'Ray Donovan: The Movie' gives the show another crack at tying up loose ends

Two years after its abrupt cancellation without an actual ending, "Ray Donovan" had a chance to clear up another mess with "Ray Donovan: The Movie", designed to close a longtime audience crunch. went. There's some of that, but unlike the show's infamous fixer, it's not as neat a job as it could have been in terms of tying up loose ends.

Executive producer David Hollander directed this extra-long finale episode and co-wrote it with star Liev Schreiber, who promised fans some sort of payment in February 2020. Now that it's here, credit Showtime with customer-service for providing both its talent and audience with a more satisfying conclusion that reaches past the present than deludes into the present.

For those who (understandably) forgot, the seventh season ended with a shootout that left Mickey (Jon Voight), the family's moral patriarch, on Lam, and husband of Ray's daughter Bridget (Keris Dorsey). Smithy (Graham Rodgers) left. dead.

The film begins there, with Ray determined to settle the old score, while reminiscing through flashbacks about his complicated youth with Mickey, and not coincidentally how Ray stumbles into his current line of work. .

At its core "Ray Donovan" always deals with pain and loss, and here, whether they ultimately translate into revenge or forgiveness. Those themes turn Rey into one of the most tortured characters in this modern era of antiheroes, trying to watch over his brothers (played by Eddie Marsan, Dash Mihok, and Pooch Hall), who each carry their own heavy baggage. carry away.

In fact, the show was so consistently bleak in one moment that it really stands out in the film, with the brothers laughing and dancing drunk discussing their strange upbringing, a rare respite from the darkness. Similarly, younger Ray is advised that no matter how jerky his father is, Mickey is at least in love with life, which is not true of his older son.

Television shows get shut down for all kinds of reasons, and historically it's not uncommon for programmers to leave audiences dangling. After investing seven years in Ray's Odyssey, it wasn't unreasonable to ask for a real ending.

If nothing else, "Ray Donovan: The Movie" makes room for producers to go out on their own terms, the way Showtime did with "Dexter," more effectively, in a limited-series format. .

Ray often used a baseball bat to solve problems. Although it's good to see the show's creative team afford one final swing, it's too bad they don't hit it out of the park.

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