Ray Donovan: Endgame. Ray Donovan was one of my favorite TV shows that I followed for 7 long years. I still remember watching the whole first season in a couple of evenings. In the future, like almost any show that lasted for years, the series had ridiculous plot twists sucked out of the finger of history, new optional characters or not quite justified disappearances of old ones. However, the series still held the bar high and each season allowed its fans to plunge into the strange and slightly crazy world of the Donovan family. Even as the scene moved from sunny California to gloomy New York, Ray Donovan did not move into a yellow taxi, like any normal Manhattan resident, but managed to still dissect in his own powerful car with a baseball bat in the trunk. Ray’s long plans for somewhere going by car and talking on the phone or vice versa tense and concentrating on the road remained a kind of business card show.
However, in 2020, the series was closed. Not finished, but closed. And this, I must say, was, of course, just a spit in the direction of all viewers and fans of the series. Such stories do not happen in the first, and in general a rare show boasts a good ending, but this does not make it easier for us. The story is left in the middle of a word, say, decide for yourself what happened next. But such an end could not even be called an open end. The show just ended. Two years later, Ray Donovan came out. The film, which finally drew a line under all the cries of all the main characters. The story is finally over. This does not mean that nothing else will happen in the Donovan family, just that the creators of the series have completed all open conflicts and have not created new ones. Curiously, in the seventh season there were only 10 episodes, while in all the others 12. Thus, this film can be called a belated two series, glued into one large one. This is evidenced even by screen credits made as a typical series, not a movie.
What can we say about the film itself? Nothing at all. There are no noticeable artistic features of this picture in sight. In many ways, of course, this is the merit of the series itself, which was perfectly staged and well played. “Ray Donovan” was created in the golden age of series with famous actors in the frame, with the necessary study of the characters and with sweeping, almost cinematic shootings. So Ray Donovan. The film is made in exactly the same quality style. There is also no point in describing the plot of "The Film", except that you can note Ray's flashbacks in his Boston youth, where there will be a young Mickey Donovan, well and fairly accurately played by Bill Heck. Otherwise, everything is as always: a couple of fights, a viscous narrative, again, car trips, family conversations. Perhaps the ending could have been different much earlier, but overall it is exactly what it should be for each member of this charismatic and attractive Donovan family.
