As a soldier, when you're out in the field, you fight not for your country, but for the person standing beside you: your brother, your colleague, your fellow soldier. This is what Chief Special Warfare Operator Ben Edwards (Taylor Kitsch) believes in, and this is what he tells his men. Loyalty is indispensable to people like Ben. Cross them, and you will awaken a furious force within them. Then again, people like Ben are almost always furious. Blame the bureaucrats — the men at the top who never fought a battle and make every decision based on legal papers. Blame the enemy, which is either ISIS or any country that wants to acquire nuclear weapons for nefarious purposes. Ben almost always finds himself in the vicinity of such immoral individuals. Where does he seek comfort, then? In the arms of his brothers, someone like Lieutenant Raife Hastings (Tom Hopper) or Lieutenant Commander James Reece (Chris Pratt). When The Terminal List: Dark Wolf begins, we see Ben all friendly and comfortable with a soldier/translator named Daran (Fady Demian). What happens with Daran is information I cannot disclose here (there is a whole list of spoilers that must be avoided). However, what happens only proves that Ben values his friends and truly feels for them.
Dark Wolf, on the other hand, doesn't feel much for its characters. It admires their muscles and their muscular strength, but quickly brushes aside sentimental emotions like a man who thinks showing vulnerability is a sign of weakness. That's not to say Ben and his men don't feel sad. They give voice to their intimate thoughts and express regret over certain incidents, but the show keeps an arm's-length distance from their tender tête-à-têtes. The result is a sense that we're eavesdropping on conversations between strangers. When some major characters die, we feel a ripple of shock—but that doesn't necessarily mean we care about them. Dark Wolf merely succeeds in pushing the right button to deliver what ultimately feels like a superficial experience. It treats its emotions like a professional: everything is dignified, solemn, and functional. Nothing really catches our eye or leaves us breathless. The action set pieces have a certain flair, though. They're carefully planned and executed. Yet Dark Wolf seems to recycle clichés from Episodes 1 to 4, with scenes set in expected locations like a nightclub or a metro station. We also go through the same old routines—like Eliza (Rona-Lee Shimon) and Ben pretending to kiss to fool a guard, or someone pretending to shoot a target out of the goodness of his heart.
However, something changes from the fourth episode onward. We get our first shocking death at the end of the episode, and from that point, Dark Wolf starts to feel more involving, interesting, and even enjoyable. It's the little things that stand out—like when a man who burns the face of a miniature figure later dies with his own face burned. The show still moves with routine professionalism, keeping us at a distance from the characters. Yet, perhaps due to the added shocks, Dark Wolf manages to grab your attention. But the effect isn't permanent—your focus wavers. Dark Wolf is one of those shows that makes you want to check your phone. You are likely to admire its efforts and performances while casually browsing Twitter or Instagram. As far as its story is concerned, it deals with the threat of Iran getting its hands on a nuclear weapon. It's a contentious subject, given the current political scenario, and I will not make any more comments. I will just say that most Iranians come across as villains, and the characters of the two Israeli actresses (Rona-Lee Shimon and Shiraz Tzarfati [she is an Israeli-French actor]) work with the American heroes to crush the Iranians' dream of having a nuclear weapon. Dark Wolf certainly tries to paint a more complex picture, but it terribly fails to do so. One can, if they wish, divert their attention from such a hot-button topic by admiring Kitsch's countenance. That long hair, that sharp beard, that handsome face—hardened by experience but softened by kindness—puts you in a kind of trance. Beauty has its own advantages, and one of them is that it renders bearable what could have been a slog.
Final Score- [5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times