Michael Ledo
Nick Barrow (Vince Vaughn) plans heists and then sells the plans, an occupation I didn't know existed. When the robbers get killed, Nick realizes he was set up and a number of people come looking for him. He becomes concerned about his estranged teen daughter Cate (Hailee Steinfeld). Yes he does take out a life insurance policy and then we never hear about it again until the very end. Nick goes on the run with his daughter, who develops a love-hate moody teen relationship with dad.Nick is no Liam Neeson, although he can get the upper hand by using his head. Cate quickly learns from dad as this becomes a heart warming crime drama with the promise of a better sequel, should they opt to go that way. Hailee Steinfeld did an excellent job. Soft 4 starsGuide: F-word. No sex or nudity.
punisherversion1
New challenge #1: Term Life starring Vince Vaughn and Hailee Steinfeld and directed by Peter Billingsley, whom you folks might know from the ever timeless and unrelenting during the holidays 'A Christmas Story'. I'm not sure where this filmmaker's eye lies but visuals is clearly not his forte. This was a flat looking movie with easily some of the most inconsequential gun fights I've seen in quite some time. This is a story about Nick who plans heists and sells these plans back to criminals. He lives his life at a distance from his daughter to keep her out of harm's way. You know where I'm going with this don't you. Nothing escapes your attention. She does get drawn into his world when a certain heist goes sour and the villain of our piece frames Nick. They're forced to go on the run. Honestly this movie is pretty flat in most respects. The performances are fairly one note even the late great Bill Paxton gives a generic villain performance. Vince Vaughn is not comfortable in this role. He needed a stronger, firmer hand guiding his performance. This is something he got in 'Brawl in Cell Block 99', a movie I recommend. You don't feel the stakes much and the actors can play these people in their sleep. There are so many quality actors in this. People like Jonathan Banks, Jon Favreau, Terence Howard and Taraji P Henson. They don't get to do much. This is a cheap looking time waster that is fairly mediocre and you'll forget most of what you saw once you're done. I give this movie a D.
Gino Cox
"Term Life" fails to deliver on the promise of its premise. It has an interesting premise. A man facing imminent and unavoidable death takes out a life insurance police to provide for his estranged daughter and must contrive to survive extraordinary odds until the policy takes effect. Somehow, I equate the film to Jason Stratham's "Crank," but rather than having less than a day, Vaughn's character has three weeks, which lends a leisurely pace. Hailee Steinfeld was great in "True Grit," but isn't given much to work with here. At twenty, she looks possibly twenty-four and seems far too mature to play sixteen – and for what? Her character could just as easily be in her mid twenties. There is relatively little chemistry here. I felt more chemistry in "Safe," another Stratham film, between him and the Chinese kid. Steinfeld's character isn't particularly interesting or even three-dimensional. The plot seems familiar, with elements we've seen before. The characters are fairly two-dimensional. Cinematography is weak with a lot of jigglycam shots. I don't actually remember a single shot that looked as if a rigid camera mount was utilized. The action scenes are of the caliber of episodic television series. Some plot developments seem implausible. Several characters seem to know more than they could possibly know in real life. Overall, it's a watchable low-budget film that devotes too much attention to a relationship that isn't particularly interesting. At 93 minutes, it could probably be cut to 70 or less without losing much. Performances are generally competent, particularly with Vaughn, but hampered by an unimaginative script.
Seth_Rogue_One
Have a bit of a hard time wrapping around my feelings about this movie, while it is nice to see Vince Vaughn in something different; I'm not 100% sure I buy it.He's not bad but I'm not sure that this will be his new 'thing' exactly, even though I suppose he's a notch above the current state of Bruce Willis and Nic Cage for instance (who would feel a bit more typical choices to lead this kind of movie). As far as the plot goes it's perfectly acceptable for a direct to DVD type of action-thriller but not much more than that, the plot involves a fairly typical scenario; criminal father trying to re-connect with an estranged daughter and getting her caught up in danger in the process.Hailee Steinfeld plays the daughter in this case and she's played a role like that before, in the Kevin Costner driven flick '3 Days To Kill', I prefer this slightly though I think.One thing that lead me to want to see this movie was the fact that Jon Favreau's name was attached to it (Vince and Jon have of course had a long history of working together so I thought it would be fun to see them together again) but he's only in it for like 7 minutes.No the main focus is of course Vaughn and Steinfeld the other players come and go, for instance Taraji P Henson and Annabeth Gish only got one scene each in it.So yeah all and all even though it's nothing that will make you go wow and the thing that stands out the most is Vince Vaughn (and his terrible hair-do) it's still acceptable entertainment if you don't ask for anything more than that.
AD
