“The Bondsman” isn’t based mostly on a comic book guide, however the Prime Video sequence looks as if it may very well be. Produced by style mainstay Blumhouse, the action-horror hybrid stars Kevin Bacon within the titular function as Hub Halloran, a fugitive hunter who abruptly switches employers when he’s murdered and introduced again to life. The place Hub as soon as pursued petty criminals, he’s now charged with rounding up escaped demons by the Satan himself.
Hub’s new gig unleashes a torrent of comically exaggerated gore and populates his world with much more colourful characters. He already has a hyper-Bostonian nemesis, his ex-wife’s present boyfriend Fortunate (Damon Herriman, an Aussie doing a really lamentable accent); now he has a boss, Midge (Jolene Purdy), who gathers souls for Devil on the facet of her residence bakery enterprise. The combo of sacred and profane remembers “Preacher,” the AMC sequence that was itself an adaptation of a Garth Ennis title from the Nineteen Nineties. “The Bondsman” creator Grainger David and showrunner Erik Oleson (“Daredevil,” “The Man within the Excessive Citadel”) are working from an unique thought, however they take tonal inspiration from one other medium.
At first, “The Bondsman” embraces the silliness of Hub’s state of affairs. After taking a pair episodes to ascertain its premise, there’s a procedural rhythm to Hub’s looking expeditions, monitoring targets from a possessed priest to a Satanic cheerleader. Hub initially has his throat slit by a few of Fortunate’s employed goons, and from the second he wakes up inside a wall earlier than smoking a cigarette out of his still-open wound, “The Bondsman” works greatest when it leans right into a macabre humorousness.
However with simply eight half-hour episodes in its first season, “The Bondsman” has to maneuver from setup to payoff earlier than it could possibly comfortably settle into a chronic center stretch. Hub is a second-generation bondsman, having adopted within the footsteps of his acerbic mom — and, as a middle-aged divorcée, roommate — Kitty (Beth Grant). As soon as Kitty learns the story behind her son’s miraculous restoration, a set of circumstances she accepts with stunning equanimity, she makes for an amusing confederate as Hub seeks to spherical up wayward souls. However the circle of these within the know continues to widen, encompassing much less attention-grabbing relationships just like the torch Hub nonetheless carries for his ex Maryanne (Jennifer Nettles of “The Righteous Gems”). A subplot about their once-mutual curiosity in music, earlier than Hub gave up on his goals, feels tacked-on, whereas Maryanne herself by no means comes into focus as greater than an object of her former husband’s craving.
Although “The Bondsman” is called for Hub’s job, it needs the viewer to be equally fascinated about his private life: his lapsed artistry, and his quest to redeem himself for the sins that made his soul Previous Scratch’s to ship again within the first place. Given how these storylines regularly kill the perverse, tongue-in-cheek vibe, nevertheless, I want the present’s consideration had been lavished elsewhere. Nearly each episode is called after a demon, however few evil spirits are developed into true, “Buffy”-style monsters of the week, as an alternative remaining vague blurs of CGI. The demons’ earthly vessels, too, grow to be skinny sketches. Some are corrupt cops and teenage bullies whose maliciousness may very well be just a little extra fleshed out; others are kids or basic innocents, begging questions on who will get chosen as prey the present doesn’t care a lot to reply.
The cosmology of “The Bondsman” is mostly hazy, which isn’t an issue when the present retains issues mild and snappy. (Why do Hub’s assignments come by way of through fax machine? As a result of the Satan is outdated, and it appears to be like cool in a barely creepy means!) However the stakes speed up all too shortly from working errands on Hell’s behalf to saving the world, and whereas Bacon is kind of snug as a charming-yet-scuzzy dirtbag, his charisma isn’t sufficient to carry the complete enterprise collectively. “The Bondsman” begins sturdy, however earlier than lengthy, Hub’s classic truck has run out of fuel.
All eight episodes of “The Bondsman” are actually streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
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