Review: Term Life

"The easiest place to hide is in plain sight," advises professional heist planner Nick Barrow in Term Life. This line is a bit hard to swallow considering Nick is played by Vince Vaughn who, at 6 feet 5 inches, is pretty hard to miss. Height aside, there's also the matter of the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad hairstyle that he sports throughout the entire movie. Yet praise be that hairdo for it at least distracts from the insistently awful mess that is Term Life.

Nick runs into a mountain of trouble when his latest job goes awry and his buyer is gunned down by a gang of dirty cops (Bill Paxton, Shea Whigham, Mike Epps). Turns out the murdered buyer was the son of drug kingpin Victor Fuentes (Jordi Mollà), a man so deranged that "cemeteries are in business because of him." Victor is unsurprisingly unhappy about his son's death and, believing Nick to be behind the double cross, threatens to harm Nick's 16-year-old daughter Kate (Hailee Steinfeld) if Nick doesn't fess up.

Nick hasn't had the most ideal relationship with his daughter, who has not only had to deal with a dad who provides and protects from a distance but also an alcoholic mom (Annabeth Gish) currently in rehab. So what better time to be on the run and in hiding to repair the broken family ties? Steinfeld essentially reprises her role from 3 Days to Kill in which she dealt with a similar daddy-daughter estrangement. Her dad in that movie at least had the good grace to have terminal illness, which lent added momentum and emotional stakes to him attempting to reconnect with his daughter whilst also in the midst of carrying out one last deadly assignment. 3 Days to Kill was a solid picture, but it's positively Shakespearean compared to the inert inanities on display in Term Life.

Nick and Kate do the formulaic push and pull of recrimination and forgiveness. She's angry that he's never been there for her, he's hoping they can just make it through the next three weeks, the amount of time needed for his life insurance policy to go into effect so that if anything happens to him, Kate is financially taken care of for the rest of her life. In the meantime, the viewers' minds numb and interest wanes. Every so often, a familiar face pops into frame - amongst them Jon Favreau as a fellow lackey, Jonathan Banks as Nick's mentor, Taraji P. Henson as an insurance agent, Terrence Howard as a small town cop. It's a small mystery how so many talented actors allowed themselves to be so wasted and mishandled.

Director Peter Billingsley, who will forever be known as the kid from A Christmas Story, doesn't even seem to be trying to meet the standards of competency. Vaughn, usually a restless energy, rouses himself every now and then from his tranquilised state to deliver another woeful line of dialogue.

Term Life

Directed by: Peter Billingsley

Written by: Andy Lieberman; based on the graphic novel by Nick Thornborrow

Starring: Vince Vaughn, Hailee Steinfeld, Bill Paxton, Jonathan Banks, Jordi Mollà, Jon Favreau, Terrence Howard, Taraji P. Henson, Shea Whigham, Mike Epps, William Levy, Annabeth Gish