directed by:
Dan Bazan written by: Dan Bazan genre: Drama, Crime |
Vengeance, you say? I’m always interested in that. Warning, minor spoilers ahead. Stylistically, Writer/Director Dan Bazan definitely knows how to get you interested in what you see onscreen. I think a lot of folks out there will appreciate the artistic way he shows you the scenes of “Bleak Terminus” right off the bat. Are we all going to be able to make sense of this film? Upon my first impression, as I started to watch, my gut was telling me no. We get the gist of Damien’s quest to get some revenge, but there are a great many details left out as this film begins, somewhat forcing us to fill in the blanks. Mysteries tend to do that, don’t get me wrong – but there was something about the way that “Bleak Terminus” began that felt like we’re just going to have to go with the flow and see where it leads. As to why the bass in Damien’s voice is deep - like he was buried six feet under before giving his lines, or why he feels the need to cover half his face constantly or wear multiple layers of clothing on the nicest of days… who knows? Not all mysteries in life get solved – just ask the ghost of Robert Stack.
I liked the initial conflict that we saw in Damien and was definitely interested in where this could go. To hear his admission that he wasn’t necessarily choosing to kill, but being forced to, and that he wanted his apparent rampage to end more than anyone else…I mean…that really is interesting, and it’s a unique twist on this kind of revenge-based story. “Bleak Terminus” is told in parts like chapters of a story – and while I never think that a good mystery should reveal all its cards right up front, the questions start to pile up pretty quickly as you watch, and you’ll wonder how many of them are going to get answered. There are plenty of moments that work really well, and the scenes are still entertaining, even if they’re not fully explained. I’m a patient man, and all I can hope is that it’s just a matter of time before we start to find out what’s really going on. There are also moments that fall a bit flatter than perhaps they should, like when Damien meets Madame Philippe, for instance. That’s where you’ll find the dialogue tripping into fairly typical villain-speak that you’ve encountered thousands of times in off-brand action movies before, and you can’t help but hope that Bazan gets things moving on faster than he does. He’s largely relying on dialogue to advance the story, and you get the sense that “Bleak Terminus” is going to tell us what’s happening much more than show us. For myself, personally, that’s a bit of a concern, especially because Dan made the very beginning of this movie look so damn cool – I want more of that! When we meet Barry, he addresses several of our concerns. From Damien’s mask to his all-black winter outfit baking him in the sunshine, Bazan covers his bases and addresses questions we’re naturally coming up with as we watch, which I appreciate. As to what’s underneath Damien’s mask exactly, or why everyone seems to instantly recognize him when he takes it off…we never see what’s up, but it sure don’t sound pretty. Are we in a drug caper? A philosophy course on transcendentalism? A spiritually aware guide to getting revenge? Bazan is definitely biting off a whole lot conceptually, but returning us with precious little to grab onto. As we slip past the halfway mark, you can’t help but feel a bit of drag on the entertainment factor as “Bleak Terminus” is fairly bogged down by a whole lot of words. Barry is fun, though. I like him as a character, and I dig his laidback approach to white-collar gangsterism and his penchant for philosophical chatter. Does his appearance help clarify any of this mystery? Not really! “He’s very nutty when he’s using,” explains his daughter…but I don’t know if that helps us all that much.
I liked the idea of ‘Mom’ and meeting this creeper…he seems like he comes with an instant element of serious danger to him. I don’t know that we’re getting the kind of cleverness we need in the dialogue to make this film work out, though, and with each ticking second going by, there seems to be less room to make a definitive impression on us that would have us ranting and raving about this movie. Movies are of course, a visual medium – I don’t mind a story being told to us more than shown to us, but the dialogue needs to basically be beyond compelling if that’s going to be the method applied – otherwise, you’ve got every reason to want to use the visual element to your advantage and show, rather than tell. Bazan is taking major risks by having so few scenes and such extended conversations. I feel like he’s past the point where it’s a concern, and it has now become a liability. Ain’t much goin’ on here on a visual level, and I feel like Bazan has somewhat forgotten to consider the people viewing his movie. “Having fun?” asks Mom. “Not really” is the response, and we kinda feel that if I’m bein’ honest with ya. Damien is alright and does the best he can expression-wise for essentially having the same capabilities as Bane in the Batman series. His eyes tell you as much as they can, but beyond that, there’s not a whole lot goin’ on there either. By the time he shows up at the end of part five, even his friend has had enough, saying, “God, it took you long enough – he wouldn’t stop talking.” Again, I completely agree. The rest is implied, hidden by the shadows of the dark in the scenes, in a medium where Dan had all the ability to show us so much, yet chose to show us so very little. I don’t know if that was the right strategy. Narrow. The. Focus. In part six, we’re introduced to a whole cast’s worth of new characters with about twenty minutes to go before we spend a whole lotta time gazing at an ant colony with Damien. A lot of this is to establish the backstory through black & white flashbacks, but we’re still unable to connect the dots as to why things end up the way they are in the present. “It’s not like we’re in Goodfellas or something” – Bazan almost seems painfully aware of how we’d be feeling in watching this film, but equally powerless to prevent it from going in the direction it does for some unexplained reason. We get the origin story of Damien becoming the revenge-filled drug addict he became, but after all this secrecy along the way, I don’t know if I can say there’s enough revealed to warrant the journey it took to get here. With less than ten minutes left, “Bleak Terminus” starts to get straight-up ODD, with an extended laughing scene eating up valuable time when we’re still searching for what the point of this is. This is a weird one to critique, I gotta say. Ultimately, I feel like this idea got away from Bazan and that he tried to do way too much with not quite enough. His reliance on dialogue exposes a dependency that doesn’t quite work. The story itself has so much trouble connecting the dots from point A to point B, and Dan’s potential to show us some really cool stuff felt a bit squandered. By the end, “Bleak Terminus” was truly perplexing in how far it seemed to drift away from what it could have been and became too much a collage of things we’ve seen in other action/mystery movies along the way – right up to the very ending, which arguably uses one of the most overused and cliché ideas in this history of modern cinema. I gotta call things as I see’em y’all - apologies. I can tell that he has the skills and technical talent to make movies, but this particular one gets the best of him in the end, delivering on what the title seems to promise us from the get-go. It’s ‘bleak’ alright, but I’m not sure this bleak is what he was going for. I gotta go with two stars out of five here. Bazan flashes potential but misses the mark this time around, in my humble opinion. |
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