DUBAI: Anyone who saw Ben Foster’s superb performance as a troubled man broken by life in Debra Granik’s 2018 drama “Leave No Trace” will initially, quite rightly, be excited by news of “Finestkind,” in which Foster plays a troubled man broken by life in a script from “LA Confidential” screenwriter Brian Helgeland (who also directs here).
That excitement won’t last long however. And the fault lies squarely with Helgeland.
Foster plays Tom, a fisherman in New Bedford, Massachusetts, whose life is divided clearly in two. Out on the deep seas for weeks at a time, he’s happy, purposeful, and well respected by his crew. On land, he’s a mess, struggling to deal with his boss, his father, relationships, finances, and pretty much everything else to do with ‘normal’ life. When Tom’s much younger half-brother Charlie (Toby Wallace) shows up on the dock asking for a summer job, Tom is initially reluctant, but eventually agrees to allow Charlie — raised by a different, much richer, father — to join his crew.
Through a series of unfortunate events — some their own fault, some not — the brothers soon find themselves in need of a large sum of money to recover the boat (Finestkind) belonging to Tom’s father (a hard ass known as Mr Eldridge, played by Tommy Lee Jones) which was confiscated after Tom sailed it into Canadian waters illegally. Their only option (as they see it) is to be (“one-time only”) couriers for a drug deal, with Charlie’s new girlfriend Mabel (Jenna Ortega) acting as their point of contact with the dealers. You see where this is going, right?
And that’s really the problem with ‘Finestkind.’ You can always see where it’s going. The fishiest thing about this fishing-based movie is the script. Foster and Wallace show convincing sibling chemistry, Ortega gives Mabel a hard-edged vulnerability, Jones is rock solid as a gruff, tough old man. But they just don’t have enough to work with: the plot is by-the-numbers, the characterization paper-thin.
Which is a shame, because Helgeland clearly loves this world of rugged men and tough women with hearts of gold — the film is a passion project based on his experiences growing up in New Bedford and working on the boats, and his love for the sea does shine through in some gorgeous panoramic shots. But this ship was doomed from the start.
