Actor Chris Pratt stated that the paternal desire to keep one’s family safe is one of the main reasons films like “Taken” and “The Terminal List” have been so successful.
The 43-year-old said every dad fantasizes and creates scenarios about how they would react if someone “f***ed with” their children.
About the 2008 action film starring Liam Neeson, he added, “Taken” was a huge success precisely because of that fatherly instinct and the fantasy of protecting your children from evil.
While “The Terminal List” was not well received by reviewers, it was a smash with fans of Pratt’s work. According to the actor, the negative critique that called it an “unhinged revenge fantasy” is correct. That is what they were going for.
In July 2022, showrunner David DiGilio stated that the thriller series was not intended to be “a political show,” despite some viewers’ assumptions.
Chris Pratt plays a vengeful man who has a major mental disorder. The show is in the vein of Jack Ryan and Jack Reacher, and it is aimed at males over the age of forty and primarily occupies that specific dad-entertainment niche.
Pratt stars as James Reece, a decorated Navy SEAL who goes on a mission in Syria to capture a chemical weapons lousy guy, only to have his entire squad killed in an ambush. After suffering a severe concussion, Reece returns to the United States, only to discover that he has a skewed memory of the tragic circumstances that led to the death of a close platoonmate. His headaches and constant blending of different memories (seen in whirling flashbacks) are so severe that he can’t trust his ideas, yet he becomes quickly persuaded that someone is modifying the record to hide something.
But he concludes that his most recent mission was a trap set by unscrupulous parties who supplied him with false information, and he starts looking into the matter with the help of his best friend, a shaggy boozehound CIA agent.
Pratt’s performance as a wounded war hero acting as a vigilante who shoots first and asks questions afterward is a fantasizing male’s wet dream.
