This is a non-spoiler review for all eight episodes of The Terminal List, which premieres Friday, July 1 on Amazon Prime Video.
The Terminal List, adapted from the first of Jack Carr's five "James Reece" books, is an earnest but overlong revenge thriller featuring Chris Pratt in humorless Heartland hero mode, for story that hits all the important "Big Dad Energy" beats that Amazon's been chasing after its success with both Bosch and Jack Ryan. In that regard, The Terminal List fits in well, even occasionally delivering devilish twists and engaging action, but it also wallows incessantly in heaviness, beating the same drum over and over until much of it becomes dull.
When The Terminal List works, it works well. Naturally, hindsight is 20/20, so there's no true answer as to the best way to adapt this story, but eight full-hour episodes finds this saga stretching to fill time, often falling back on "asked and answered" sentiment, repeating the story's soft, reflective moments until they wind up cannibalizing each other. Could this have been a movie? A shorter series? Probably. It would have tightened the pacing and allowed the weight and drama a clearer path to success.
Because Pratt is naturally charismatic — a trait which he's chosen, for whatever reason, to curtail in recent years (even progressively throughout the Jurassic World trilogy) — protagonist James Reece shines through with more life and light than you'd usually find in a character who's basically Frank Castle. That being said, it's glaringly obvious that Pratt's strengths are not on full display here, despite him being able to swap in for a gung-ho John Rambo type. Reece is a stern, dutiful legend amongst Navy SEALs and can take down entire squads by himself, and while that has its place — especially in a blood-soaked tale of vengeance — the way the story's dosed out means we never see Reece as anything but dour and/or in mourning.
The Terminal List weaves together different action-thriller elements, mostly successfully. It never all quite pays off the way you might want it to though, since it teases going in unique and inspired directions only to fall back in line with a more traditional model, but the bright spots are still worth noting.
The first two episodes lean heavily into Reece — back on U.S. soil after a disastrous op leaves everyone on his team KIA except him — being a very disturbed and unreliable narrator. As it is, the series pauses every now and again to let us know Reece, whose need for revenge grows darker and deeper, isn't exactly a star-spangled avenger, but it also drops the idea that he could be on the totally wrong path, which is an exciting opening element that tricks you into thinking you might in for a different type of military-based crusade.
After the set up, The Terminal List — which has a double meaning since Reece both has, and is on, said list — then sprawls and spreads out into a political thriller as Reece and reporter Katie Buranek (Constance Wu) tumble down several rabbit holes of conspiracy, all to find out why Alpha Platoon's final mission may have been been purposefully sabotaged and why Reece's wife and daughter were also targeted for execution. This odyssey gives Reece, and the story, a series of kills that allows for action, intrigue, and for Reece's quest to become more desperate and foreboding. It also kind of draws things out past the point of being engaging as you may go snow blind amidst the single-minded savagery.
After the first two chapters — "The Engram" and "Encoding" — toy with the idea of Reece, on a ticking clock health-wise, being dangerously delusional, the series' next high point comes in Episodes 5 and 6 — "Disruption" and "Transience" — when Reece makes a big move on series' baddie Steve Horn (Jai Courtney), a tech mogul with a war fetish, and then has to escape through the harsh wilderness, on the run from his own SEAL peers.
"Transience," the most reminiscent of 1982's First Blood, feels like it could have been solid, meaningful closing point for the series, but the mission continues on for three more episodes, not adding much more to the saga except the casting cliche of "the notable veteran actor must be behind it all." In fact, everyone you meet along the way just might be.
Pratt and Wu are joined by Taylor Kitsch (Friday Night Lights), J. D. Pardo (Mayans MC), Jeanne Tripplehorn (Basic Instinct, The Firm), Tyner Rushing (Under the Banner of Heaven), Sean Gunn (Hey, a Guardians reunion!), the aforementioned Jai Courtney (The Suicide Squad, Spartacus), and an extremely wasted Riley Keough (Zola). It's a well-rounded cast, with Kitsch and Pardo getting to do a bit more than their respective roles of "hero's buddy" and "FBI agent on hero's trail" usually permit.
Antoine Fuqua, of Training Day and Equalizer films fame, executive produces along with Pratt and showrunner David DiGilio and also directs the first episode. Having worked with Pratt on 2016's Magnificent Seven remake, and also helmed soldier potboilers Shooter and Tears of the Sun, Fuqua knows how to do clear, blunt, and direct action and the fact that The Terminal List sticks to its reckoning-driven guns is a boon for simplicity's sake. It sadly doesn't allow the series to veer off and explore newer, less-traditional themes, though.
Reece, on his warpath, isn't out to clear his name or even topple a cabal of conspirators. He's just a hollowed-out murder machine hellbent on taking souls before his time's up. Everyone else around him wants him to play things smarter, not harder, but he's not in a mental space to listen. There's nothing wrong with a good eye-for-an-eye actioner, with retribution dangling as its endgame, but The Terminal List slips into sluggishness too often to fully hit the mark.
