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Finestkind Movie Review: Jenna Ortega Tries To Raise The Bar For This Generic Crime Film That Doesn’t Know What It Wants To Be

The excellent performances by Jenna Ortega, Tommy Lee Jones and Ben Foster are trapped inside one of the most boring films of the year.

Nelson Acosta

- December 15, 2023 | 9:57 PM IST

Finestkind Movie Review Rating:

Star Cast: Jenna Ortega, Tommy Lee Jones, Ben Foster, Toby Wallace, Aaron Stanford, and Tim Daly.

Director: Brian Helgeland

Finestkind Movie Review Out! (Picture Credit: Youtube)

What’s Good: Jenna Ortega, Tommy Lee Jones and Ben Foster are always a delight.

What’s Bad: The movie doesn’t know what it wants to be, or what it is, and the entire plot feels pointless.

Loo Break: The first hour and 20 minutes is as disposable as they come, so take your time at the loo.

Watch or Not?: It is best if you avoid this one, there are many better films that are actually good, especially in this end of the year period.

Language: English (with subtitles).

Available On: Paramount+

Runtime: 126 Minutes

User Rating:

Finestkind is a film written and directed by Brian Helgeland, and his first film since the inconsistent “Legend” from 2015. The film tells the story of a fishing family that gets involved into a serious drug deal, and don’t know how to escape their situation. From that point of view, the movie sound and feels like many others throughout the years, but strange creative decision and a chaotic script make this movie feel like a total mess. In my opinion, this could be Helgeland’s worst film in his filmography.

Finestkind Movie Review: Script Analysis

Oh boy! Finestkind is one of those strange films where you know that something wrong happened in the process of telling a story that is inside the film’s director, and then translate that to a script and then further making that film into an actual movie. Filmmaking is a hard enterprise, no one doubts that assertion from one moment, and yet, the difficulties of the medium don’t excuse a movie that goes for more than two hours without a clue of what it wants to be or why we as audience members should care.

The first 10 minutes of the film reveal the problems of the rest of the movie very clearly by making us watch an opening sequence with no stakes, boring character introductions and also an atrocious editing that makes you film the director itself doesn’t like his own movie. Without proper characters to follow, the movie sets into a rhythm where we just wonder with the main character through some situations that don’t really feel justified, only to gives us a proper inciting incident near the end of the film.

This type of structure is baffling from any angle, because choosing where your story begins is one of the most important decisions a storyteller; writer or director should make in order for their story to feel relevant and worth telling. Finestkind seems to be looking for the inciting incident throughout most of its runtime, only to find it near the end of the movie. However, at that point, most audience members will already be checked out from the story.

Having Jenna Ortega, Tommy Lee Jones, and Ben Foster seems like a lucky number of Helgeland but sadly, the actors’ potential is not used in any meaningful way. When the story finally gets to a proper inciting incident, it decides to end, as it is not worth following the consequences of such action. It is the strangest film structure I have seen the whole year, and coming from the man that directed such wonderful films like A Knight’s Tale, and 42, this feels like a bit letdown.

Finestkind Movie Review: Star Performance

Most people will watch this movie thanks to Jenna Ortega’s star power, and if that is your reason to watch it, then you might not be as disappointed as I was. Jenna Ortega proves that she has a very powerful screen presence, and whenever she is on-screen the movie seems to feel better than in actually is. Tommy Lee Jones, one of the best actors of our time, feels underused in sequences that are more melodramatic than anything else. Such sequences feel like a true waster of Tommy Lee Jones acting prowess and makes the movie feel like it is taking itself more seriously than it should.

Finestkind Movie Review: Direction, Music

The directing might be one of the film’s weakest elements, as there seems to be a lack of vision from Helgeland, or at least he seems to be incapable of executing on the vision he has in his head. This is a real shame, we know that Helgeland can be a solid director when he wants it to be, and he seems to have wanted to tap into Taylor Sheridan’s school of filmmaking, but fails because nothing in the movie as any weight to it. Whenever you watch a Taylor Sheridan production you know what you are going to get and yet, the execution of the ideas overcomes any generic feeling.

The score by Carter Burwell, who has collaborated with Helgeland is past projects also feels quite forgettable, which is very strange as Burwell has managed to create amazing scores in his many collaborations with the Coen Brothers and other filmmakers. This time, Burwell seems to lack the inspiration to push forward his own craft, and this might just be a consequence of Helgeland’s lack of a cohesive vision for the entire project.

Finestkind Movie Review: The Last Word

Finestkind is one of the most boring films of the year, because it lacks imagination, and fire under the hood. During many moments the film feels like it is running on autopilot and while the cast counts with great actors such as Jenna Ortega, Tommy Lee Jones, and Ben Foster, none of them can raise the level of what is a very confusing and uninspiring story. Many people will probably tune to the movie thanks to Jenna Ortega’s star power, but she has definitely done better films at this point, so watching this movie feels mostly like a waste of time.