Review of the mini-series "The Terminal List," a deadly depressing thriller starring Chris Pratt
Chris Pratt in a disastrously sluggish series about a Marine who unravels a conspiracy .
James Reece (Chris Pratt) is a professional and the head of a SEAL team. After an unsuccessful mission overseas, Rhys is left alone: the platoon tragically dies during an operation, and the soldier returns home with post-traumatic syndrome. Soon Rhys realizes that the case looks like a set-up, and his superiors do not want to reveal the details of the incident - they simply try to hush up the situation. Now not only the team is trapped, but the lieutenant commander himself, whose life is shrouded in conspiracies, surveillance, and tragic circumstances. Reece has no choice but to take matters into his own hands, uncover the truth, and take revenge on those who have hurt him.
"The Terminal List" is an eight-part Amazon Prime series based on the novel by Jack Carr. A man who knew firsthand what it was like to work in the Special Forces, so the series claimed to be convincing from the very first steps - the project could tell the story of conspiracies in the American shadowy structures: among government officials, heads of corporations and military contractors. The already complex plot is enriched by yet another plot twist: PTSD that prevents the main character from finding his bearings, his memory fails at the most inopportune moment and his cognitive abilities as a Marine leave much to be desired. No less intriguing is the name in the credits of Antoine Fuqua, who had a hand in writing the script and producing. He also directed the pilot episode - introducing the viewer to the failed mission in Syria and the subsequent debriefing. And Chris Pratt, with a dejected look and imprinted on his face sadness trying to re-train: from the hilarious Star-Lord in "Guardians of the Galaxy" to the paranoid warrior, which is hard to see the old comedian (however, let us not forget that Pratt already tried on a military uniform in "Target Number One", playing, surprisingly enough, a SEAL fighter).
If you want to invest time in watching "The Terminal List" and are hoping to see a gripping thriller, you'll be disappointed pretty soon. The first episode from Antoine Fuqua certainly looks like a good letter of recommendation: there's Pratt's traumatized character, a paranoid sense of deception and conspiracy, and there are escapades of action scenes staged with professionalism and excitement (a bonus are the beautiful shots, hand-held camera shots and an expressive Taylor Kitsch as the main character's brother). After the first shootout in the MRI office, the series proves to be less conscientious - the degree of events noticeably decreases, and the stricken Marine is tossed from one location to another: golf clubs, strip bars and places for secret meetings with reporters (one of the central roles was played by Constance Wu, portraying an annoying journalist conducting her own investigation). Pretty soon Pratt changes from a suffering military man to a muscular professional who begins stalking his foes and taking revenge. All attempts to create a new movie novel in the spirit of Tom Clancy's books fail - tedious cat-and-mouse sequences set in half-dark spaces come to the fore. And "The Terminal List" can be described as the result of a search engine, in which the initial data were queries on "Jack Ryan" and "Jack Reacher" - but only, as they say, on the minimum.
Instead of sharp action, the viewer is fed badly matched episodes in the order of "dialogue, action scene and then dialogue again," which do not achieve the desired effect: the fighting and graphic violence are too clumsy and crude, and the dramaturgy clearly lacks sharpness and self-irony. However, it would be superfluous to demand this from the creators who make the story on serious grounds: the painful depression of a marine, the tangle of mysteries and the permanent threat of life - even the minor characters appear here to die in one scene in a stupid way. It's very unclear why such a cliched story is being hyped into an eight-episode show - the project is rather shown its way into the cramped confines of a second-rate action film for an hour and a half. Creating a technothriller about a dystopian and corrupt world quickly goes off course, as the series' space proves too sterile.
But the timeline clears for a psychological portrait of the protagonist, a weary fighter who is forced to draw a watershed between his own and the outsiders in the struggle for truth. Alas, Pratt is handicapped by the image of a brooding warrior who shakes himself up and changes his pain into anger - only his leaden eyes betray any authenticity in Rice. The foreign press, criticizing the series, often dwelled on the problem of mysticism: most of all, of course, Pratt, who seems to hold back his eccentricity to squeeze into the image of a cold-blooded victim of circumstances. In other words, we all want to see Pratt in Guardians of the Galaxy and nowhere else.
"The Terminal List" is a predictable, forced and toothless "man in camouflage finds himself at the center of a conspiracy" series. It is difficult to recommend it because of its sagging dramaturgy, its fast-paced action and almost no emotional impact on the result, even to the most devoted fans of the artist.
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