Bloodline

Directed by Henry Jacobson, Bloodline follows Seann William Scott’s Evan Cole as his mental state crumbles after his wife (Mariela Garriga’s Lauren) has a baby and he goes several weeks without sleeping. Filmmaker Jacobson, working from a screenplay written with Avra Fox-Lerner and Will Honley, admittedly does a nice job of immediately drawing the viewer into the erratically-paced proceedings, as Bloodline kicks off with a slick opening stretch that seems to promise a brisk, thrilling endeavor suffused with appreciatively brutal bursts of violence – with the auspicious atmosphere heightened by Scott’s impressively subdued turn as the increasingly menacing protagonist. From there, however, the picture segues into a sluggish narrative that grows less and less interesting as time (slowly) progresses – which ensures, as a result, that one’s efforts at embracing the central character’s repetitive exploits fall completely (and hopelessly) flat (ie it all just becomes tedious, ultimately). The inclusion of a few unexpected twists within Bloodline‘s second half provides the movie with a few short-lived bursts of energy, although the film, perhaps inevitably, eventually does end up limping towards its deeply unsatisfying and rather anticlimactic final stretch – with the end result a fairly pronounced misfire that squanders a thoroughly intriguing set-up and Scott’s eye-opening performance.

*1/2 out of ****