flawed but decent lifetime. The quartet gathers to scatter Jack's ashes in Margate, where he had hoped to retire to a small seaside cottage with his wife Amy, a dream that never was fulfilled.

The four are compulsive horse race gambler Ray Johnson, aka Lucky, who fought beside Jack during World War II and has been his best friend since; former boxer Lenny, who is always ready to settle an argument with his fists; undertaker Vic, who acts as a buffer of sorts; and Jack's son Vince, a dealer of used luxury cars, whose relationship with his father never quite recovered when, as a young boy, he learned his real family perished in a wartime bombing and Jack and Amy took in the orphaned infant and raised him as their own.

As the quartet journeys from London by car to honor Jack's request, with stops at Canterbury Cathedral, the Chatham Naval Memorial, the Hop farm where Jack and Amy met, and a couple of pubs en route, they reminisce about their friend and recall their personal interactions with him over the years. Meanwhile, Amy is on a journey of her own to visit their mentally retarded daughter June, who has been institutionalized since shortly after her birth fifty years earlier. Over the years Jack barely acknowledged her existence, but Amy faithfully has visited her weekly, even though June has no idea of who she is or why she's there.

Through frequent flashbacks that stretch across six decades, the stories of the events that brought these people to this point in their lives slowly unfold, ultimately revealing the importance of friendship and love.