Written and directed by Academy Award-winner Brian Helgeland, Finestkind is the latest in a long line of crime dramas by the veteran filmmaker. This is the guy who penned L.A. Confidential, Mystic River, Man on Fire, and wrote/directed Payback. Thus, when Helgeland puts out a crime movie, any cinephile worth their salt pays attention. For that reason, I certainly had expectations before I ever hit play on Finestkind; expectations that weren’t met. Perhaps that was unfair of me, and perhaps I’d feel differently about it had I not been so familiar with its creator’s prior triumphs. Or, perhaps, my mild disappointment is justified. Either way, Finestkind isn’t Helgeland’s finest work, despite having its heart in the right place.

Released on Paramount+, Taylor Sheridan’s personal streaming service, this movie looks and feels like one of his TV series. So, it should come as no surprise that he produced it. Similar to many of Sheridan’s works, Helgeland’s Finestkind is about a group of rugged men, in this case New England fishermen, who cross paths with greedy corporate types and dangerous criminals. The similarities don’t end there. Another Sheridan staple is family drama, like having brothers who love each other despite their differences, and fathers who quarrel with their sons despite their similarities. Helgeland checked that box as well. Oh, and let’s not forget underwritten female characters who seem tacked on mainly to add some femininity to the proceedings. Yeah, there’s plenty of that in Finestkind. To be fair, not all of this is necessarily bad. After all, Sheridan’s productions are revered by millions of loyal fans for a reason. But those are long-format shows, not a feature-length movie. That’s why, when its credits rolled, my first thought about Finestkind was that it felt more like an extended pilot than something tailor-made to last only two hours. It simply didn’t have the time it needed to adequately tell its story.

I’ll start with its first half, which is chock-full of family drama. We’re introduced to Tom (Ben Foster) and his much younger half-brother Charlie (Toby Wallace). Charlie, a prospective law student, wants to learn Tom’s trade (fishing) and although reluctant, Tom allows him aboard. In a very short span of time, both actors expertly convey who their characters are, both individually and as siblings.* I would’ve preferred to get to know them better, but apparently, time must also be allocated to the other crewmembers, each of whom are shallowly drawn and only adequately portrayed. However, they are better than Charlie’s romantic interest, Mabel (Jenna Ortega), whose soon-to-be-important connections to the drug trade barely justify her existence. Ortega comes off as awkward at times, which is a result of her somewhat stiff acting combined with Helgeland’s stilted dialogue for his female characters. Despite these inconsistencies, the family-drama side of Finestkind mostly works due to Tommy Lee Jones and his masterful, soulful performance as Ray, Tom’s semi-estranged father. Nearing the end of his life, Ray’s attempts to make amends with Tom are emotional haymakers that prevent this film from being forgettable. And as an added bonus, Ray’s reconciliatory gestures set the groundwork for the second half’s action.

After Ray gets Tom to captain his boat, Tom takes his brother and crew on a scallop-dredging run that ends in calamity. Suddenly finding themselves $100,000 in the hole, the crew decides to gather the money quickly by smuggling heroin for some local gangsters. I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that this sounds like an intriguing plot development; I thought the same, at first. Unfortunately, Helgeland waits too long to kick this criminal aspect into full gear, leaving himself too little time to fully flesh out any single facet of it.** To put it another way, have you ever watched a superhero movie that spent most of its runtime on backstory and character introductions, only to toss in a villain and some violence in its latter stages so that something actually happens? Yeah, that’s Finestkind, pretty much. In the end, its halves are too disjointed, and there are more characters and subplots than its runtime can handle. Again, this feels more like a pilot, or pitch, for a multi-season TV show than it does like a film.

If it weren’t for the stellar performances of Foster, Wallace, and especially Jones, I’m not sure I’d even rank this movie as passable. Well, there are a few other things I enjoyed. The fishing sequences are informative and entertaining, even if they eat up valuable storytelling time. Cinematographer Crille Forsberg’s photography is nice to look at. And Helgeland’s screenplay, though heavily flawed, features a few standout, insightful, heart-wrenching moments.*** As I said in my intro, its heart is in the right place. Be that as it may, Finestkind never coheres into anything truly special, despite its positive qualities. It’s a story of two halves. The first meanders from character to character, subplot to subplot, as if it has all the time in the world – as if it’s a TV show. Then, suddenly, the second half comes crashing in like a rogue wave, saturating what came before it in a deluge of expedited mediocrity. Ultimately, it feels too much like a premise of a series crafted to be a hit on the streaming service that Sheridan built. Or, at least, that’s my view of Finestkind, with aforementioned expectations admittedly playing a role in my criticisms. Maybe if Helgeland had titled it Okayestkind, I would’ve liked it more.

If I had to score it, I’d give Finestkind a 6/10.

Notes:

* In Finestkind, Foster plays a reckless but loyal older brother who’s willing to cross criminal lines to save his family’s legacy. If that sounds familiar, it’s because he played a much better version of the same character in 2016’s Hell or High Water, which was written by, go figure, Taylor Sheridan.

** The crime portion of Finestkind also struggles from a lack of genuine shocks and thrills. Sure, there’s one scene involving a crewman’s family and some armed thugs that’s quite tense, but even that scene doesn’t maximize its potential. All in all, this movie plays it too safe in its second half, which I didn’t expect from the guy who wrote L.A. Confidential and Payback.

*** I do wish his screenplay had been more restrained and buttoned-up. There are too many scenes that trudge along longer than they should, and there’s too much dialogue that bluntly states something that’s already been conveyed via the actors’ performances. The time wasted on these overlong bits could’ve been put to good use to improve other bits that were lacking.