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While the plot contains an intriguing premise, it struggles severely with execution. This is particularly evident in the piece “Bloodline” which draws considerable inspiration from Jeff Lindsay’s mythology and Brian De Palma’s movies. The piece is able to hold a viewer’s attention for a certain amount of time, but it ultimately fails to manage things beyond that, resulting in a lack of coherent structure. One can see the hints of brilliant character development splashed throughout the screenplay but everything collapses throughout storytelling leading to a bland, uneventful conclusion that lacks imagination. All things considered, there still seems to be enough box office potential that good fans, along with Scott’s low standards for acting, could allow him rather than what his portfolio suggests.
The star of American Pie and Goon plays Evan, a counselor for at-risk kids who has made it a hobby of his to execute his version of justice on the parents of the troubled kids he meets with. Evan has sessions with abused teenagers and tracks down their abusers, ties them to chairs, tortures them for information about their violence, and slashes their throats. It certainly must feel amazing at the moment, but Evan thinks he is doing good by exorcising some abusive demons created by his father instead. Evan’s outlook does not allow for rehabilitation or forgiveness and also never considers that a detective may connect the dots if a certain school’s children keep disappearing.
Evan feels overwhelmed with everything after his wife Lauren (Mariela Garriga) gives birth to their son. For “Bloodline’s” pitch, the concept of a new parent suffocating a serial killer’s life with stress sounds like it could make for a reasonably good movie. All serial killers function with a certain habit, with a newborn around all of their actions are thrown out of balance. Things certainly don’t improve with the arrival of his mother Marie (Dale Dickey) who is clearly out of town. Yet, I feel like Mom has her own set of problems, but more on that later. A detective named Overstreet (Kevin Carroll) comes in much later than he should, starting to take an interest in the case, and now Evan is put on edge for real, along with the family he has carved for himself and the moral compass he has.
First-time filmmaker Henry Jacobson clearly references his cinematic muses a couple of times, particularly the odd and bold split-screen and diopter shots that would make De Palma smile (although even he would argue that the reflection in a knife technique is overused here). It’s invigorating to witness a low-budget film that contains this amount of visual flair, and I appreciated how Jacobson and his crew chose color and shadow while working on the film. Its strong and often compensatory visuals for its narrative gaps are quite intriguing.
To the point, it no longer can. The last part of “Bloodline” has Jacobson and co-writers Avra Fox-Lerner and Will Honley introduce a character and do some things to the previously existing ones, and at this point, I just did not buy it. The attention is now split as we shift from a close view of Evan to Lauren and Overstreet, and that’s when it really begins to remind one of a condensed season of a show like ‘Dexter’,” As the show goes, “Bloodline” could have fleshed final moments earlier in the season, but instead they came on here in a way that’s unbelievable. My hypothesis is that no one ever quite figured out how we’re supposed to feel about Evan. So, is he some sort of sociopathic vigilante? Or both? To Scott’s credit, he teeters right on the edge of both and sometimes sketches Evan as a committed family man but allows a glint of insanity to shine in his eyes. It’s a solid performance.
Jacobson will most likely be pleased with how cruel “Bloodline” is, especially because it begins with a shower murder which feels reminiscent of something from “Dressed to Kill” and, yes, “Psycho” too. Much like the aforementioned directors, De Palma’s work lacks storyline cohesion, and it is especially apparent in the past 20 years. It’s comical to picture the title referring to the bloodline more than any additional elements in the film a creator’s bloodline down to a filmmaker issued by one of his many pupils.
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