A few weeks ago, I watched Amazon Prime’s “The Terminalist” starring Chris Pratt (Amazon Prime’s “The Tomorrow War”). I was very excited about this Drama/Crime/Sci-Fi mini series, after watching its trailer sometime this year.
This mini series ,with eight episodes in its first season, was released on July 1st 2022.
Onto the premise: The series follows James Reece after his entire platoon of Navy SEALs is ambushed during a high-stakes covert mission. Reece returns home to his family with conflicting memories of the event and questions about his culpability. However, as new evidence comes to light, Reece discovers dark forces working against him, endangering not only his life but the lives of those he loves.
This is the type of entertainment that used to get made on a fairly regular basis yesteryear. Not anymore. Shows like this one are far and few between these days. A show which doesn’t preach, insult or attack it’s audiences or tries to force-feed a specific message of anykind. It is a series that is unabashedly entertaining, interesting and a pleasure to watch start to finish. The themes and ideas of this show are woven into the storyline and plot points as well as the journey of the characters. No empty virtue signalling or moral grand-standing here.
“The Terminal List” is an edge of your seat mystery-spy-action-thriller with a healthy dose of revenge seeking thrown in there, one that while not necessarily breaking any new ground (there are other similarly-themed series and movies of varying levels of quality) still manages to feel fresh and put it’s own spin on the genre.
The show is not necessarily an easy watch and is at times grim and darkly-themed. But that is part and parcel of the story and the different paths the characters have to undertake. Which is also what makes for such compelling viewing.
Some may point to perhaps the overly long run of the episodes. I personally, do not mind that one bit. The series is eight episodes long…and you actually get your money’s worth. I am sick and tired of these series that are only six to eight episodes, where individual episodes sometimes a have a forty minutes or less runtime…looking at you Disney Plus! Besides, this is actually a positive, because it allows the show to breathe, the story to unfold properly and the characters to actually develop in a meaningful way.
In addition, perhaps most importantly, this a very solid, well made, cast, acted, written and directed series. I am aware that it is based on the books by James Carr (I’m assuming this series will get more seasons), which I have not read. It speaks to the effectiveness of the series, that it draws those like myself, who have not read the source material, to this world and characters. Of special mention is the pilot/ first episode, directed by Antoine Fuqua himself, who puts on a clinic on how to properly start a show and set the tone. Chris Pratt is no doubt a standout here but by no means the only one. Taylor Kitsch, Constance Wu, JD Pardo, Riley Keough, Jane Tripplehorn, Jay Courtney are all good in their respective roles, as are others not mentioned here. The cinematography, action sequences, the music also nicely round off the whole deal.
“The Terminal List” is an example of talented people in front and behind the camera, working on a project they care about and are invested in.
Awesome production value, cinematography, acting, writing, dialogue, and action sequences. I can’t see any weak aspects, but I gave it a 9 just to be restrained. Could very easily been a 10! Maybe an actual specops person would be more critical, but that’s not me. Loved every second of it! Sad it ever had to end!
It’s almost perfect, and deserves a 10 thanks to the huge cast (lots of great actors), and amazing scenes, almost impossible to stop watching once you start it’s that good. Great job by a pro production, tight story, the director and his team made a very good job and well as as the camera and technical team, reliable characters, and all actors as well as stunts are putting a lot of efforts, so the results is very powerful. It is very surprising to see Chris plays a serious role, no comedy no jokes, nothing is cheesy here, just painful, serious, cold character, and it’s suits him so well that I wonder how it affect some of his next action roles, he can play a deep and dramatic character in thrillers. Must see, satisfaction guaranteed!
Did you know?
Based on the book series written by former Navy SEAL Jack Carr. The series consists of five books so far: The Terminal List, True Believer, Savage Son, The Devil’s Hand and In The Blood.
In one of the preparations for Pratt’s role, Jack Carr (the author of the original story) gifted Chris Pratt the novel “Once An Eagle” by Anton Myrer, which is a large historical fiction piece carrying the themes of World War 1 to Vietnam, while also expressing a case study in leadership.
Co-stars Chris Pratt and Patrick Schwarzenegger are brothers-in-law. Pratt is married to Schwarzenegger’s oldest sister Katherine.
One of the operators in the brief scene at the beginning of the first episode is wearing a Black Rifle Coffee shirt which was Reece’s favorite coffee in the books.
On the side of his gun safe, just above the Yeti sticker, is a sticker for Chris Kyle’s foundation. It is a skeleton of a frog, the Chris Kyle Frog Foundation.
The tomahawk used by Reece is the WK RnD Axe. It is a collaborative design between Master Bladesmith Daniel Winkler and skilled Sayoc Kali martial arts trainer Rafael Kayanan. The handle design provides a standard grip position, as well as a secondary close quarter grip that was developed to emulate the feel of a handgun grip.
Chris Pratt and Taylor Kitsch both previously played Navy SEALs in Zero Dark Thirty and Lone Survivor respectively. Taylor Kitsch also played a former SEAL in Oliver Stone Savages
Taylor Kitsch (Ben Edwards) and Derek Phillips (SSA Stephen Ramsay) starred together as brothers in the “Friday Night Lights” series.
One episode it is stated at Messines General Plumer had a number of mines with 600 lbs of explosives, way of 19 mines and approximately 1,000,000 lbs of explosives in 5 miles of tunnels. It was the largest man made explosion at up to that time in history .
For more information visit-> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11743610/
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