Finestkind screenwriter Brian Helgeland gained awards attention for adapting L.A. Confidential and Mystic River for the screen, works worthy of Scorsese-level notoriety alongside popcorn fare with Payback and A Knight’s Tale. Directing for the first time in eight years with this long-gestating film, Helgeland’s rare original work apes Scorsese’s crime/drama grit with pitifully conventional mundanity. This easy skip for the holiday season will disappoint all but the least discerning genre fanatics, failing even as a star vehicle for the recognizable cast.
‘Finestkind’ Synopsis
After a college graduate joins his brother in his low-prospect blue-collar life as a commercial fisherman, a fateful error of judgment causes a need for money, leading to involvement in a Boston crime syndicate. As the inexperienced newcomer bonds with his brother and a potentially dangerous love interest, the intricate web of family, money, and freedom impacts every character individually.
Helgeland and Paramount’s Connections Land an Undeserved Cast
Ben Foster and Toby Wallace lead the cast as two half-brothers, Tom and Charlie, each with a more recognizable dad played by Tommy Lee Jones and Tim Daly, respectively. The family complexities and potential for these actors to interact in Finestkind seem like an inviting draw at the outset, but Helgeland’s script and direction instantly diminish that appeal. The hyper-masculinity of the dialogue, combined with the constant dark blue-grey vision of Boston, quickly drags without even passing the first scenes of male bonding on Tom’s boat.
Judging by his recent films following a few years of absence, Jones is at least not sleepwalking through the later years of his career anymore. His part in The Burial was an easy role that he still put some effort into, and even next to younger, more vigorous actors leading the charge, he is the best part of Finestkind. His performance is still small enough to skip over; had he gotten some dialogue worth speaking, ratings of this film might have jumped up quite a few notches.
Tommy Lee Jones and Lolita Davidovich in ‘Finestkind’
Themes of ‘Finestkind’ Doom the Film from the Start
Finestkind is all about men wanting one thing: the ability to decide their fate and do whatever they want. Charlie wants to be out from under his dad’s affluent protection, Tom wants to be on his boat, and their dads want their adult kids to listen to them. They must take their lives into their own hands, an antiquated sentiment of old Hollywood cinema that can still be embedded but insufferably bores when brandished so flagrantly. Everyone else except the girl Charlie is attracted to, played by Jenna Ortega, is as stock a character as they come. Ortega’s intriguing and eye-capturing presence in the film sadly does not make the story any more inspiring.
The shifting world and difficulties of making a film kept Finestkind an unrealized project for at least five years, once with Jake Gyllenhaal and Ansel Elgort announced as a very different leading cast. Instead of an intricate family loyalty-centered crime drama in the vein of The Departed, Helgeland resigns himself to checking the boxes and stowing his film away as a streaming exclusive. With his prominent career of adaptations exponentially diminishing following 42 and Legend, Helgeland will need a lot more to jumpstart his prowess next time around.
Finestkind is streaming now on Paramount+.
