By Becca Johnson - October 29, 2024
Continuing 2024’s spooky season release schedule is Bagman, from Scottish director Colm McCarthy, most notably recognised for his work on British television including Peaky Blinders. Starring Sam Claflin (The Hunger Games franchise) and Antonia Thomas (Misfits) as parents Patrick and Karina, the movie tells the tale of the legendary Bagman, who snatches innocent children and stuffs them into his vile, rotting bag never to be seen again. Patrick, who narrowly escaped an encounter as a boy, now fears for his son Jake’s life as his childhood tormenter returns. Despite boasting a talented cast and an interesting if generic central premise, Bagman fails to entertain due to its lack of scares, poorly written characters and meandering story.
Though the story is a little by the numbers for a horror flick - a family must keep their son safe from the evil that looms over them - it certainly does have something to say, which may just about manage to keep you invested. The inner conflict of Claflin’s character Patrick is the scripts most interesting element, as the audience are left unsure as to whether this evil really exists, or is just a manifested trauma from a story Patrick’s dad would tell him as a child.
With a focus on parenting and how best to keep our children safe, there are some good ideas at play - they just lack the proper development. The overall approach is very bland, with a slow pace that forces the 90 minute run-time to meander. The interesting themes are merely introduced and seldom explored, leaving plenty a stone unturned when it comes to its development of the effects of trauma. By only delivering a surface level bland story, with an obvious lack of imagination and a generic feel running through it, Bagman falls short of packing a punch.
There is also a severe lack of horror on display. A decent amount of scares could’ve improved this tenfold, by at least adding in some entertainment value, but it’s almost entirely devoid of them. It does have a semi-interesting creature design in terms of its titular villain, but with minimal screen-time, it doesn’t add quite enough to make it enjoyable. There is an eerie atmosphere present, and it’s easy for the narrative to help you fear for the life of young Jake, but this atmosphere doesn’t often turn into anything bigger than that.
The frequent poor decisions made by the lead characters certainly affects the stakes, as there’s many tense moments that could’ve been entirely avoidable. The overarching plot of fearing for their child being kidnapped is rendered meaningless when he’s consistently left alone, which takes away much of the fear factor. With no gore, no jump scares and complete under-utilisation of the titular villain, there’s not much here for horror fans to chew on. It’s all bogged down by story thats too heavy in exposition.
Admittedly, there is a decent cast on board here, particularly Sam Claflin who has proved time and time again that he has the chops to lead a movie. Whilst Claflin delivers the trauma-ridden, emotional side of character Patrick fairly well, it is the writing that lets him down. As well as the aforementioned increasingly poor decisions made, the script doesn’t allow him to show his range, as he spends much of the run-time with little to do. The same can be said for Antonia Thomas, who delivers her shoddy material as well as she can. For a couple they lack chemistry, and we don’t get much development on their characters outside of what they’re going through. They’re one note and forgettable, wasting the talent of Claflin and Thomas. The same can be said for the remainder of the supporting cast, which includes Frankie Corio (Aftersun), William Hope (Aliens) and Steven Cree (Maleficent). Whilst they’re all good enough, they aren’t given much to do and no-one is able to stand out.
The initial premise of Bagman may sound like familiar territory, but it also presents an interesting idea surrounding how the tales we’re told as children can stay with us, and how we can project what our parents expose us to onto our own children when the time comes. Unfortunately, this idea is squandered by severe underdevelopment, poor dialogue, little to no horror and lacklustre execution. There is genuinely good filmmaking on display, and director McCarthy as well as lead actor Claflin have proved their talent in the past, but something doesn’t quite work here. Be it the blandness of the writing, the slow pace or its misstep into the horror genre, Bagman is one of this spooky seasons biggest disappointments.
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