The Bondsman review — missing its potential, thematically and diagetically

The Bondsman has a lot to recommend it, all of which falls away shortly after you start watching it. Kevin Bacon stars as Hub Halloran, a hard-nosed bounty hunter who comes back from a grisly death and finds he’s been recruited to continue his work; this time, it’s for the Devil, recovering escaped demons from Hell. Despite a great premise and proven talent in front of and behind the camera, the show never manages to form those elements into a cohesive, successful show.

The Bondsman works as an interesting case study; rarely have I seen so many features that should work fail to launch. The show has many accomplished actors, all failing to deliver their lines with any amount of pathos or enthusiasm. Kevin Bacon, acting as lead and executive producer, has a long pedigree with horror, thriller, drama, and comedy, but his delivery here is lacking any of his usual weighty charisma (and that’s before we get to his less than convincing accent). Every actor is the same, regardless of what they’re saying or doing. No interest or sincerity in anything they say. I don’t know if I can attribute it to a poor script or poor direction, but it’s likely both. No matter what’s going on, it’s next to impossible to locate enthusiasm that would make you think the actors care about what they’re portraying.

Most of the interesting information is dumped onto us with exposition, showing rather than telling the show’s ideas. The lazy info dump that kicks off episode 2 should be scary or funny. Learning you were murdered but came back from the dead to hunt demons? That’s a serious conversation, but Joanne Purdy delivers her lines with a tired boredom completely unfitting of the context. They could have leaned into the hell as a corporate pyramid scheme they suggest. They could use some satire on the state of American poverty. After all, if you’ve been fucked over by systems your whole life, what difference does it make if it’s the Devil pulling your strings or the government? Hub’s “No need to quit smokin’ now” after he finds out he already died is one of the very few lines that works; it’s the kind of world-weary satire the show feels like it’s going for but only very rarely does. Instead, we get a tired, unenthusiastic, repetitive series of episodes.

The half-hour format does not help this show, which has to develop the history and relationships of its main cast alongside the worsening threat of escaped demons. We quickly get into a routine of Kevin Bacon working on his relationship with his estranged son and ex-wife, mixing in some crime and family drama, before being briefly whisked away to a monster fight. The one part that works is Bacon realizing that he needs to change, not for himself or the reason he went to hell, but for his son. But as far as that’s concerned, this would have worked better as a drama than a horror show, as The Bondsman seems so reluctant to utilize the demon catching for anything effective. You’ll have most of the episode be a drama, then partway through, Kevin Bacon goes, “Oh, I gotta kill an earth demon or whatever. He fills people with dirt?” Then you get one scene of decent to good action with not much to do with the creature’s general theme, and then the episode is over. Hub’s failed music career is more interesting than the monster bit, and the show doesn’t care about that element, so why isn’t this just a drama?

While the demon-hunting plot does build into something, that something is too weightless, coalesces too late, and has too little delivery on its own ideas, such that there are. The entire exercise ends on a cliffhanger that I don’t find myself interested in seeing through.

To be totally fair to the show, the filmmaking talent on display is considerable. Good production design sees its characters and scenarios covered in a palpable grime, as if these people are only a step away from Hell already. The show occasionally plays with shot composition and framing in interesting ways. I would have welcomed that experimentation being more consistent, but the cinematography does show that the director of photography was interested in finding unique, visually stimulating ways to use space.

The practical and computer effects are both great, well utilized, and lit to leverage its budget to maximum effect. If that talent had found its way into the script, we could have had powerful horror on our hands. The action directing is usually good and well shot, but without really leaning into the central gimmick of demons with special powers trying to ruin Hub’s day. They consistently play a poppy 50s song to contrast against the violence, a trick with diminishing returns. We’ve heard this refrain a few times before, whether it’s Reaper or RIPD or Brimstone, but that’s not a problem as long as the show is willing to use its own strengths and ideas.

I’ve only seen the first of those references, but I remember Reaper being constantly able to find new ways to keep things fresh with its sinners, empowered by thematically appropriate abilities and challenging the heroes in new ways. The Bondsman, by comparison, seems bored by its strongest elements. The acceptable-enough family drama keeps getting sidelined by a similarly perfunctory demon-hunting story. What we’re left with is bland, soulless, and utterly directionless. With the same budget, cast, concept, and much of the production team, The Bondsman could have been the start of something great. Instead, I look back on this season and wonder if I will remember it at all within the next few days.