A guy wanted around town by various hit men hopes to stay alive long enough for his life insurance policy to kick in and pay out for his estranged daughter.

Plot Synopsis:
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quincytheodore from Indonesia
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At some point of action stars' life, they are bound to have adventure with their estranged daughters, just like Liam Neeson or Kevin Costner did. Those expecting a level of action production for action blockbuster might be disappointed, but the saving grace comes in unexpected engaging drama and an adequate crime thriller.

Nick (Vince Vaughn) is a planner for heist, he scouts the place, sets up escape routes, then sells the whole gig to another party. His recent buyer is caught up dead and now mobster and police are chasing Nick, who immediately grabs his daughter before making a run for it. This may seem like ordinary scheme, however it creates several chances, which unfortunately only a handful of them bear fruit.

The action is not great, one can see from the first brawl that the choreography is tedious. It's definitely not the caliber of high pace fisticuffs or intense shootout. In fact, any fighting seems a bit underwhelming and might even be detrimental to thriller aspect the movie is setting up for.

Surprisingly, the drama holds up nicely, especially the father-daughter bond between Vince Vaughn and Hailee Steinfeld. They have good chemistry and it shows a progression of their characters. Its mystery thriller works as well, while it's not complicated it is a decent crime story. Furthermore, there are some veteran actors here like Bill Paxton and Terrence Howard to name a few.

This star-studded movie is sadly lacking in action, although drama and cast do admirable job on giving it a lifeline.

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subxerogravity from United States
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You really don't think Vince Vaughn when you think of action movies, even though he's a big solid guy. What makes it work is the fact that the movie is really about a dad trying to bond with his astray daughter

Vaughn plays a crook who is framed by crooked cops for killing a real bad guy's son, and he has to protect his daughter from the really bad guy looking to do an eye for an eye type thing.

Vince Vaughn and Hailee Steinfeld are a great pair on the screen as two strangers who are learning to become father and daughter. Lots of chucks of the movie deal with that and it was quite good.

The movie is filled with lots of familiar faces in small roles, like Empire's, Terrance Howard and Taraji P. Henson, Bill Paxton and Mike Epps. Although it does not make the movie all that better.

Overall, despite the action crime drama elements, and his bad hair cut, it's a Vince Vaughn movie. If you like Vince you'll like the movie despite the fact that he's trying something different with the role.

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Peter Pluymers (peterp@cyberdude.com) from Kortessem, Belgium
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"You're a thief, right? That's what mom said. You steal stuff, right? Yeah. You must really suck at it."

"Term life" is such a kind of movie that makes me think deeply the next day, just because I can't remember the title anymore. Let alone I remember anything significant content wise. At first I didn't even feel like watching this comical crime film, due to the presence of Vince Vaughn. He isn't exactly my favorite actor. Lets say he already got on my nerves in "The internship" and "Wedding Crashers". But ultimately I must admit that his presence was quite bearable in this film. He really doesn't look like a criminal and I was afraid he would come up with something semi-comic (which wouldn't be funny anyway). But fortunately this wasn't the case. There are also some well-known actors present, even though their roles are meaningless after all.

Nick Barrow (Vince Vaughn) isn't what you'd call an active criminal, but rather a criminal standing at the sidelines. He constructs robberies and burglaries. In short, he observes the target, makes the planning (complete with electrical schematics, codes and timing) and sells it to the highest bidder. After a robbery ends badly with the participating criminals being eliminated and the loot totally gone, it's time for Nick to make his escape as quickly as possible. One of the dead criminals appears to be the son of Victor Fuentes (Jordi Molla), the big chief of a Mexican drug cartel. Add to this a gang of corrupt cops and you understand that Nick is actually in big trouble. The only one he's worried about the most, is his daughter. He hasn't talked to her for years now and only has a collection of photos in a shoe-box which he made secretly. A new life insurance is his solution. His only concern is to stay alive the next three weeks in the company of his rebellious daughter.

As mentioned before, a whole bunch of famous actors joined this "overgrown by genres" film. You'll see Jon "Chef" Favreau for about 3 minutes. Jonathan "Breaking Bad" Banks plays one of the most interesting parts. A kind of sidelined criminal who's so good-natured to help Nick and to provide some inside information. If there's one person who has the most funny dialogue lines, then it's him. The most successful rendition is played by Bill Paxton. A perfect portrait of a corrupt cop who's doing everything to prevent that he's being condemned by the "Internal affairs". Even if this is detrimental to his partners in crime

"Term Life" is simply a typical action movie with some forced comedy. And finally they've mixed it with a cheesy family drama. The type of family film about a father-daughter relationship that went wrong. In the beginning the teenage daughter is always p*ssed at the ever-absent father. So expect some embarrassing moments for Nick who tries to pick up the pieces as a responsible and caring father. The final outcome is as predictable as the fact that Easter Monday will be this year on a Monday. This insignificant movie suffocated itself with the hodgepodge of genres. I guess they weren't really fully aware of which direction they finally wanted to go. And it's really not a good sign when a ridiculous hairdo draws the most attention of movie lovers.

More reviews here : http://bit.ly/1KIdQMT

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Larry Silverstein from United States
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I just found this movie to be filled with hackneyed dialogue and shop worn and often ridiculous plot elements. There's nothing here that we haven't seen so many times before in other films.

Vince Vaughn, who often delivers his lines here like an automaton, stars as Nick Barrow, who's a professional heist planner. However, his latest caper, that he planned and sold to the son of a Mexican cartel boss, has gone terribly wrong and he finds himself on the run from not only the cartel boss but a group of crooked Atlanta detectives.

Hailee Steinfeld co-stars as Nick's 16-year-old estranged daughter Cate, who, due to certain circumstances finds herself caught up in it all, and will have to go on the lam with her father. The remainder of the movie will have them either running from or confronting all those after them, while they, of course, do a little father-daughter bonding.

Overall, the film for me was just a rehash of tired plot elements, and the whole thing was an uninspiring watch.

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Adam_West_as_Batdan from Edinbruhhh
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Have a bit of a hard time wrapping around my feelings about this movie, while it is nice to see Vince Vaughn in something different; I'm not 100% sure I buy it.

He's not bad but I'm not sure that this will be his new 'thing' exactly, even though I suppose he's a notch above the current state of Bruce Willis and Nic Cage for instance (who would feel a bit more typical choices to lead this kind of movie).

As far as the plot goes it's perfectly acceptable for a direct to DVD type of action-thriller but not much more than that, the plot involves a fairly typical scenario; criminal father trying to re-connect with an estranged daughter and getting her caught up in danger in the process.

Hailee Steinfeld plays the daughter in this case and she's played a role like that before, in the Kevin Costner driven flick '3 Days To Kill', I prefer this slightly though I think.

One thing that lead me to want to see this movie was the fact that Jon Favreau's name was attached to it (Vince and Jon have of course had a long history of working together so I thought it would be fun to see them together again) but he's only in it for like 7 minutes.

No the main focus is of course Vaughn and Steinfeld the other players come and go, for instance Taraji P Henson and Annabeth Gish only got one scene each in it.

So yeah all and all even though it's nothing that will make you go wow and the thing that stands out the most is Vince Vaughn (and his terrible hair-do) it's still acceptable entertainment if you don't ask for anything more than that.

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Pam Ho (vrajabhumi) from The Other Side
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Wow. Just wow. How do big name actors get involved in b-movie fare like this? Usually it is money. I don't know the reason for their getting involved in this movie's failure, if it was money then I have to wonder why they hired an inexperienced writer for the screenplay? Because that is the main fault of this movie. The screenplay is based on a graphic novel and I have to imagine the comic book is nowhere near as unbelievable as this hack screenplay. Because the story in the movie relies on supposed smart people doing things they wouldn't do but do them because apparently because the writer couldn't come up with anything better to get where he wanted to go.

Take for example the desire to create tension to heighten the emotion of the viewers. You can either make the characters act true to normal human behavior or you could have them all of sudden make insane decisions because you are too incompetent of a writer to get where you want to go by making a more complex story, so you have characters all of sudden do foolish things that make no sense for those characters. For example let's say the characters are supposed to be not insane and not dumber then a 3 year old, to then all of sudden have them act as if they are. in order to get them in certain situations - is the laziest type of hack writing. The total reliance on these gimmicky hack writing situations makes people lose interest - because you can't accept it as real people - you think "this is just a stupid movie written by hack." Add to that the unimaginative and lackluster "cinematography" and you end up with a movie that is dumb, unattractive,acted like it was written in a couple days by a drunk, and shot in a week at most. A waste of time for everyone involved, this is a very amateur production with big name stars - which maybe is the fault of Hollywood insiders doing friends a favor and hiring talent behind the camera to go along with talent in front. Or maybe they ran out of money after hiring all the big name stars and had nothing left for people who know how to write, direct, and shoot a movie that is higher quality then the worst episode of CSI. An up and coming A-lister like Hailee Steinfeld needs to find new representation if she is too busy to read scripts and relies on them to find her projects above this level of junk. This is something you expect to see from washed up actors or no-names, not A-listers. This is not bad enough to be seen as entertaining because of it's ridiculousness, it is simply bland and dumb.

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Gino Cox from United States
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"Term Life" fails to deliver on the promise of its premise. It has an interesting premise. A man facing imminent and unavoidable death takes out a life insurance police to provide for his estranged daughter and must contrive to survive extraordinary odds until the policy takes effect. Somehow, I equate the film to Jason Stratham's "Crank," but rather than having less than a day, Vaughn's character has three weeks, which lends a leisurely pace.

Hailee Steinfeld was great in "True Grit," but isn't given much to work with here. At twenty, she looks possibly twenty-four and seems far too mature to play sixteen – and for what? Her character could just as easily be in her mid twenties. There is relatively little chemistry here. I felt more chemistry in "Safe," another Stratham film, between him and the Chinese kid. Steinfeld's character isn't particularly interesting or even three-dimensional.

The plot seems familiar, with elements we've seen before. The characters are fairly two-dimensional. Cinematography is weak with a lot of jigglycam shots. I don't actually remember a single shot that looked as if a rigid camera mount was utilized. The action scenes are of the caliber of episodic television series. Some plot developments seem implausible. Several characters seem to know more than they could possibly know in real life.

Overall, it's a watchable low-budget film that devotes too much attention to a relationship that isn't particularly interesting. At 93 minutes, it could probably be cut to 70 or less without losing much. Performances are generally competent, particularly with Vaughn, but hampered by an unimaginative script.

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Bob Rutzel from United States
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Nick Barrow (Vince Vaughn) doesn't commit the heists, he just sets them up and charges a hefty sum for this service. Allejandro (William Levy) son of a Mexican drug lord Victor ( Jordi Molla) buys Nick's plan. The job is pulled off, but at the escape pad others come in and kill everyone including Allejandro. Now Nick is being hunted by drug lord Victor as he wants Nick to lead him to the man who came up with the job that killed his son. Nick knows Cate (Hailee Steinfeld) his daughter is now in danger and will be used to get to him.

I had a hard time believing this was Vince Vaughn as his hairdo made him not look like Vince Vaughn. Still it almost looked like him. I decided that I would wait for this Vince Vaughn as Nick to talk a million miles a second as the real Vince Vaughn always does that in those dumb comedies he's in. Never happened. He played a good dramatic role and I was happy about that. He almost reminded me of a Joe Don Baker portrayal.

Now daughter Cate, at age 16, wants nothing to do with Nick as he hasn't been around for the past 12-years. Nick is divorced with wife in rehab. Nick's job is to protect Cate at all costs. Note the title of this movie.

Nick and Cate go into hiding and It was extremely enjoyable watching the chemistry between them and we knew she would warm to him in time. (We can only hope)

There isn't too much action in here and we enjoy Cate, who now finally believes they are really in danger. Nick needs to clear his name and he keeps getting blamed for other killings as the Police are after him too.

There is no twist as we come to know who those original killers were who killed Allejandro, the drug lord's son. Nick knows who, but how to prove it?

Notables: Jon Favreau as Jimmy Lincoln who helped find the heist; Bill Paxton as Detective Keenan; Jonathan Banks as Harper, Nick's friend; and Terrance Howard as Sheriff Braydon.

Okay, okay there is a downside. When all was said and done there was no mention of Nick changing his ways and not do the planning for heists anymore. Did someone say "sequel?"

Very good story and acting all around and we like it when we see a father do everything to keep a child safe. Vince Vaughn is good in dramatic roles and he should do more drama and change that hairdo. (Agreed) (7/10)

Violence: Yes. Sex: No. Nudity: No. Language: No.

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tinoid from Netherlands
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°No Spoilers but be warned anyway°

Tho watchable this was utterly mediocre and unremarkable. The story barely keeps afloat, the acting is so so .. although Hailee Steinfeld certainly made an effort and Vince didn't do anything crazy .. and maybe that's just the problem. The movie is decent but a bit bland. The imagery isn't anything with the word awe in it and the dialogues certainly do not stand out in any way. In spite of that, there were genuine good intentions and pleasant people to watch. It may get you through a lost hour without tears or anything dramatic like that

It seems the IMDb person approving my review has edited the last part out! without even saying a word. I was addressing the fact I think it's ridiculous reviews should be at least 10 lines long, and that I feel IMDb should be glad we are writing reviews, for free. It 's fine if you disagree with me but don't make my text disappear like a thief in the night. Thank you

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Tony Heck (cosmo_tiger@hotmail.com) from United States
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"Everything I've done has been for you. The running, the hiding, all of it has been for you." Nick Barrow (Vaughn) is a heist planner. After one goes bad Nick is trying to figure out why. The more he investigates the more he realizes his life is in danger. When his daughter Cate (Steinfeld) shows up Nick not only has to find a way to clear his name and save his own life, but Cate's as well. I am a big Vince Vaughn fan, I think he is hilarious and is always fun to watch…in comedies. This isn't a bad movie at all and is very much worth seeing but I think it could have been a little better. The biggest problem with this is that it was just a little predictable for the movie to have any real impact. That said though, again, I did like this and was entertained by it the entire time. Overall, if you are looking for the next Vince Vaughn classic this is not it, but this is still a decent movie to watch and isn't a waste of time at all. I give this a B-.

mafia|thief|corrupt cop|father daughter relationship|strong female character|strong female lead|

AKAs Titles:


Certifications:
Germany:16 / Netherlands:16 / Philippines:R-13 / Portugal:M/14 / USA:R