Although the story had potential, the movie turned out to be sluggishly paced and directed with little flair or imagination. Star Kevin Costner, who almost always underplays, and at times is weighed down by a kind of wooden stoicism, makes the central character strangely dull. This is Jericho Stewart Costner. Needless to say, Jericho becomes internally conflicted as the personality of dead CIA agent Bill Pope Ryan Reynolds begins to impinge on him, gradually instilling human feelings and a conscience.
The vicious killer at first resists the strange feelings of love and caring for the wife and daughter Pope left behind to mourn him, but eventually he turns into a good guy equipped with all the vicious animal skills of the killer.
As Jericho struggles to deal with his confusion, Wells yells at him a lot while his men keep hitting Jericho in the head with the butts of their guns. This all amounts to a tonally confused mix of violence and sentimentality that comes to a close with an apparent promise of a sequel. This was one of those nostalgia trips, revisiting something I enjoyed back in the day because of its sci-fi trappings. Even acknowledging that the tapes were an expensive material cost at the time, in retrospect the practice looks like nothing less than cultural vandalism.
As a result, the episodes available in this new set 24 of the original 38 have been sourced wherever they could be found, most of them from technically weak dupes complete with dropouts and video glitches. Led by Dr. Ballard in his novel High-Rise , which has just been adapted to film by Ben Wheatley. Much of the show takes place in a few standing sets and consists of small groups of people engaged in lengthy conversations or more often arguments about moral and ethical issues.
Quick shooting schedules mean that most episodes contain a few flubbed lines which the actors gamely push through to keep the scene going. To its credit, almost every episode ends without resolution, leaving viewers to ponder active threats facing society.
