Sometimes, while watching a show or a movie, you reach a point where it becomes clear whether what you are watching is worth your time. Something inside you either gets excited or frustrated. Needless to say, the latter is not a good sign. In Ransom Canyon, you arrive at this point towards the end of the first episode itself when Quinn O'Grady (Minka Kelly) opens her heart, gives voice to her true feelings - in front of Staten Kirkland (Josh Duhamel), the man she has loved all her life. Quinn wants to be with Staten; Staten wants to be with Quinn. This romance is too obvious, too...visible. All Staten had to do was confess his feelings to Quinn in that scene. Sadly for us and the characters, Staten chooses to be one of those annoying characters who just refuse to say the right thing at the right time. I mentally checked out of Ransom Canyon after this scene. I have no patience for, and no interest in, caring for such stupid characters who can't simply sit down and solve their issues through face-to-face conversations. But it's not just Quinn and Staten; other characters, too, make foolish choices for "dramatic purposes." Ransom Canyon works on the principle of what Roger Ebert would call the Idiot Plot, which means that a story is kept in motion solely by virtue of the fact that everybody involved is an idiot. It's too apparent from Episode 1 that all the dummies on the screen only need to have a calm, meaningful talk with each other to solve their problems. If Staten had discussed leaving the land for Reid (Andrew Liner) with Davis Collins (Eoin Macken) earlier in the series, he would have dodged so much nonsensical drama and confrontation. If Lauren (Lizzy Greene) had informed Lucas (Garrett Wareing) about her deal with her dad just after the whole "haunted house incident," the quantity of dopey teen drama would have become a little less, and we would have gotten fewer shots of Lucas's pouty expressions.
You can pick more such examples from Ransom Canyon. It's almost impossible to ignore this flaw (or call it a contrivance) because it blatantly stares you in the face. (Mis)Communication can have great dramatic potential if the filmmaker can generate exultant notes from dialogues like a gifted musician. Mike Flanagan, with lengthy monologues, guides you into the realm of spiritual bliss and grace. The incisive verbal conflicts in Fran Kranz's Mass take you on an emotional roller-coaster ride. Even Adolescence reveals its characters through vigorously filmed interrogations. To listen to the characters in Ransom Canyon is akin to putting a needle into your ears. They talk too much but convey nothing substantial. What they say or don't say merely stretches the feeble drama on display. The show's made-for-teens ambitions are bluntly revealed through the choice of music deployed during certain sequences. The scene where two sisters indulge in a horse race or where Yancy Grey (Jack Schumacher) takes a bath or prepares himself for a rodeo competition are shot like chintzy music videos that are greeted with derision. The rodeo competition is also displayed with a visual curiosity regarding the physical stress of playing such a demanding game.
Ransom Canyon mostly depends on the devastating effects of a car accident and the Quinn-Staten-Davis triangle for emotional strength. The former occurs so swiftly, so suddenly, you don't feel its impact, and the latter is weak, uninteresting, meh. The couples in Ransom Canyon break up and patch up so frequently that their relationship graph becomes dull and monotonous. You don't care if Ellie (Marianly Tejada) ends up with Yancy or if Lauren likes Lucas or Reid. There is a solid emotional power in the burden that Reid carries, and a good show would have created something potent out of it. Ransom Canyon, however, is severely undermined by its bad filmmaking. In one of the scenes, we see Yancy talking to Cap Fuller (James Brolin) at his house; in the next scene, we find him at a local bar talking to Ellie. We don't think that Yancy must have traveled from one location to the next location. Rather, it seems as if the character was air-dropped from one scene to the next scene. It's too jarring. Moreover, Ransom Canyon isn't able to strike a balance between the various threads unfolding on the screen. When it concentrates on, say, the Philharmonic thing, we forget about the whole drama related to the fight with a big company. When the show deals with the land control thing, we forget that - say - Lauren wants to escape from her surroundings. What's front-and-center mostly is the characters' love life, and it's the dullest aspect of this series. Ransom Canyon is a waste of our time.
Final Score- [3/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times