UPCOMING FILMS

I had to post it.

The First Omen Only in theaters April 5.

Friday, March 3, 2017

Review: FX's Taboo Entertaining But Dreary



Taboo is an eight-part FX miniseries. The story takes place 1814 and stars Tom Hardy as  the fictional James Delaney, the long thought dead heir of the real small isle of Nootka Sound. Upon returning to England after twelve years as a prisoner in Africa and with a stolen bag of priceless diamonds, Delaney soon finds himself the unwelcome subject to the greed of not only his half sister's husband for Nootka Sound, but a loathe and feared target of  the East India Company and the Prince Regent over land rights for the small island during the waning war between Britain and America. 



Taboo is a very sad and deeply dark series in which Delaney, a half Nuu-chah-nulth Indian, and half Englishman,  is obsessed by his personal demons.  One of whom is his dead Nuu-chah-nulth mother who died in a mental asylum and is said to have attempted to drown the newborn Delaney shortly after his birth, and his incestial relationship with his half sister. As for the madness of his mother, her madness was probably self induced protection against a society that rejected her aborigine background.



It is hard the find any characters in this series who possess any redeeming qualities that sets them apart from the other as being overly good or bad. Delaney himself quickly proves that he is an antihero who only wants to sell Nootka Sound for profit. This is a feat that nearly costs him his life and eventually causes him to sell the isle to the newly formed America in order to save himself and curtail the plans of the East India Company and the Prince Regent.




It seems that nearly everyone who has any dealings with Delaney meets with a reversal of fortune or just ends up dead, including his half sister who kills her husband after she realizes that he only married her for her impending possession of Nootka Sound. Unable to cope with the brutality from her husband, being rape by the minister, and Delaney's unexpected rejection of her own cruel nature, she drowns herself in the Thames, and in turn adds herself to Delaney's list of ghostly demons. However, she was not totally to blame for the path  in which her life ventured, because this was a woman of the early 19th century who was subjugated and objectified and never had any chance of experiencing what it was to be a "Me".


Nevertheless, after  much deceiving and a great deal of killing, Delaney frees himself of the East India Company and the Prince Regent and sets sail for America with his illegitimate son, his father's widow, the gun powder, and a motley group of thieves and murderers. 

From start to finish Taboo is one of the most dreariest series to date. Its fast pace storyline while intriguing is its only saving grace. There is no true moments of happiness or heartfelt laughter in the series and even after Delaney succeed in stopping the of the East India Company and the Prince Regent, there is a note of uncertainty about their future from Delaney and his crew.

In addition, this note of uncertainty is contradictory in that it  includes no real sense of closure, and the sense that Delaney's new ship could very well meet the same end as the Company's illegal slave ship.

Created by     
    Tom Hardy
    Edward "Chips" Hardy
    Steven Knight

Written by      
    Steven Knight
    Edward "Chips" Hardy
Directed by    
    Kristoffer Nyholm
    Anders Engström

Starring          
    Tom Hardy
    Leo Bill
    Jessie Buckley
    Oona Chaplin
    Mark Gatiss
    Stephen Graham
    Jefferson Hall
    David Hayman
    Ed Hogg
    Michael Kelly
    Jonathan Pryce
    Jason Watkins
    Nicholas Woodeson