- Network: Prime Video
- Series Premiere Date: Apr 3, 2025
Critic Reviews
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There is nothing very new to see in The Bondsman. How much you enjoy it will depend on how much you enjoy Kevin Bacon (laconic, hard-bitten Kevin Bacon, not Tremors Kevin Bacon and not Footloose Kevin Bacon), how much you enjoy tales of demonic possession in a small town in southern America and how much you enjoy the sound of partly severed heads, blown-out tracheas and bloodied fingers.
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To the uneven extent that Amazon’s The Bondsman works, it’s thanks primarily to Kevin Bacon’s effortlessly winning lead turn as Hub Halloran.
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There is a smattering of Appalachian lore, a barely-bothered with throughline about condemned souls and redemption, some quite good jokes and an awful lot of Bacon killing things. Something for everyone, then – if quite a lot for no one too.
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When the show finally starts to stretch out of its comfort zone and begins setting up a horror comedy, it finds its own distinct identity. It's just unfortunate The Bondsman doesn't get to that point sooner.
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“The Bondsman” starts strong, but before long, Hub’s vintage truck has run out of gas.
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“The Bondsman” struggles to figure out what it even is. The obvious comparison would be something like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” but the show takes a long and winding road to nowhere instead. It’s a problem inherent to the ultra-short streaming seasons. The show’s genre and its episode order are at odds.
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“The Bondsman” lacks the kind of show-stopping character turns those shows gave folks (John Glover for the former, Tyler Labine and Ray Wise for the latter), opting instead for a sleepy, sloppy “Supernatural”-esque presentation that feels 20 years out of step.