'The Terminal List' review: Sublime Chris Pratt anchors middle-of-the-road action series


If it weren't for Pratt's perfect portrayal of a well-written hero and great action choreography, this series could have ended up being an exhausting watch.
Bhuvanesh ChandarBHUVANESH CHANDAR

Chris Pratt from 'The Terminal List' | Photo credit:-

"It is a mistake to push a man to violence when he has devoted his life to perfecting violence." This popular anonymous quote paints a picture of a broken, wronged soldier pushed to the edge in Chris Pratt's The Terminal List.

Pratt plays a character named James Reece and delivers the above quote at a pivotal moment. For someone who feels like a breathing testament to a methodical war machine whose emotions are complemented by logic, this line feels like a moment of vulnerability, summing up what The Terminal List is all about.


The soul of the show is Reece, the SEAL Team 7 commander who loses everything near and dear. During a covert underground mission in Syria, Reece's SEAL team is unexpectedly ambushed by enemy forces and 12 of his men are killed. Hurt, confused and grieving, Reece returns home only to suffer more personal tragedies; days after his friend and teammate dies suspiciously, the people closest to Reece are murdered by a mysterious gang. The show doesn't even give him a breath to process the shock. The authorities begin to suspect Reece, who we now realize is suffering from PTSD and a brain tumor from the failed mission. Did a mentally unstable soldier kill his own? Are these killers hallucinating? Or is there a larger conspiracy at play?


List of terminals
Creator: David DiGilio
Cast: Chris Pratt, Constance Wu, Taylor Kitsch, Jeanne Tripplehorn
Length: 8 episodes, 51-65 minutes each
Plot: A battered, disturbed SEAL commander, James Reece, returns home after a doomed mission in Syria that resulted in the suspicious killing of 12 of his men. Upon arriving home, things take a turn for the worse as the people closest to Reece die mysteriously
Reece embarks on a mission to avenge the fallen and find the truth. The series kicks off with a great first episode directed by Antonio Fuqua that aptly sets the tone for what's to come. Every moment in the series of tragic events that befell Reece is elaborate. In fact, the series takes its time to show us the true weight of the trauma Reece is suffering. Recurring flashbacks and fascinating dream sequences even make him a kind of unreliable narrator for a while.


However, subsequent episodes will not use this beginning. Ordinary sequences with ordinary turns of events are stretched and folded one after the other, and the larger narrative takes quite a while to unravel. A series that already reads like a "PTSD-suffering American soldier on a revenge mission" cliché can't afford to have such exhausting episodes.

The show finally finds its strength in the final three episodes, which don't try too hard to do anything out of the ordinary, and still manage to surprise us every now and then. The action choreography, especially in these episodes, is a joy to watch. The writing of these "sub-missions" is concise and the writers seem to have taken a leaf from many of the older conventional greats in the genre such as Rambo. Specifically, it's a thrilling chase scene set in the woods that leaves a lasting impression.


Unfortunately, even here, there's a lot of comfort in how Reece ultimately escapes the chase. Convenience may also be the reason for the show's freedom to change its moral stance on who to kill and who not to kill. For a show that works so hard to get us behind a heroic cause, such contradictions don't help.

Plus, a character like Reece doesn't deserve such a comfortable settlement. From a distance, he appears to be cut from the same mold as Frank Castle (Punisher), Jack Reacher (Reacher) or Jack Ryan (TV series). They're all steadfast, stoic, cool soldier characters who are set in revenge/false accusation/government conspiracy stories. Reece stands aside in an unflinching, expansive display of his vulnerability; Pratt's gloomy eyes almost settled on our screen for a while. We see him suffer more than he wins, and the human condition only adds more moments of triumph, like those big action sequences where he single-handedly destroys all obstacles. Although Reece has support, he is alone in his fight. In the eyes of the world, he is a medicine that has become a disease. Interestingly, when he finds the truth he is chasing, it is also a medicine that has become a disease.


On the other hand, the space Reece takes up leaves nothing to flesh out this world's many antagonists. At most, many of them only get dialogue to explain why they did what they did. Fortunately, other key characters like Katie Buranek (Constance Wu), a war correspondent, and Ben Edwards (Taylor Kitsch), a CIA agent, are given full roles.

Despite all the actors giving their best, The Terminal List really belongs to the great Chris Pratt who brings his A-game to the fore. A character arc stretching over eight hours of screen time proves to be a good opportunity for the star to test his acting chops.


The strange thing is that what could make the series more memorable than the spectacular action sequences are actually the protagonist's emotional arcs. From the callback appearing in the shot of the bird flying into the glass door, to the way the opening monologue about the biblical story echoes throughout the series... after eight very long hours, we're left with some good things to think about.