New images of Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Last Stand

Arnold Schwarzenegger's post-political office acting career is finally coming to fruition, as evidenced by these new images from The Last Stand .

Schwarzenegger will next be seen with his '80s action contemporaries in The Expendables 2 , but Last Stand will mark his first lead role since Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines .

A modern western, Last Stand casts Arnie as Sheriff Ray Owens, a man tasked with preventing a drug kingpin from crossing the Mexico border, assisted by his inexperienced staff.

Sounds like it'll be a role requiring the Austrian Oak to do more acting than flexing, which is probably a wise idea at this stage in his career.

What gives this thriller extra bite though, is Korean director Kim Ji-woon ( A Tale Of Two Sisters , I Saw The Devil ), who should hopefully provide a fresh perspective on a well-trodden genre.

And the cast list is pretty diverse, including Forest Whitaker, Genesis Rodriguez, Eduardo Noriega, Johnny Knoxville and Harry Dean Stanton.

The first image came from USA Today , before Arnie revealed the next on Schwarzenegger.com . Check 'em out below:

The Last Stand opens in the UK on 25 January 2012.

Matt Maytum is the former Editor of Total Film magazine. Over the past decade, Matt has worked in various roles for TF online and in print, including at GamesRadar+. Bucket-list-ticking career highlights have included reporting from the set of Tenet and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as covering Comic-Con, TIFF and the Sundance Film Festival.