THE FAMILY MAN
(Episode
103)
Directed by: Ronny Yu / Written by: Dan
Knauf
Starring: Colin Ferguson, Clifton Collins Jr., Josie Davis
SYNOPSIS:
A likeable family man switches bodies with a serial killer during a
near-death experience. Now he must keep his loved ones from being added to
the long list of the killer’s victims.
ERIC WALKUSKI (Rating 2.5 out of
4):
THE FAMILY MAN is basically FACE/OFF with a supernatural bent. A good man finds himself in the body of a bad man (and vice versa), and struggles to make people around him believe his wild tale. The bad dude – in this case, a depraved serial killer – of course is at home with the good one’s family, acting a tad off… FAMILY MAN offers an intriguing wrinkle in the story though: the villain actually sees this as a chance at redemption; he WANTS to lead a good life. But the inner bad boy just can’t let it be…
Unfortunately, THE FAMILY MAN isn’t as neat as its premise…
The episode’s main problem is that it doesn’t really have a 2nd Act. The middle of this tale should be the meatiest portion, but the story never really takes off. Both actors (Clifton Collins and Colin Ferguson) give good, if unexceptional, performances, but aren’t asked to do much: Collins looks solemnly frightened the whole time, and Ferguson glowers. I’m not suggesting this should have been a COMPLETE ripoff of FACE/OFF, but most of that flick’s pleasure was derived from how much fun the bad guy has with his new-found freedom.
Here, the villain just seems depressed. In addition, director Ronny Yu’s usually vivid visual style is absent here, making me believe a more actor-friendly director should have been handed this assignment (Yu probably would have been a good choice for last week’s trippy SPOOKED; and that episode’s director, Brad Anderson, would’ve perhaps been better suited for this).
It’s competently made, but unexceptional in pretty much every facet.
All that said, the series so far has been light on the “twist” endings that we all love and expect from anthologies like this, and The Family Man provides a deliciously evil one. It doesn’t quite make up for the “blah” hour that came before it, but it helps make this the second-best episode of the young series so far.
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JARED PACHECO (Rating:
0.5 out of 4):
FAMILY MAN didn’t have
much going for it at all. The best part I guess, were the performances by
Clifton Collins Jr and Colin Ferguson. Even those weren’t great though. The
idea has been done many times before… or at least it seemed like it has,
and the whole episode felt like it was leading absolutely nowhere. Almost
every turn was predictable from a mile away and we don’t really get much
enjoyment at all out of it.
Collins Jr’s character had all the potential in the world. He’s got this
backstory that makes him on par with Charles Manson in the ‘sick bastard’
department, yet we don’t see ANY of that in the episode. Maybe we get a
glimpse at the end… but such depth for a character that never reaches his
potential. I was digging Ferguson’s character as the loving father, but also
held back. The supporting actors were nothing to talk about. The prison
stuff got redundent FAST. One cool thing they did with Collins Jr’s
character was show how he really does try to change… but can’t help who he
is. Another cool part was the bumble bee thing.
FAMILY MAN felt like an episode of LAW AND ORDER more than ANYTHING to do
with horror. I kept feeling like Vincent D’Onofrio was going to pop up and
start talking about split personalities. The beginning was decent. The car
crash was vicious. The ending predictable and actually pretty bad. I can’t
even tell if this was right down Ronny Yu’s alley or completely the opposite
way, that’s how bland it was. All in all FAMILY MAN was nothing new, nothing
special, and nothing good. Watch FACE/OFF instead.