Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (September 3, 2024)
Will serial killer movies ever go out of style? Probably not, and for a new example, we head to 2024’s Boneyard.
Police Chief Carter (Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson) works in New Mexico. When a woman (Spice Williams-Crosby) discovers the remains of 11 females in the desert, Chief Carter becomes part of a major investigation.
Along the way, this brings FBI Agent Petrovick (Mel Gibson) as well as Police Detectives Ortega (Brian Van Holt) and Young (Nora Zehetner) into the fold. They all seek to discover the madman behind these murders and prevent further bloodshed.
The publicity materials for Boneyard states the film comes “inspired by true events”, and that proves accurate. In 2009, a case called the “West Mesa Murders” followed this movie’s basic narrative of 11 dead females discovered in the New Mexico desert.
I suspect the connection between fact and fiction essentially ends there. I would find myself surprised to learn that the screenwriters didn’t invent pretty much everything else.
Which I wouldn’t mind if they came up with something good. Instead, the film ends up as a mess.
Boneyard credits four separate screenwriters. I can’t help but wonder if it actually took four separate screenplays and awkwardly combined them into this sour stew.
Though perhaps the movie’s clumsiness relates more to the availability of its actors than to the screenplay. Boneyard reeks of “paycheck” for Gibson, and I strongly suspect he spent maybe two days tops on the shoot.
Gibson’s scenes often feel disconnected from the rest. This becomes especially clear since his often come accompanied by clunky voiceover even though we never get narration from any of the other roles.
A well-crafted version of Boneyard would deliver a tight, coherent throughline as the various authorities hunt for the killer. Instead, the flick feels like a mix of semi-related vignettes stuck together almost at random.
Boneyard also loves its red herrings. It sets up an oddly broad mix of possible killers, apparently in an attempt to develop tension.
Instead, the final product just feels disjointed and random. The narrative wanders and roams so much that it never threatens to build a head of steam.
The actors don’t help. In particular, Jackson creates a pretty serious hole in his scenes.
Jackson clearly continues to get work as an actor solely due to his waning marquee value. The man can’t act and comes across as stiff and flat at all times.
Perhaps to compensate, Gibson overacts relentlessly. I prefer this approach to Jackson’s zombie-like performance, but the disconnect between their styles makes a clunky movie even less coherent.
Van Holt fares better and almost seems like he buys the nonsense the script forces him to shovel. Nonetheless, Van Holt still comes across as less than invested in the material.
Probably because Van Holt knows he finds himself stuck in a wholly terrible crime thriller. Boneyard comes with a potentially fascinating story but it does absolutely nothing to capitalize on its inherent strengths and becomes a poorly made 97 minutes of tedium.
