Term Life movie review & film summary (2016)

Vaughn stars as Nick Barrow, a man who literally introduces himself via narration with the line “I plan heists.” (The narration is the only laughably fun part of the movie with insanely on-the-nose bon mots like “Being interrogated by a cartel leader is not how I expected my day to start out.”) Nick is to illegal activity as a wedding planner is to nuptials—he designs the event and then gets a cut when it succeeds. His latest plan goes awry when the perpetrators are gunned down after pulling it off. It turns out that Nick’s latest customer was the son of a notorious cartel leader (Jordi Molla). If you’re thinking that a movie about a drug dealer getting vengeance for his son’s murder would be enough, you’re ahead of “Term Life.” It ALSO turns out that the robbery aggravated a dirty cop named Keenan (Bill Paxton) and his crew (including Mike Epps and Shea Wigham) are the ones who actually killed the drug lord’s kid to get back what he stole.

Still not enough movie for you? OK, let’s graft on a father-daughter plot. When Nick realizes that a notorious criminal mastermind and a team of dirty cops are after him, he does what any estranged father would do—he buys life insurance (hence the film’s name). But, as he’s told by the insurance agent (a fascinatingly underused Taraji P. Henson, who sells the policy and disappears), he has to survive three weeks for the blood work to go through, or else his daughter Cate (Hailee Steinfeld) won’t get anything when he’s iced. So, Nick and Cate go on the run, provoking the suspicions of a small town cop played by another actor too good for the size of his role (Terrence Howard). I didn’t even mention the fact that Cate’s mother is a recovering alcoholic. It’s all so much movie and yet so little at the same time.

The every-cliché-and-the-kitchen-sink approach of “Term Life” leads to a crushingly bland affair. It’s kind of like how every color blends to gray eventually. Nothing in “Term Life” is developed enough in its 93-minute run time to give it any weight. Paxton’s villainous cop deserved a better movie (there’s a scene in the middle between him and Wigham that is a perfect example of a point where the film could have become something else but went back to the middle of the road), as does the great Jonathan Banks’ buddy and even Jon Favreau’s criminal lackey. Most of all, the talented Steinfeld gives “Term Life” way more than the film deserves, playing the anger of a young woman ignored by her father her entire life. Sadly, Billingsley doesn’t know what to do with her performance, too often pushing it back to cliché. What do teen girls do? Go swimsuit shopping! (For the record, this is where I would have checked out were it not my professional obligation to continue.)