Review: 'The Bondsman'
Even Kevin Bacon's charm can't rescue this half-baked supernatural mess from its own hellish mediocrity.
Do you like biblical horror, country music, B-grade special effects and Kevin Bacon? Then you’re in luck, because Amazon’s new series, The Bondsman, crams all these things together like in some over-stuffed Church buffet.
Life’s not easy for Hub Halloran (played by Kevin Bacon). His job as a bounty hunter down in Georgia (that’s the USA one) has always been a grungy, gung-ho affair, hunting down criminal scum for cold, hard cash. But these days, it’s just insane.
The criminals are getting nastier. His aging mother Kitty (played by Beth Grant), who lives next door, is always nagging about something — lack of manners, lack of faith, lack of hygiene, and so on. And his country-singing wife Maryanne (played by Jennifer Nettles) left him for the sleazebag criminal gambler Lucky (played by Damon Herriman), which isn’t good for their teenage son Cade (played by Maxwel Jenkins).
Oh, and recently, he was killed and sent to Hell.
Bummer.
One would think being dead would finally give Hub some peace and quiet, but no such luck. Hell, as it turns out, is—not unlike certain real-world nations I could mention—basically one giant corporate prison run like a pyramid scheme, meant to contain the worst kinds of scum and villainy. So clearly, Hub landing there was some kind of bureaucratic hiccup. Right?
And while it is unpleasant, with all the lakes of fire, gnashing of teeth, take your pick of biblical horror stories, it’s not very secure. So once in a while, a demon escapes to Earth to create mayhem, bloody murder and assorted shenanigans.
And that’s why Hell needs bounty hunters. Luckily, that’s about the only thing Hub’s good at. He really wanted to be a country singer, but what’s the saying about playing the cards you’re dealt?
Anyway, so long as Hub goes after the demon’s that have escaped to his juristiction, he’s allowed to stay on Earth. If not: lake of fire, gnashing of teeth, you get the idea. And to keep tabs on him and make sure he follows the contract with Hell, is the cozy but direct envoy of Satan, and Hub’s new manager/taskmaster, Midge (played by Jolene Purdy).
All this plays in the expected way. Most episodes have an opening scene where a recently escaped demon kills and possesses a victim, before going to cause murder, mayhem and other shenanigans in the small Georgia town the story takes place.
Then, Hub the Bondsman gets a fax call (yes, turns out Lucifer is retro) from the management in Hell tasking him to destroy the demon, which he and his partner-in-crime/mother research on Wikipedia — because of course, nothing beats the demonic-hunting insights of a crowd-sourced encyclopedia (handy that, who writes these pages?) before going out to confront it. When he’s not trying to get together with his ex-wife and fix his broken family, that is.
All this sounds very episodic, and while it is that for the most part, there is a storyline that links all the eight episodes, although it takes the back seat for the most part.
The short runtime of each episode doesn’t do The Bondsman any favors. Clocking in at around 20–30 minutes each, they quickly feel repetitive. Several times I found myself wondering if I had missed something — a scene here, a plotline there — likely left on the cutting room floor. The result is pacing and tone that’s all over the place, with story elements and beats that are either introduced too late or forgotten about entirely.
There are some attempts to patch these problems, mostly through clunkily delivered exposition tinged with humor. That said, as we all know, Kevin Bacon is a treasure. Even though he and the other characters are underdeveloped to the point of caricature, he somehow manages to inject charm into cardboard — no small feat given the sloppy writing, obvious dialogue, and the ever-present country music, which didn’t help matters for me personally, as I really don’t like country music.
The Bondsman also borrows — or steals, depending on how you see it — heavily from other titles, such as the 90s show Brimstone, the Evil Dead tv show and even the lamented 2013 film R.I.P.D.
It also struggles to find its genre, trying to cram action, horror, and comedy into a 20-minute format — leaving each one half-baked, if not entirely DOA. That said, as I received a screener for it, it said “action” on the tin. But while there are a few thrills, it’s mostly tame. How about horror? Is it scary? Not much, as those CGI demons with glowing eyes aren’t especially scary, and while it is gory at times, there are no real scares to speak of here (your mileage may vary, of course). But how about comedy? It has its funny moments, but they don’t really run with it, making much of the humor fall flat.
Still, don’t write off The Bondsman as a total dud. It has Kevin Bacon, and he’s great in just about anything. And the episodes are very short, making this an easy watch if you want some supernatural (albeit tame) action-horror to put on the small screen.
This sounds disappointing, as it's the kind of faintly absurd and gruesome premise for a series I could imagine myself quite enjoying - plus Kevin Bacon, who is always worth the ticket price/sofa time. The idea and setting seemed to suggest a kind of 'Near Dark' Southern Gothic meets Hellboy vibe. But it sounds like the ingredients didn't result in the dish they were after.