“The Terminal List” begins with scenes of a military funeral at what appears to be Arlington National Cemetery, over the top of which we hear a bit of the Biblical story of how God instructed Gideon, a military leader, to choose the men who would fight under him.
The man saying these words, James Reece (Chris Pratt), also is a celebrated military leader, a decorated, highly experienced commander of a unit of U.S. Navy SEALS.
The often-compelling but ultimately uneven debut season of the action-thriller series — debuting this week on Prime Video and based on the novel of the same name by Jack Carr — soon takes us back in time two weeks, to show us Reese with the men under his command.
The bravado is big and the testosterone flows as Reese tells the men — men he can trust, men he considers brothers — that they have a green light for an operation to take out a chemical-warfare expert in Syria. That said, they aren’t going into a hostile spot to make a bunch of noise.
“We keep it quiet — in and out,” Reese says. “No one’s gonna even know we’re there.”
Of course, we already know better.
Once the unit is inside the tunnels leading to the target — tunnels half-filled with water — the situation turns dire, and lives are lost.
Several lives.
Reese returns home, with headaches and memory issues, seemingly from a concussion. He returns to a wife, Lauren (Riley Keough, “The Devil All the Time”), and a daughter, Lucy (Arlo Mertz, “Mank”), who love him but also to government men who have questions for him about what went wrong — questions he doesn’t appreciate.
Directed by Antoine Fuqua (“Training Day,” “The Magnificent Seven”), the debut episode, “The Engram,” establishes the push-and-pull nature of the series. “The Terminal List” attempts to blend the serious issue of the mental and physical toll war takes on combatants with thrilling, at times over-the-top action sequences and a narrative that becomes increasingly far-fetched as the series runs through its eight hourlong installments.
This first hour, written by showrunner David DiGilio (“Eight Below”), works to keep you guessing as to whether there is a massive conspiracy afoot or if Reese simply is losing his mind.
In fact, he asks a longtime friend — Ben Edwards (Taylor Kitsch), a man he fought alongside years earlier and whom he regularly calls “Brother” — if he thinks it’s the latter.
“No,” Ben says. “I think you got your deck shuffled pretty (expletive) good, though.”
And while watching “The Engram,” we suspect it’s more the former, as we know there is much more of this story to come.
While we can’t get into too much detail about the remainder of the series, it is ultimately a tale of revenge, with Reese regularly adding names to the show’s namesake list and then crossing them off with, yes, extreme prejudice.
Reese develops an uneasy partnership with a reporter, Katie Buranek (Constance Wu), who initially is endeavoring to write a piece about highly trained men such as Reese and his men being overtaxed by those above them. The story’s scope increases as she and Reese uncover evidence about a scheme that may or may not ultimately be about money.
Notable supporting players in “The Terminal List” include Jeanne Tripplehorn, as U.S. Secretary of Defense Lorraine Hartley; Jai Courtney as Steven Horn, a ruthless businessman; and Sean Gunn as Saul Agnon, an associate of Horn’s. Gunn, who has shared the screen with Pratt in Marvel Studios’ “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies, does so here, as well, in a fairly impactful scene.
Wu (“Crazy Rich Asians,” “Fresh Off the Boat”) brings some energy to the myriad scenes she shares with Pratt, and Kitsch (“Battleship,” TV’s “Friday Night Lights”) shares an easy chemistry with the star.
Pratt — in theaters now with the unfairly pounded “Jurassic World Dominion” and already on Amazon’s streaming platform with the 2021 movie “The Tomorrow War” — can be a little much in spots here. That said, many of the qualities that have helped him become an appealing movie star are on display in “The Terminal List.” His gift for comedy isn’t one of them, however, as there isn’t much reason for jokes with this story.
Pratt acquired the rights to adapt Carr’s novel and, along with the author, Fuqua, DiGillo and others, serves as a producer.
He said on a recent episode of the excellent podcast “Smartless,” hosted by actors Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes, that there was a possibility early on in development “The Terminal List” may have been made into a movie instead of a series. You can see how some arguably important context would have been lost as Carr’s story was pared down for a roughly two-hour runtime, but it also may have made for a stronger piece of entertainment, one with a quicker pace.
As it stands, “The Terminal List” simply has too many stretches that invite the viewer to lose interest. It has a lot going for it, but storytelling momentum really isn’t one of them.
You can’t help but appreciate the admiration the series has for the real-life men and women like Reese, who undertake demanding training in the name of dedicating their lives — and then put them on the line — for a cause greater than themselves.
And for some viewers, that will be reason enough to watch it.
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‘THE TERMINAL LIST’
How to watch: Premieres Friday on Prime Video
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