Post by StevePulaski on Jul 6, 2016 13:00:28 GMT -5
Term Life (2016)
Directed by: Peter Billingsley
Directed by: Peter Billingsley
Nick (Vince Vaughn) teaches his daughter Cate (Hailee Steinfeld) how to properly hold and fire a weapon at a carnival in Term Life.
Rating: ★★
What could've inspired Peter Billingsley (most commonly known and referred to as Ralphie from A Christmas Story) to direct a crime thriller with frequent collaborator Vince Vaughn at the helm? Billingsley directed Vaughn in many of his late-2000s films that desperately tried to push him as a charismatic and bankable leading man, such as Four Christmases and Couples Retreat. Though the only commonality Term Life shares with any of those projects is it's also good for a simple, rainy day viewing and little else, perhaps the film works to extend the kind of bromance directors and their ace-in-the-hole can have, like Dennis Dugan and Adam Sandler.
The noteworthiness of this film starts and stops at Vaughn's haircut, which looks as if Moe Howard went through an emo phase. The haircut for the ordinarily combed and flattop-boasting Vaughn is even the subject of ridicule in one scene with his character's pal Harper (Jonathan Banks) at a gun shop, where he states that he looks like a pedestrian from the 1970s. To be completely honest, Vaughn's new look does provide for a darker edge, even if it is a little too obvious that it's trying to cater to the mood of the picture. It's too bad that a lot of the ominous qualities of the film start and stop at Vaughn's haircut and black-leather wardrobe, because if it didn't, we could've been looking at another Road to Perdition here.
Term Life is yet another entry in the long-line of thrillers that are better off going straight to DVD and video-on-demand, or they'd likely be subjected to meager box office earnings and contemptible reviews that would be louder and more prominently placed in newspapers than if they had just had a more low-key release. The strangest thing about this film is, admittedly, Vince Vaughn at the helm; Vaughn is the type of actor to be victim by a high-profile heist, not the man who designs and orchestrates them for other people for a five-figure fee. One just has to assume that John Cena, Nicolas Cage, or a retired WWE star was unavailable when this film was shooting (with the irony being that Term Life was distributed by the dubious WWE Studios).
As stated, the film revolves around Nick, played by Vaughn, a man who has designed heists for many years and is known to exhaust and exploit every waking detail of a building, its neighborhood, its neighboring buildings, and the type of people who freely enter and exit all of them on a regular basis. Narrating much of the film, he gives us some of his trade-secrets, like "the best place to hide is in plain sight" and you have to know how to get out of a building before you know how to get in. A lot of these mantras and mottos could've been more engrossing if they were lines of dialog in a more captivating, original film.
Nonetheless, Nick finds himself in some seriously hot water one day when a failed heist goes awry, with two bands of crooks showing up to rob the same building, with Nick bearing the blame for the misunderstanding. Now, everyone from mob bosses, hitmen, drug dealers, and policemen want Nick dead. Desperate and out of options, he takes a life insurance policy out on himself, with all his finances going to his estranged daughter Cate (Hailee Steinfeld) who hates his guts because of his prolonged absence (you'd probably hate your father too if the only time he came to see you was to warn you that people would be trying to kill you because of his own mistake). The life insurance policy doesn't take affect for twenty-one days, so using his own personal rules and guidelines, Nick must find a way to stay alive and keep his daughter save over the next three weeks.
The suspense in Term Life is pretty facile in the regard that it's predictable and surprisingly unexciting, the family-drama is rather undeveloped and stale, and neither Vaughn nor Steinfeld seem particularly captivated by the material they've been handed. Consider Léon: The Professional, the film I watched and reviewed the same day as Term Life. There was a film that had elements of an interesting crime thriller, strong dramatic sequences that amounted to a lot of deeper, more realized human interest, and sporadic action sequences that provided a break from both of those elements. It was balanced and well-articulated.
Term Life, on the other hand, mostly just meanders, latching onto whatever path seems both convenient and readily accessible to make for easy of narrative and storytelling. As a result, characters are more-or-less names with vague stories and blatant motives, emotions other than the obvious aren't very discernible, and the action is a cop-out rather than something to gel with the previous two components. If Léon was a well-oiled machined, Term Life is a bicycle that's chain just came loose only to wrap around the spokes of the tire.
Starring: Vince Vaughn, Hailee Steinfeld, Jonathan Banks, and Mike Epps. Directed by: Peter Billingsley.